Parenting: The Mental Load
I don’t know about you but I’m knackered. Like, always knackered. There are some days I can explain it: wake ups in the night plus a potty training day that did NOT go well. Yet there’s others when it’s been plain sailing and I still have a head full of mush. But I know why, it’s the same for all us mums: it’s our mental load.
Often called ‘cognitive labour’ (or ‘worry work’), the mental load is not about just doing household jobs but managing them as well. You know how it is: the house needs tidying, the dentist appointments are due, there’s a birthday present you have to buy and you need to restock the change bag – while also making sure your toddler can use a spoon. It’s being the family ‘hub’ – the one in charge of the never-ending list of things to do, anticipating what needs to be done and making sure it happens. In short, our plates are always full.
Artist Emma explains this perfectly on her website: when a man expects his partner to ask him to do things, he’s making her the manager of household chores so it’s up to her to know what needs to happen and when. The problem with that is that planning and organising is already a full-time job so, when women are pushed into this coordinator role, and at the same time have to execute a large portion, it ends up being a good 75% of the work. But I think this is in a scenario when the partner is on board with ‘helping’. If the dad lives away, has his own ideas or simply doesn’t want to help out, how much could this number creep up? Into the 80s or 90s?
In 2019 Allison Daminger, from Harvard University, identified four stages of mental work related to household chores: anticipating needs, identifying options, deciding from the options and then monitoring the results. She found that mums did more in all four stages. Not only this, it’s been proven that husbands create an extra seven hours of housework a week. (The average married woman does seven more hours of housework per week than the average single woman.) Most frustratingly, researchers also found that having children increased the amount of housework done by women, but seemed to reduce the amount done by men.
I felt the ‘motherload’ in my first few weeks of motherhood, commenting to my mum friends that while I was fortunate enough to not suffer from postnatal anxiety or postnatal depression, there should be a third category: postnatal overwhelmed. I now know what was actually happening: my brain was getting used to being the main processor of information, and my brain – like many – had dodgy RAM, staggering through from one responsibility to the other in a matter of seconds. It was a daunting realisation. I had become a mum: I was responsible for everything.
But on top of sapping time and energy from us, this type of household work is typically taken for granted so women don’t even get acknowledged for doing it. It’s invisible – unless you drop the ball for a second. Of course men aren’t held to the same standards – an example: my partner leaves my daughters pyjamas on all day when he looks after her once a week when I’m at work. Everyone just laughs at it being a dad day thing. If it were me, they would think she’s being neglected.
I wish I could end this with some big happy news on how we fight back against this scenario – or some ten point plan on how to make it easier but I don’t. If anyone’s got any please put them in the comments. For now, be kind to yourself.
