The ‘mental load’

[Cachall]

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

That's pretty much the impression I'm getting from this thread too. It's not so much the amount of additional work, but more that it's often unequally distributed.

But as pp have pointed out repeatedly, if one parent is a SAHP and one not, there isn’t an imbalance.

The term mental load only cones into play when you have two working parents both with similar jobs and hours, yet one is also doing all the organising and household management and the other isn’t.

The “mental load” is being the person doing all of the life admin. HTH

Some years ago, I was working full time while DH was in hospital and Mum was still living in her own place.

I drove from work to hospital, dropped off clean clothes for DH, explained yet again that I had to go pick up Mum, drove to Mum's.

Got her coat on and put her in the car. Managed to park. Led her inside.

Mum's name was called. Helped her to the accessible room.

Dentist: "Now, Mrs Mum, open wide..."

Pause. "Ah. You don't appear to be wearing your teeth."

We were there to check the fit of Mum's new false teeth. I later located them down the side of her armchair.

@Cachall You're being unreasonable not to suggest an alternative.

Self indulgent twaddle. And I’m a working lone parent of three.

The person who has the mental load has the burden of all the forward planning and decision making to do for the household. I think it's a bit like being a manager rather than just an employee. Big difference. Whereas if you work as a team then the mental load is shared and it doesn't feel such a burden. I think that's what people mean when they talk about the mental load.

It’s not hard to “understand”. I just don’t agree. I understand perfectly well what you’re saying, but I just don’t agree with it. Why do you think that means I don’t understand something?

When is the appointment? Before during or after school? Which parent will have to take the child? Will that parent have to shuffle their work around/arrange cover/make up working time?

So what you’re essentially saying is you think being a married/partnered parent is more complicated and creates more work than being a single parent, and not only do I not think that’s true, but I’m sure a hundred single parents would disagree with you on that.

Also, childless/childfree folks have to juggle work for their own appointments too, you know. Parents don’t have the monopoly on that. I mean, what about, for example, a single disabled person or someone with a chronic illness, who has to juggle multiple medical appointments with an employer who isn’t sympathetic to the time off, yet who desperately needs their job to keep up with the ridiculous cost of private rental? Do they not have as much mental load as you, just because you have children?
Hint: yes. Yes they do.

I maintain that most of the things you’re talking about are just Being A Grown Up. And Being A Grown Up can suck (they’re right, it is a con), but we all have to do this stuff in some way or another.

I think most people can do the mental load of their own lives, regardless of circumstances barring learning difficulties. It's when you are managing it for X other people who because of age or stage of life can't manage their own, or because they are primarily focused outside the home "the big job". They have to be factored in to things but don't a to-do much input. Which is fine if the other parent does not work, but thats increasingly not the case.

I'm a SP and in some ways it is easier because I know everything, no-one is suddenly going to say, I'm away that week or ive got a meeting so cant take Jimmy to swimming like usual. As others have said, it's the imbalance that's an issue.

That’s just being a parent though. Surely you realise that’s what you signed up for? (Not you you, you general).

No. Maybe look at one of the umpteen threads other people have started about this. You are allowed to dislike phrases, but there is nothing inherently OTT or dramatic about the phrase. The mental load just means the quantity of stuff on your mind (usually wrt admin and domestic responsibilities). 'Load' isn't dramatic. I just put a 'load' in the washing machine. Is that dramatic? How about workload? That's a pretty normal, non-cringe phrase.

The mental load often comes up on here because of the unequal shouldering of it in a marriage. This seems like an important and pretty valid thing to discuss on a site like MN tbh.

Why would that mean you shouldn't refer to it or talk about it though? I signed up for my job. That doesn't mean it's cringe or unreasonable to mention my workload. The consequences and ramifications of things you 'sign up for' in life are not always predictable. If we all had to just shut up about them for the rest of our lives, more than half of MN threads wouldn't exist!

How can a simple, factually descriptive two-word phrase be self-indulgent twaddle? People have lots of stuff to do and be responsible for, and it takes up headspace. That's all it means.

If you actually say this to someone in real life, I really hope it is never to a parent that is a carer.

Well, I really don't consider picking my kids up and taking them somewhere a mental burden. I drive to places every day, why would the destination being the dentist make it any more.difficupt.or arduous? I need to.go.to.the dentist every six months anyway, so I just take my kids with me. Write the follow up on the calendar and forget about it until it's due.

These things really don't need to be a multi point list that is oh so stressful to make it look like you're managing wartime society. You're just doing normal daily tasks FFS!

As a single, childfree woman, you have one life to organise. Do it, don’t do it, the consequences are limited to you.

With a partner and children, there are multiple, intersecting but not always coalescing, lives to organise. It’s much more complicated and the consequences affect multiple people.

‘Mental load’ is a shit term because what it really is is managing, forecasting and strategising - all skills feted in the workplace and rewarded with executive status and renumeration.

But, of course, in the workplace these things are more often done by men.

In the home, this level of multitasking isn’t recognised because it’s taken on by women.

Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Read in context, or can you not do that?

Juggling diaries and work and appointments and thinking about ferrying kids around to stuff is simply one of the things that people sign up for when they become parents. It can not come as a surprise that they have to do those things and if it does then that’s just bad planning on their part.

It is also not exclusive to parents. They don’t have the monopoly on “having to think about things” but the way some of them bang on about it you’d think they were the only people to ever have to plan busy lives.

