The Mental Load

In this hot take, Katlynn discusses why sometimes as mothers, we might feel judged by our partners for the way we parent in certain situations/at certain times. But the reality is, that sometimes this is a result of the massive weight of the mental load and our parenting choice at that moment is an effort to lighten that load.

In this full-length episode, we discuss various ways that getting kids to pitch in and do chores around the house, when managed differently between partners, can create more mental load for mothers. That's right, we’re talking about kids, chores and cooperative cleaning. AKA: getting your children to work together to clean or tidy up.

There’s a lot of reasons chores are good for kids:

• Learning time management skills
• Developing organizational skills
• Accepting responsibility in the family
• Providing an opportunity for success (especially for a child struggling in other ways)
• Learning to balance work and play from a young age
• Setting a good foundation for functioning independently

Doing chores helps children learn about what they need to do to care for themselves, a home and a family.

Ways getting kids to chores becomes part of the mental load:

• Emotional labor of avoiding meltdowns
• Managing kids’ desire for things to be “fair”
• Tension between older and younger children
• Tension between kids and parents
• Teaching independence
• Teaching initiative

Ways to help change this:

• Connect and then ask
• Say: “This is fun game! I love how everyone’s involved and I know you don’t want to stop… next up it’s dinner. And I need your help to get ready…. Who wants to put the knives and forks on the table and who wants to help me get the plates out?”
• Comment on what you see
• Kids don’t see messes the same way we see them and being able to take initiative is part of hte mental load, so helping them learn how to see by saying “i see puzzle pieces that need to get put back in their box and trash that needs to go into the trashcan” helps them learn. It also helps them to start to anticipate the needs around them.
• Help them
• Avoid the emotional labor of a meltdown by making them feel like you’re on their team
• Create visual clues
• Help them understand and work independently to create a standard of clean everyone’s happy with
• Divide chores equally among genders

In today's hot take, Katlynn discusses why passing the buck on chores might seem helpful and like husband's are teaching kids a lesson, but it really just keeps the mental load in place.

More and more, men are realizing and becoming aware of the need to lighten the mental load in their households. Especially when it comes to daily chores and tasks. A new trend we've noticed emerging however, is that, when men are asked to do a task or chore, instead of taking it on, they re-delegate or pass the buck, to their kids.

Here's how it plays out:

Husband: deep fries chicken for dinner (yum!)

Wife: can you clean up the grease off the stove before bed?

Husband to oldest child: go clean up the stove for your mom

Mom: has to supervise cleaning of grease

The problem with re-delegating chores to kids is twofold:

1. It sends the message to kids that they can get out of doing household labor by simply passing off the work to someone in the house with less authority than them.
2. It doesn't actually eliminate the mental load - it forces women to re-acquire the mental load by either having to supervise or teach a new skill instead of focusing on what they originally set out to do by asking for their husbands to take on the task.

Passing the buck doesn't help the mental load, it creates more or at the very least, keeps it in place.

In this week's hot take, Katlynn discusses how, when men and women are raised differently, it creates a large gap in how they view household responsibilities.

Men often say things like "I don't have to help with the dishes on a daily basis, because I handle the car maintenance". Which would be the equivalent of women saying "I don't have to help with the dishes on a daily basis because I plan birthday parties."

While things like house maintenance and car maintenance are large and necessary responsibilities, they do not excuse you from the day to day responsibilities of running a household and the mental load and invisible labor associated with a family.

As partners we have a responsibility to lighten the load for our partners when we know they've got an additional duty or responsibility to take care of. But it must go both ways. It should not be that women look for ways to lighten the load for their partners when they're doing more than normal while also taking on more than their fair share without recognition or the same reciprocation.

In this week's hot take, Katlynn discusses how to identify when you're overwhelmed by the mental load and how to immediately get relief.

Bodily cues can tell us we're at our limit:

• Tightening in your chest/feeling anxious
• Short temper
• Having brain fog

Other cues from our brain might be:

• Feeling like you're taking in too much information
• Not enjoying your normal activities
• Feeling disconnected or conversely overstimulated

When you need to get immediate relief try the sound of silence. Eliminate any extra noise you don't need in your day from activities where it's reasonable.

• Turn off the TV in the background
• Stop listening to podcasts on your walk (even ours)
• Turn the radio off in your car

Eliminating extra noise helps lighten the mental load by giving you space to just sit still and be quiet. Go outside and get some sunshine on your face and be quiet. It does wonders!

