Needed this today! If not for validation but also to just vent. For the past two vacations, I put my husband in charge of helping my 9-year old pack. It’s the first time my son has been involved in packing. But I said his work needs to be checked. For every other trip since he was an infant (and there were a lot), it was of course me. And how often was stuff forgotten? Rarely!!
The first trip—no pajamas and no swim gear for the pool. And possibly something else. It was just a weekend though.
This trip we are currently on: I made a packing list. Son was following the list to pack independently while my husband tried telling him what to do. I said let him follow the list and then you check his work after he says he’s done.
We’re on our trip: no socks, no underwear, one pair of pants. I was like 🤷🏼♀️. The kicker is my husband wants to pass the blame to my son and then to me, because I said to let him follow the list.
He goes to Target to buy socks and underwear. Gets the sizes so wrong! Like 2 sizes small for the underwear. And I’m like—this is the invisible labor that I got no appreciation for.
All I want is for him to take some accountability. And he’s falling into old patterns of not doing that. And I’m not falling into my old pattern of letting it go. I’m still waiting for “I should have checked because I was in charge.” Meanwhile my poor son was beating himself up because he forgot. And I’m here reassuring him that he’s still learning and his dad was assigned to check on him.
Okay, end rant. And thank you if you got this far!
Sounds so familiar. We often get accused of overcomplicating things, but among many other things, having/wearing underwear that fits is not an unreasonable ask.
Yard work tasks give us dopamine! Very satisfying. Scheduling a conference call with a teacher, setting up a payment plan with the dentist, finding pants your kid will actually wear when it gets cold, making that child write a thank you note to grandma do NOT have any great dopamine reward. The whole process is painful and no one enjoys any part of it...that's the difference for me. Give me gutters to clean any day!!
I get so frustrated with schools. I know they’re responding to parents but. But. Do we have to let some parents determine the norm for all? I hate the policies that demand a parent do drop off and pick up when in my day, we dropped ourselves off and picked ourselves up. My kid is 11 and I have to sign him in and out of swim lessons still. All my parents did, starting when I was age 6 or 7, was drop me off at the pool. These small examples add up!
Expectations on parents have never been higher yet we live in era where 70% of families have two working parents. We limit our kids’ independence in the name of safety, but that lack of independence is felt overwhelmingly by the parents. I hope the next generation dials this back and learns to value autonomy and independence a little more.
Yes, it's such a vicious cycle. Schools responded to a small but vocal group of parents, who were responding to news-induced paranoia, and now the rest of us have lost control over how much independence we grant our children.
Although as I'm writing this, my 10yo son is walking 10 blocks to our neighborhood pool with two middle-school -aged friends. It's amazing! Now I just have to hope no one reports me to the police for child endangerment and neglect.
This is so good, as always. I've never seen anyone explain the mental load as well as you do.
I continue to be astounded by the school communications. When I was growing up in the 1960s and '70s, we had only very occasional notes sent home, and they were usually permission slips for a field trip. We walked to school alone starting when we were 6, and that was the norm. I was babysitting for my parents' friends' younger kids when I was 14. When we went to day camp or Saturday art classes, we had reliable carpools (mostly run by the mothers, of course).
Of course, things are so much harder these days with kids, which I don't have. And even without kids, everything has gotten so time-consuming. It seems like every little household task or problems takes research, emails, and phone calls that take up half a day. And guess who does them. Not the husbands, for the most part.
Given this is basically a gender-war post, I don’t think it’s out of place to agree with your observation but note that it is not the male half of the population primarily responsible for the increased safetyism in our society.
I'm inclined to disagree. Look again at the cultural roots of safetyism, which I outline in detail in this story: fear-mongering in the news (male-dominated industry), profit- and efficiency-driven urban/surburban planning (male-dominated industry), bigger and deadlier cars (male-dominated industry), smartphones luring kids inside (male-dominated industry), etc etc. I don't even care about "blaming" men for safetyism - that's not part of my agenda - I just want to make it abundantly clear that it's not a random movement brought on by neurotic and overprotective mothers.
This is only a gender war story if you choose to read it with a defensive mindset. If you approach it with curiosity and humility, I think you'd actually find it to be a funny, well-researched, informative piece that breaks down in detail what many women feel overwhelmed by, and what many men are unable to see or understand. Many of my male readers have thanked me for shedding light on something they were struggling to fully grasp.
Oh Nick. I responded by saying I have no interest in blaming either gender for safetyism and merely countered your point by pointing out the ways that it’s also driven by men. Anyway, I won’t be responding anymore, but I would encourage you to take some time to actually listen to women with humility and curiosity. You would learn a lot. In the meantime, thanks for driving more attention to my stories by engaging with my writing!
