Today I speak with Robyn Miller, who is a medical doctor has spent the past decade helping people from diverse backgrounds in many different places: from Australian cities and country towns to refugee tent hospitals in central Africa. In 2018, Robyn returned to Brisbane to complete her paediatric specialty training. Later that year, she and her husband also welcomed their first child and puppy into the family.

Upon returning to work after maternity leave, Robyn, like many women, experienced the struggles of the "mental load". The mental load or emotional labour refers to the endless, but often invisible, planning, organising, remembering of everything that is required to run a household! In most relationships, the majority of this mental load falls to the woman.

Robyn realised that to continue to succeed in her professional career, and be a happy wife and mother, she and her partner needed to learn to truly share all this invisible labour. When she couldn't find the any solutions or strategies from googling or from asking friends and colleagues, Robyn drew upon her own skills and experience to develop a unique formula to achieve mental load equality. Somewhat to even her surprise, Robyn's strategy worked and continued to work so much so that Robyn then decided to teach other women via a 6 week online course how to fairly and sustainably share the mental load.

During the chat, we discuss all things relating to the mental load as well as Robyn's own experiences in becoming a mother 18 months ago. Robyn gives a great explanation of what the mental load is and talks about the emotional labour vs mental load. A big part of Robyn's work is equalising the mental load at home. We go on to talk about how the sharing the mental load at home can extend into changing stereotypes in society. Robyn shares strategies you can use today with your partner.

I love the quote Robyn says during the conversation "working motherhood shouldn't be any harder than working fatherhood".

Hope you enjoy this episode and be sure to share it with your fellow working mumma's managing the juggle of career and parenthood.

Here is the link to the Emma cartoon we speak about in the podcast: https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/

Links relating to this episode

Dr. Robyn Miller - The Mental Load project

•Website

•Facebook

•Instagram

•Pinterest

Working Mumma

•Facebook - Working Mumma Community

•Facebook page

•Instagram

•LinkedIn

Free guide: 10 steps to return to work