We've all been in the situation before where we ask our husbands to do something. It seems easy and obvious: "can you clean the kitchen after dinner, please?" We leave and come home to find the kitchen is still mostly a mess. Sure, the food was put away, but there's still dirty pans and utensils everywhere and the counters are sticky. It's not actually clean. And when you point this out your partner resorts to "You just have such high standards! Nothing I do is ever good enough for you!"

This week we’re talking about the difference in expectations around household chores and the mental load that creates.

In a 2007 pew research poll, 62% of adults said that shared chores were key to a successful marriage. Coming in third behind faithfulness and good sex. 

What we often find though is that there’s this dynamic of “your expectations are so much higher than mine for chores” and that’s the excuse for why things done get done start to finish. 

It’s easier to diminish a women’s experience by saying her standards are “too high” than to accept change needs to happen on the other side. 

Topics include:

• What are chores really a reflection of?
• What does messiness mean for each gender?
• How do we agree on basic standards?

Merch Vision Board

In this episode, we break down why women still carry a majority of the mental load when it comes to our kids and their medical records.

• Because of the way American structures its paid leave for women postpartum, they disproportionately take their children to health care appointments - both well checks and sick visits.
• Families report mothers are usually the parent who takes time off when children need to stay home sick.
• Gender roles play a part in why women tend to know more about their kids' medical histories.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that when dads participate in their children's health care, children have a more positive life outcome.

"There is scientific evidence that shows father involvement in a child’s healthcare, it has a positive influence on health outcomes for the child.

1. Wysocki and Gavin (2006) found that for children with chronic health conditions, such as asthma or type 1 diabetes, greater direct paternal involvement in disease management was associated with greater treatment adherence and overall quality of life.
2. Levy-Shiff et al. (1990) reported that more frequent visits by fathers to the hospital to see their preterm infants fostered higher infant weight gain, and were associated with more positive subsequent father-infant interactions and better child social development and adaptation.

Not only is there a benefit to the child’s health outcomes but studies also show increased father-child bonding."

What can we do about this?

• Encourage dads to download and check their pediatrician's medical app
• Allow dads to own appointments/conditions from start to finish
• Decrease maternal gatekeeping
• Start a shared medical history document/note

Merch Vision Board

Something about saying "can you help me with..." or "thanks for helping me with..." just grates on me. Most likely because it implies that I own the entire task and my partner only has to think about it and participate if asked, directed and given specific instructions.

Sometimes when I'm at my breaking point and feeling frustrated about how much of the mental load I carry, I don't want to ask for help and I need a small way to help me get past feeling frustrated by it. At least enough that I can have a conversation and not an argument around the task at hand.

I'm a believer in small language changes helping shift your broader mindset. Recently Zach Watson (Recovering Man Child) made a reel about is saying "thank you for unloading the groceries" or "thank you for filling out that form".

When I say "help me", inside I'm hoping my husband picks up on the cue that doing this more often would benefit. me and be a big help, lighten my load and therefore he should do it more often. That message is never received. Instead, being direct in the ask and swapping out "helping" for the actual verb changes the tone from a desperate ask to a form of gratitude. And gratitude is more likely to be noticed and repeated. It also helps shift you out of negative energy and closer to a space where you can articulate your needs.

Today, Dr. Jazmin Richter joins us to talk through their experience redistributing the mental load as a queer couple in preparation for kids.

In this episode we do a deep dive in to how partners can be more supportive to each other, change language around the mental load, and better align their values to create a more equal distribution of labor.

Merch

Vision Board

In this hot take, Katlynn discusses why women are held to a double standard; being told to ask for help to alleviate the mental load, while being called a nag when they ask if something's gotten done.

Men often get a pass to forget; they have a safety net of their partners who remember everything and know how to communicate the details and logistics of all aspects of the house. Often, they get to say "I forgot" or "I got sidetracked" when it comes to managing household labor. But women aren't afforded the same luxury.

The reality is that our reminders come from lessons learned that it could be the last minute when we find out that you "forgot" or "got sidetracked" and didn't get something critical or important done. So our reminders are our safety net. And we pay the price by being called a nag.

For the men out there, if you think your wife is a nag, try asking yourself if you've been consistent. If she can trust that at the 11th hour, she won't find out that you forgot to do something important. If you haven't been consistent, she's not a nag. You're inconsistent.