Have you not seen the posts where people write things like “write a birthday card” as evidence of how much they have to do on a daily basis? They’re utterly ridiculous and most of them are just deliberately mentioning silly little tasks that everyone has to do to make their lists longer so it looks like they’re hard done by that they have so much to do. These things take seconds. We all have to think about and do stuff like that, it’s called being an adult.

No, they don't have as much mental load, because they are only having to do that for themselves. They have more mental load than somebody who is healthy with no dependants, but they don't have as much mental load as someone in the same circumstances who also has to manage dependants.

I don't see why you aren't getting this. A healthy adult with no children has a lower mental load than their equivalent. You almost seem to being seeing this as some sort of slight. I don't know why.

It's a damn sight easier for me being a grown up without children, even though I still have to do all those things for myself, the point is I am not doing them for someone else as well.. It's that simple.

At the moment, I am staring down the barrel of increased care for my elderly parents that will increase my mental load, but it still won't be as high as someone in that same situation who also has toddlers. I am not going to have the extra mental load of ensuring my children are fed, watered, at school/nursery on time, etc, whilst at the same time fitting in getting my mother to appointments, etc.

I've only got to worry about my mother and myself. That's easier than having to sort out my mother, plus two young children, etc. And if, then, on top of that, my husband was asking me when his next dental appointment was, I might just explode.

I can be a grown up for just myself with little trouble. The more people I have to be a grown up for in addition the more load I have..

In many industries there is a job called something like « project manager » , « programme manager », « technical programme manager », etc. I’ve had these jobs and made very good money doing this type of work.

Fundamentally it isn’t much different from the mental load of running a household. Creating a big picture understanding of what needs to be done to run the machine smoothly, identify the schedule, major tasks, interim milestones, workers responsible for each task, assigning work, checking in on progress, making sure appropriate resources are available to each worker when needed, having contingency plans and schedule reserve to handle the inevitable slip and error.

the big difference is that in industry it is recognized as real labor, and compensated and rewarded accordingly. In a household it is often unrecognized and just expected that women will make it happen.

Yes, and increased mental load when you have more responsibilities at work in management iis recognised.

I wonder how many people would say it was 'self-indulgent twaddle' to acknowledge the increased mental load of managing a team at work, and how much harder it is when one of that team isn't doing their own job. A job that still has to be done.

I wonder how many people, in their working lives, would take on the workload of someone else alongside their own job, whilst that someone else twiddled their thumbs for the same money, without complaint, because, 'that's just being an employee'?

You wouldn't, would you?

Mental load is a helpful term because it acknowledges the planning and strategising involved in completing Project Family.

If you only acknowledge the tasks involved, you miss out a whole section of the work being done.

Planning and strategising in the workplace is valued more highly than executing of the tasks - hence managers get paid more.

In the house, the opposite is true - the planning and strategising is not even considered integral to Project Family.

The term ‘mental load’ is valuable because it helps the person (almost always women) articulate the scale of their involvement.

You husband doing the cooking is wonderful - as long as they undertake meals from start to finish - planning the menu, buying the ingredients, making sure it’s ready on time, managing any allergies or dislikes.

Then he is the executive chef of the household. If he’s just cooking the meal, he’s a line cook.

Is being a line cook as stressful and complicated as running a restaurant? No.

I never understand why people get so het up by the term ‘mental load’ when it’s just a way to articulate a structural issue that disproportionately affects women.

Internalised misogyny? Lack of empathy for those who are struggling?

I essentially said nothing of the sort. Not one part of my post even alluded to the martial status of the parents. Just that one of them has to take the child to wherever they need to be, and then make any necessary arrangements to make that happen.
Not every post can cover every single circumstance of every single person ever. So the story of the disabled person and their rent still has nothing to do with what I said.
My post was simply a response to the claim that all you have to do is make a dentist appointment and go.
That was true when I was child free, I just booked a slot on my dentists late night so it didn’t affect work or anything or anyone else. Can’t be taking a young child to the dentist at 7.30 at night though so more thought and juggling is required. So, specifically in the realm of managing dentist appointments for children, there is more mental load whether you like it or not.

Agree, taking the load for a dependent person (in the most case, children but also applies to dependent relatives of any age) is usually the overwhelming part.
I would imagine most women didnt think about mental load til they had children.
I mean even if you think about it in a very literal sense, you're going on holiday and pack and carry your own bag. Most people would have no issue at all....then at the airport 2 other people ask you to take their luggage and keep account of what's in it....thats suddenly a bigger load.

...and this is what we signed up for being a mother parent...? Can't anyone truthfully say they knew exactly what being a parent would be like before actually being a parent? I expected a baby not to sleep all night, I couldn't have fully imagined what 6 years of being woken multiple times every night would actually feel like.

...and this is what we signed up for being a mother parent...? Can't anyone truthfully say they knew exactly what being a parent would be like before actually being a parent

I was once given the “what you signed up for” chat by my manger after she asked how I was and I said I was knackered.
Actually, I signed up for children, I didn’t sign up for one of them to be hospitalised with a newly diagnosed life long disability while I was in the worst part of a hyperemesis pregnancy with his sibling, one to be stillborn and nearly kill me in the process, and one to be born minus the inclination to sleep like other humans.
The toll all of this took on me and DH is enormous, and yes the mental load of managing the consequences of all those things is greater than if I had had 3 healthy pregnancies and 3 healthy (and appropriately sleepy!) children.
Unlike some other posters, I don’t think that all this happening to my family means that a healthy person with one healthy child doesn’t have more thinking and planning to do than when they were only responsible for themselves 😒