Nick, that’s inaccurate and dismissive. People like you who get defensive miss the point. If someone were pointing out racism and racial inequities, would you say they were writing a race war post? Well, maybe you would …
Not only has the mental load increased, but the amount of yard work-type tasks has substantially decreased! Much smaller yards are way more yard services these days…
The link between the loss of third spaces/the commons and the mental load had never occurred to me, yet it's so true! When there are no existing community spaces you need to make pop-up community spaces from scratch all the time and that takes work. Also the number of great relevant household management tips that I've gotten from casual community time far outstrips the number of times I've gotten truly insightful tips from strangers on the internet.
Also the idea that the total mental load for mothers has increased over time is a new concept to me, and it rings so true. Imagine how much brain space moms would have if we could say "go outside and play and don't come home until the streetlights come on" like previous generations did? It's a different world not just in terms of restricting kids' independence but also increasing the sheer volume of decisions that parents (read: moms) need to make to keep their kids occupied.
So, literally the day I published this story, my newly 10yo son asked if he could walk to our community pool (about 10 blocks away) with two neighborhood friends. Of course I said yes! They coordinated the excursion on their own, walked there on their own, and stayed for three hours. The whole thing cost $4; compare that to the average $75/partial day cost of summer camp.
If this type of thing were available more often to more parents, imagine how our lives would be transformed! If kids were part of multi-age neighborhood friend groups where the older kids could keep an eye on the younger kids, imagine how much less coordination us adults would have to do! Parents used to live this reality; now it's very hard to come by.
Oh, and one more note -- the thing that makes me most nervous is that our community center/pool is located on the corner of one of the highest crash intersections in the city. That's where city planners and elected officials have to step in. So many of us don't have access to kid-friendly built environments, either.
My personal pet political project is pedestrian safety. They say, if you're overwhelmed with everything going on, pick one thing, and that's my thing. It is bafflingly complicated to get a new crosswalk installed! Both local and state governments and also HOAs make it very confusing, and unanswered emails are the norm. Most of my effort has just been identifying who is responsible for what, and what their processes are. It's the most common obstacle in my suburban area to kids spending time outside - pedestrian safety!
Granted, I think the better way to think of this issue is, American drivers need to behave better, and actually obey driving laws and yield to pedestrian, to keep kids safe in places that aren't just school zones! Pedestrian safety is a very victim-blamey environment! Go figure. Ugh. I just want my kid to walk to the pool too.
Oh, and if you forget a piece of the mental load you are carrying (because of course you will), it just might affect your husband or ex-husband - “I forgot that little Timmy needs to go to whatever, and he won’t be able to do that other thing with you” or “you’ll need to pick him up; sorry for the last minute notice”. This will be greeted either by profound annoyance (maybe actual anger) or with condescension. “Of course you forgot”, said with a smirk and possible eye roll - the implication being not to worry your pretty little head about it - we all know women are flighty, disorganized, and forgetful.
Oh man, this hits home for me. My ex-husband is ready to pounce on me for just about everything, no matter that I'm essentially single parenting his children and still managing our "family" calendar. When there's a miscommunication or he perceives I've dropped the ball, I am automatically crazy or "playing games."
When my husband and I were together, I got the rage response. Rage (whether open or suppressed in a noticeable way that almost felt worse) was a big part of our marriage. Now I get the condescending response. I guess it's better? But I still find it infuriating. I have a little rage of my own now, and like a healthy person, I try to find ways of letting it out that don't make my family feel like they're walking over a minefield.
I know the rage you mean. It was never FOR anything, which still bugs me. It was just this red hot anger, that hovered over our lives, and it didn’t have an intent or a reason or a purpose, it was just there - waiting for a moment to explode.
And a demonstration of how men don't actually understand this, is that you can tell them these things - or they could even read this article - and they'd point out helpfully that unlike the men mentioned, they do help out with the things that were mentioned.
Men, it doesn't matter if you're helping out with it or not. If you don't take personal responsibility for it, and make sure it's getting done all the time, and that it's getting done well and completely, then it's part of my mental load, because I never know when or if you're going to do it, so I'm the one that has to monitor it all the time, prepare for it, plan for it, and sometimes do it, and frequently do the parts of it that you didn't do when you were doing it, because if it's not your responsibility, them by default it's my responsibility.
And I don't get the luxury of saying, I don't know how, or I can't, or I don't have time, or my personal favorite, I don't like doing that. It has to be done, and if you're not doing it, then I have to, and that makes it my responsibility, not yours.
