The ‘mental load’

[Cachall]

Does anyone else cringe when they read this term on here?

Yawn, not another one of these threads.

Why are there so many cool girls who are so annoyed or deliberately obtuse at the concept of mental load? It's not a difficult concept to grasp.

If one person in a relationship becomes the "project manager" of the relationship/family/children/home/all domestic stuff, the workload is lopsided and it creates resentment.

In a lot of modern households both parties are working (often full time). Quite often a woman will be working full time and doing the bulk of the childcare and housework. On top of this she is very often expected to do the planning and thinking (booking GP appointments/dental appointments, remembering homework and parents evenings, booking vet appointments, booking holidays, checking when various types of insurance need to be renewed, booking a cleaner, planning holidays, booking rail tickets, remembering to buy birthday cards, etc etc etc).

This is what mental load is. (And before anyone piles in, no it's not about paying bills). I don't understand why people are so determined to pretend they can't understand this.

It always makes me cringe too.

We’ll give us another phrase which describes it so succinctly.

I don't know any full time professional mums who do everything at home. They tend to have dhs who help out in meaningful ways. Unless from the beginning they had nannies.

"Lone parent" is probably why you don't get it.

I suspect the OP is a person who is responsible for putting a mental load on their partner and has never actually experienced it themselves.

It's not used to describe life being stressful, it's used to describe one person being the project manager in a relationship.

@ricottalina

I don't know any full time professional mums who do everything at home. They tend to have dhs who help out in meaningful ways. Unless from the beginning they had nannies.

I don’t do everything at home. But I know a lot of professional women (myself included), who feel that their husbands or partners, even though they may do some of the share of work, don’t actually engage with the full burden of being expected to be the default parent, the planner, the thinker.

I think its also a sweeping overstatement to say that full time professional mums all have DHs who play an equal role in managing the household. I don’t think thats the norm at all. There is a growing share of men who are genuinely progressive about this but there is still a large rump of men who either don’t get it or who use tactical incompetence to get out of domestic planning and mental load.

No I don’t. It’s a perfectly accurate phrase to describe the juggle of life, and to some degree, everyone has some kind of ‘mental load’. But as others have pointed out, what that is varies vastly from person to person, depending on many factors. It’s all relative, like so many things. I also think people react to what other people describe as mental load based on what sort of mental load they’re having. If you’ve got a lot going on (and I mean properly going on) listening to someone saying they haven’t had time to book a holiday and what a big mental load that is, that’s very annoying.

But I’d also say be very careful before you judge people. The other day, I was sitting alone in a cafe with a coffee, in the middle of the day, no kids with me, on my phone. I’m quite sure someone looking at me might think, ‘wow, she’s so lucky, not working, sitting with a coffee and no kids.’ What they wouldn’t have seen was that I was having the most stressful day and my mental load was at an all time high. Without giving too many details, things are not good at all, and I have never felt the mental load so heavily.

Also, as others have said, it does also depend on your partner and how much mental load they take on.

I would also say that some people do sometimes make too much of stuff that I would consider more day to day life than mental load. But again, everyone’s ability to cope with things and organise things varies. It’s complicated.

No, I think it’s a very useful term to describe the weight of managing and remembering everything.

Yes I do. It's just life and to be honest a lot of people like to over complicate their lives and then moan about it.

Will add that my view may be tainted by the fact that I was a single parent for years, although I'm not now.

Absolute nothing to do with me trying to be a 'cool girl' or being super organised, because I'm definitely not either.

What's it called then? For example at a kids birthday when one parent (usually the mum) researches party venues, finds out classmates parents numbers, sends out invites, chases them up, remembers all the kids dietary needs, books the venue, sorts out lifts for kids whos parents are busy, orders or makes a cake, organises party bags, buys and wraps presents, remembers candles and matches, sorts out decorations, and the other parent turns up, hands over presents and sings happy birthday?

None of those things on their own are time consuming or difficult (also perwonally i find the mental enegry nweded to remember everything is a lot on top of working full time in a very demanding job). I don't think it's wrong to want a word to describe the work that goes into things like that, which some people (the parent who turns up) just doesn't 'see'. And overall I think it's positive that people are starting to talk more about this previously invisible 'wife work' and want some recognition for it, the same way that paid work outside the home is seen as being a valuable but mentally draining contribution

No. Yabu is it just because it is women that discuss it that’s bothers you?

That would be called organising a party!

This nails it for me
Its not always about the doing
Often its about never being able to switch off and always having to think ahead to manage everything
Someone once described it as having 100s of tabs open at once.

You don't know any single parents?

Yes, and? It's something that needs to happen that one half of a parenting couple tends to do, with all the bits the pp listed, whole the other had no idea it involves all that and is oblivious to all of it, so doesn't understand why the organising parent gets pissed at them when they dismiss the effort involved or want to go out until 30 mins before.

No because I have a hard mental load . People who have a small mental load might mock it.

It’s not about understanding it, it’s the fact that it’s yet another everyday occurrence that’s been given a special name and dressed up to make it sound more important.

It’s like people who claim they have ‘mental health’, we all do and we all have a mental load, just some are better/worse than others.

Some blokes really are rubbish though 🤣

Some people use the mental load incorrectly to say “I can’t book a holiday”. Or probably more accurately they’re saying “I don’t want to book a holiday because I’ve also meal planned every meal for the last 20 years and organised every extra curricular and every child’s party and every set of birthday presents and when the children outgrew their clothes I bought more and when it was PE day I made sure they had their kit and organising buying the teachers and teaching assistants end of term presents and researched family activities for the weekend and packed toys when we’ve travelled and made sure the nappy bag always had enough nappies and change of clothes. I’m tired, feel unappreciated and I would like the other person in my “partnership” to plan one thing to contribute to our life.”

Let’s be honest, it’s often not just at home that women are carrying the mental load, it’s at work too. Who is decorating colleagues desks before they leave to get married or have a baby? Who is circulating cards and keeping track of milestone birthdays? Who is remembering things like MacMillan coffee morning? Who is making sure guests in the office have a drink and knows where the kitchen/toilets are? Who is making sure meeting rooms are prepped?

No. I think it is a very reasonable term.

I am semi running 2 households at the moment and it is a lot to juggle.

It isn't so much reactive tasks, as ones you have to be proactive about.

If the load is below your threshold it is easy. Once you get full/overloaded it becomes burdensome.

@WhereIsMyLight nails it - this is what it feels like. Also working full time. While an awful lot of DHs go to work, maybe do a hobby, but have no fucking clue how everything else gets done. It’s exhausting.

No, the mental load is a good term for something that can feel horrendously stressful. It's having 100 tasks, many involving complex steps like 'make friends with X's mum', to remember and execute on top of, in many cases, a full time job. It's a great catch all term for all the work, thought, planning and effort that goes into a family life.

Who cringes?

That's the question

Mental load = unpaid, and underappreciated domestic labour, usually performed by women