To think some parents use “mental load” as a way of avoiding accountability?

[PlainGreyReader]

I know the mental load is real but sometimes it feels like people use it as a get out of jail card for not doing practical stuff. AIBU?

Do they? Can you give an example?

I’ve seen situations where someone will say they’re too drained by the ‘mental load’ to do basics like bills, admin, or house tasks but then expect their partner to just pick it up. That’s the kind of thing I mean.

This is all quite cryptic. By ‘someone’ do you mean your partner?

It’s amazing how some people really seem to think bills are an actual activity that demands much time at all. Most can be done by direct debit and require little effort at all.

“Some” people may possibly do this. Probably most don’t. Most are probably overloaded and struggling and asking for help, then in some cases being judged for it. It’s hard to tell which it is without any context.

No not my partner, I’m talking more generally about the way the phrase gets used in wider discussions.

I haven't seen that.

Mental load in my experience is a phrase used by women who don't feel their husband or partner is picking up the slack domestically in terms of the "thinking" element of running a household.

I think there are quite a lot of blokes today who have just about made peace with the fact that they need to do some domestic tasks, ie they are happy to do the hoovering once a week or wash up after a meal and pick the kids up a certain number of times a week.

But what they don't want to do is any of the thinking/planning involved in this. So it falls to the woman to anticipate that Johnny's cubs trip will need to be paid for ten days hence or that the family needs to book train tickets for the forthcoming trip to see Great Aunt Marge or that they need to book time to leave work an hour early for parents evening on March 4th. Or when the female partner says: "What do you want for dinner?" they say: "I don't mind," and go back to watching the football, then complain when presented with said dinner that they don't like asparagus.

It's a reluctance/failure to embrace the fact that running a household involves quite a lot of planning/thinking ahead and assuming that the woman will do it because "she's better at it".

There's quite a lot of thinking involved in running a family and not involving yourself in it basically just creates more work for the other person (almost invariably the woman).

I think its quite appropriate.

I would've thought those things would fall under the umbrella of "mental load".

I thought bills, admin and house tasks WERE mental load. WTF is it, if not any of those things?

There’s so many of these pointless no context threads lately

Research for crap articles I think

@LittleBearPad

It’s amazing how some people really seem to think bills are an actual activity that demands much time at all. Most can be done by direct debit and require little effort at all.

I don't think its bills though. Bills, as you say, just come out of your account. It's one-off stuff and planning.

That’s part of it yes, but I’m talking about when the idea of the mental load gets used as a reason to not do those things, rather than to highlight the imbalance or ask for support. Like the concept becoming a shield instead of a tool for fairness.

Agree 100%.

The burden of meal planning or daily decision making, shopping, prep, and clean up in particular is huge. I did it for three long decades, 365 days a year and 366 in leap years. It got old very, very fast.

I think these generic posts are rather pointless, as without a specific example to discuss it us all rather nebulous.
Thus YABU.

Got it, next time I’ll attach a bibliography and footnotes so it’s less “nebulous.”

I don’t think mental load is ‘just bills’. I’ll give an example from my household. DH wants us to go on a weekend away with our toddler and baby. He booked accommodation and has a rough idea of an activity and from his perspective the rest will just follow.

He hasn’t thought about; best time to drive to coincide with nap times, organising time off to leave work early for above, what we need to pack for DCs, food shopping in preparation for the trip so we have essentials like milk or snacks when we arrive, actually packing for DCs let alone himself, whether the booked accommodation is child friendly and if we need to bring the highchair/stairgate/toys, whether to fill up the car with fuel so we don’t need to stop en route and risk DCs waking up. I could go on, but this is the kind of thinking that still seems to fall to women, even as pp said, DH will happily pick up toddler from nursery on ‘his’ day or run a hoover round when asked.

Good idea.
But maybe also a real life example?
What example prompted you specifically to make the thread? Let's discuss that.

Tell that to my mental load

OP doesn’t understand what the term ‘mental load’ means.

Do you not think “mental load” is sometimes irrelevant?

My mental load is being a single mum of two with a demanding 40 hour week job (plus extra)
and running a household
I don’t get to use “mental load” as an opt out
I still have to be a parent
still have to go to work because I have bills to pay
still have to do all the chores etc alone on top of that
There isn’t an option to say I can’t or won’t do it.
Throw in a curve ball of one of the kids being ill or something unexpected happening and it can be relentless.

So I suppose yes I think some people overuse “mental load” as an excuse or opt out of doing things and I think it’s sometimes used as an excuse to be individualistic or selfish by protecting one’s own mental load by offloading it onto others.

I think not seeing bills as an activity suggests that people are living in quite a secure financial position. If money is tight then bills will take up a lot of time and energy.

The burden of cooking, shopping and making decisions is huge? Don’t be silly, that’s just life, it’s not huge. It isn’t anything… it’s just doing what needs to be done. How do you manage when you have actual problems to deal with?

A perfect description and based on comments from my friends… incredibly widespread.

Why the need to be rude?

Just because it needs to be done doesn’t make it any less tiresome or mundane.