The Mental Load

How did we get here?

The mental load has been a generational issue but it didn't become obvious to everyone until Covid where women suddenly found themselves working from home, parenting 24/7 and teaching their children. While men picked up more duties around the house, it was not enough to radically shift the load around; the invisible labor still stayed with women.

What’s going on? Women are expected to:

• Anticipate - not just the need but also everyone’s feelings around it
• Identify - what solutions are available (men usually help)
• Decide - which solution is best (men usually help)
• Monitor - again with the feelings. Is it working? Is everyone happy?

Women disproportionately are responsible for the “anticipate” and “monitor” phases. 

Once on the agenda, couples decide together, but the shit work is happening before and after.

At home, we've got the sticky floor and professionally, we have the glass ceiling.

Women are generally viewed as distracted once they have families and are promoted less, therefore earning less over their lifetime.

Early promotions in a career are most critical to success,3 and yet for the past eight years, McKinsey research has consistently shown that women lose ground in the step up to manager. According to data from our research conducted for the Women in the Workplace 2021 report, women hold only 34 percent of entry-level engineering and product roles and just 26 percent of first-level manager positions, compared with 48 percent of entry-level roles and 41 percent of first-level manager positions in the pipeline overall.

Common reason women step off leadership track: the mental load

Does the mental load affect your ability to focus and “climb the ladder”?

Revelations we’ve had about “climbing the ladder” - is it overrated?

Perception of the workload at home:

Men say its equal but usually take on less time sensitive and more easily outsourced even when they work part time or not at all compared to their spouses

The ambition gap - are women really less ambitious than men?

findings show clearly that women start their careers with just as much  ambition as men.1  Women’s ambition levels do vary, but they vary by company, not by family status.

In other words, the problem is neither inherent nor related to motherhood; instead, it hinges on the day-to-day experiences of women at work. Ambition is not a fixed attribute but is nurtured—or damaged—by the daily interactions, conversations, and opportunities that women face over time.

Having children does not make women less ambitious. Ambition is influenced by company culture.

The wage gap - Women have stalled economically

Is a woman’s well-being outside of work non of a company’s concern?

Work from home vs working in an office - does one support women better?

What are some solutions for companies to lighten the load?

1. Provide equitable access to training, projects, and other resources to accelerate skill building for women in technical roles

2. Implement a structured approach to early promotions 

3. Connect early-tenure women with capable managers, mentors, and sponsors

Change the informal context. A person’s experience at work consists of countless small interactions, and the leadership environment at many companies can feel like a familiar set of masculine tropes.

Make and relentlessly promote structural changes such as flexible work. 

Mentioned in this episode:

Our House Children's Learning Center

Thriving Lives Fitness

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Is the mental load a real thing? And if it is, what is its impact on women?

The mental load is all the “invisible work” that needs to be done to keep daily life going

This includes cognitive and emotional needs as well.

Cognitive labor involves thinking of all the practical needs and logistics and emotional labor involves managing and regulating everyone’s emotions to create the most successful outcome for everyone. 

Four components of the mental load:

• Anticipating needs
• Finding solutions to meet them
• Making decisions
• Monitoring progress

What is the effect on women?

Health:

• Anxiety disorders
• Burnout
• Depression

At work:

• Stalled careers
• Judgement: that we’re distracted 

Economically:

The wage gap literally exists because of the mental load. Women are paid less than men and women of color are paid less than white women.

Relationships:

Kids - we teach our boys that women carry the mental load for them and we teach our girls that they're responsible for doing invisible labor. We're less present with our families, simply going through the motions of managing a family rather than participating in the family.

Husbands - when they don't help shoulder the mental load, they miss out on opportunities to bond with their children. Their partners/wives become resentful and everyone's happiness takes a nose dive. At the end of the day, women are less intimate and less likely to want to have sex with their husbands because they resent them for not carrying more of the load.

Friendships - we lose the closeness of our friendships when we're too busy to coordinate regular meet-ups with our friends.

Why are any of these things a problem?

We're teaching our kids the same generational cycle we resent and women end up feeling unfulfilled in their own lives. They get lost in motherhood.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Thriving Lives Fitness

Our House Children's Learning Center

Do you ever feel like you want to scream because you do all the stuff and things related to running your household and raising kid and yet nobody seems to notice how hard you work?

We do.

We're Angie and Katlynn. Two millennial moms brought together by our spitfire daughters.

We're here to explore why the mental load exists, what keeps it in place and how we can change it to create a better, more supportive society for moms and families in America.

Join us every other week starting in May for maternal mental health month for new episodes.