I thought I developed ADHD my ability to focus and remember was so bad. Turns out I was just overwhelmed. I’ve since let go of quite a bit. Not even in purpose but because I just couldn’t do it anymore. My brain could not handle anymore and stopped its function. I’m working on getting my nervous system to feel safe again. It’s taking some time but it’s coming along. Cannot stress the importance of self care. I preach about it for survival. It’s not a want. It’s an absolute need. So is that village. Are we going to start that up? Who’s responsible to starting the group chat lol?
Yes, yes, and yes! It's wild to me that getting support with scheduling and organizing a single activity can be a Herculean effort worthy of praise when men do it, yet the mental load is dismissed when women take care of the countless other similar tasks. Bonus points if it's because we are just "better multitaskers".
I describe “mom brain” like someone juggling plates, but every one of those plates is also holding a juggler who is juggling plates, and each of those plates is also home to a juggler juggling plates and you have to keep them all spinning all of the time and when you inevitably drop one (or two or a dozen) you get scolded by the non-jugglers or told you should just be more organized or conscientious or just write a list, why don’t you.
The school communications kill me! I’ve just given up. I think I read a grand total of 5 weekly updates from one of my son’s teachers last year and maybe half the general communication. Seems like a good idea in the moment except for that part when I miss something and am scrambling at the last minute.
I’ve done my best to heave some of the mental load over to my husband, and while it helps that he’s in charge of things like summer camps, after school care and sports sign ups, there’s still so much to contend with. It has helped and he does his fair share of coordinating play dates with other kids, but I always get the text first….so.
Needed this today! If not for validation but also to just vent. For the past two vacations, I put my husband in charge of helping my 9-year old pack. It’s the first time my son has been involved in packing. But I said his work needs to be checked. For every other trip since he was an infant (and there were a lot), it was of course me. And how often was stuff forgotten? Rarely!!
The first trip—no pajamas and no swim gear for the pool. And possibly something else. It was just a weekend though.
This trip we are currently on: I made a packing list. Son was following the list to pack independently while my husband tried telling him what to do. I said let him follow the list and then you check his work after he says he’s done.
We’re on our trip: no socks, no underwear, one pair of pants. I was like 🤷🏼♀️. The kicker is my husband wants to pass the blame to my son and then to me, because I said to let him follow the list.
He goes to Target to buy socks and underwear. Gets the sizes so wrong! Like 2 sizes small for the underwear. And I’m like—this is the invisible labor that I got no appreciation for.
All I want is for him to take some accountability. And he’s falling into old patterns of not doing that. And I’m not falling into my old pattern of letting it go. I’m still waiting for “I should have checked because I was in charge.” Meanwhile my poor son was beating himself up because he forgot. And I’m here reassuring him that he’s still learning and his dad was assigned to check on him.
Okay, end rant. And thank you if you got this far!
Sounds so familiar. We often get accused of overcomplicating things, but among many other things, having/wearing underwear that fits is not an unreasonable ask.
Yard work tasks give us dopamine! Very satisfying. Scheduling a conference call with a teacher, setting up a payment plan with the dentist, finding pants your kid will actually wear when it gets cold, making that child write a thank you note to grandma do NOT have any great dopamine reward. The whole process is painful and no one enjoys any part of it...that's the difference for me. Give me gutters to clean any day!!
Good point! If only scheduling conference calls and setting up payment plans gave me dopamine. I'd be so happy!
Yeah but then someone else might want to do it because it's so fun :)
Whinging is such fun!
My lab studies this issue! We found that the mental load was indeed gendered, and it was linked with worse mental health in women:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00737-024-01490-w?fromsection=inarticle§ioninfo=5098037
Ooh, I will definitely bookmark this for future stories. Thank you!
I get so frustrated with schools. I know they’re responding to parents but. But. Do we have to let some parents determine the norm for all? I hate the policies that demand a parent do drop off and pick up when in my day, we dropped ourselves off and picked ourselves up. My kid is 11 and I have to sign him in and out of swim lessons still. All my parents did, starting when I was age 6 or 7, was drop me off at the pool. These small examples add up!
Expectations on parents have never been higher yet we live in era where 70% of families have two working parents. We limit our kids’ independence in the name of safety, but that lack of independence is felt overwhelmingly by the parents. I hope the next generation dials this back and learns to value autonomy and independence a little more.
Yes, it's such a vicious cycle. Schools responded to a small but vocal group of parents, who were responding to news-induced paranoia, and now the rest of us have lost control over how much independence we grant our children.
Although as I'm writing this, my 10yo son is walking 10 blocks to our neighborhood pool with two middle-school -aged friends. It's amazing! Now I just have to hope no one reports me to the police for child endangerment and neglect.
