Episode 35: The Mental Load of Motherhood: Why You're Exhausted Before You've Done Anything

So what is the mental load? When you think about the division of household labor, you think about the obvious things, cooking dinner, doing laundry, packing lunches, driving the kids to school, cleaning the house.

But there's another layer of work that's happening.

And that's the cognitive labor that is required to keep a household running.

Sociologist Allison Daminger broke the process into four different stages.

And I think they're really helpful when we're communicating about the mental load.

so the first stage is anticipating a need the second is identifying possible solutions the third is deciding what to do and the fourth is monitoring whether the thing actually got done this framework helps us understand everything that the mental load is because it's not just going and making the pediatrician appointment it's actually remembering that your child might be due for the appointment Which doctor do they see? What does everyone's schedules look like? Will I make the appointment on time? Did I remember to add it to the calendar? Am I supposed to get a specific form filled out? When do they need to see the next appointment? Does my other kid potentially need to see it? So the appointment itself, calling to make that appointment can take three minutes.

But everything that lives around there can live in your brain for weeks.

And that's the difference.

Daminger's research found something really interesting.

So she found that couples may be more likely to share parts of the middle of the process, like discussing options or making decisions together, but women disproportionately carried the beginning and the end, meaning the anticipating and the monitoring.

That fell more on the woman.

Basically, those are the parts that keep running in the background all the time.

That's like the processing system of our computer.

Another paper about the mental load Talked about it being invisible because it's happening internally.

There's no boundary, right? So it's not like you go into the office and your day starts.

This is constantly bubbling, running in the background.

And I am a mom.

So I know that this feeling isn't just a feeling.

It's a reality that not only I face, but so many women that I meet are having the same experience.

kind of conversation of the quiet but heavy load that is the mental load of motherhood there is no finish line right you're gonna always be a parent so that doesn't shut off it continues and so it can almost feel like i don't get to clock in or clock out and this weight is heavy and again this episode is not to point fingers at partners but rather to help mothers who are feeling this Know that they're not crazy, that this is not in your head.

We have actual data looking at this.