This is so good, as always. I've never seen anyone explain the mental load as well as you do.
I continue to be astounded by the school communications. When I was growing up in the 1960s and '70s, we had only very occasional notes sent home, and they were usually permission slips for a field trip. We walked to school alone starting when we were 6, and that was the norm. I was babysitting for my parents' friends' younger kids when I was 14. When we went to day camp or Saturday art classes, we had reliable carpools (mostly run by the mothers, of course).
Of course, things are so much harder these days with kids, which I don't have. And even without kids, everything has gotten so time-consuming. It seems like every little household task or problems takes research, emails, and phone calls that take up half a day. And guess who does them. Not the husbands, for the most part.
Yes, it's so exhausting. Didn't Big Tech promise to make our lives easier??
Eh, Big Tech just gave us multiple different communication platforms to check, so they can mine our personal data in *multiple* ways 🙃
Given this is basically a gender-war post, I don’t think it’s out of place to agree with your observation but note that it is not the male half of the population primarily responsible for the increased safetyism in our society.
I'm inclined to disagree. Look again at the cultural roots of safetyism, which I outline in detail in this story: fear-mongering in the news (male-dominated industry), profit- and efficiency-driven urban/surburban planning (male-dominated industry), bigger and deadlier cars (male-dominated industry), smartphones luring kids inside (male-dominated industry), etc etc. I don't even care about "blaming" men for safetyism - that's not part of my agenda - I just want to make it abundantly clear that it's not a random movement brought on by neurotic and overprotective mothers.
This is only a gender war story if you choose to read it with a defensive mindset. If you approach it with curiosity and humility, I think you'd actually find it to be a funny, well-researched, informative piece that breaks down in detail what many women feel overwhelmed by, and what many men are unable to see or understand. Many of my male readers have thanked me for shedding light on something they were struggling to fully grasp.
You’ve responded with vague generalisations blaming men. Classic hallmark of the genre.
Oh Nick. I responded by saying I have no interest in blaming either gender for safetyism and merely countered your point by pointing out the ways that it’s also driven by men. Anyway, I won’t be responding anymore, but I would encourage you to take some time to actually listen to women with humility and curiosity. You would learn a lot. In the meantime, thanks for driving more attention to my stories by engaging with my writing!
Nick, that’s inaccurate and dismissive. People like you who get defensive miss the point. If someone were pointing out racism and racial inequities, would you say they were writing a race war post? Well, maybe you would …
Not only has the mental load increased, but the amount of yard work-type tasks has substantially decreased! Much smaller yards are way more yard services these days…
😆 I should have included a graph to illustrate the decline in yard work and simultaneous increase in the mental load.
Oh, that graph lives rent-free in our heads!
The link between the loss of third spaces/the commons and the mental load had never occurred to me, yet it's so true! When there are no existing community spaces you need to make pop-up community spaces from scratch all the time and that takes work. Also the number of great relevant household management tips that I've gotten from casual community time far outstrips the number of times I've gotten truly insightful tips from strangers on the internet.
Also the idea that the total mental load for mothers has increased over time is a new concept to me, and it rings so true. Imagine how much brain space moms would have if we could say "go outside and play and don't come home until the streetlights come on" like previous generations did? It's a different world not just in terms of restricting kids' independence but also increasing the sheer volume of decisions that parents (read: moms) need to make to keep their kids occupied.
Well said!
So, literally the day I published this story, my newly 10yo son asked if he could walk to our community pool (about 10 blocks away) with two neighborhood friends. Of course I said yes! They coordinated the excursion on their own, walked there on their own, and stayed for three hours. The whole thing cost $4; compare that to the average $75/partial day cost of summer camp.
If this type of thing were available more often to more parents, imagine how our lives would be transformed! If kids were part of multi-age neighborhood friend groups where the older kids could keep an eye on the younger kids, imagine how much less coordination us adults would have to do! Parents used to live this reality; now it's very hard to come by.
Oh, and one more note -- the thing that makes me most nervous is that our community center/pool is located on the corner of one of the highest crash intersections in the city. That's where city planners and elected officials have to step in. So many of us don't have access to kid-friendly built environments, either.
Amen!!!
My personal pet political project is pedestrian safety. They say, if you're overwhelmed with everything going on, pick one thing, and that's my thing. It is bafflingly complicated to get a new crosswalk installed! Both local and state governments and also HOAs make it very confusing, and unanswered emails are the norm. Most of my effort has just been identifying who is responsible for what, and what their processes are. It's the most common obstacle in my suburban area to kids spending time outside - pedestrian safety!
Granted, I think the better way to think of this issue is, American drivers need to behave better, and actually obey driving laws and yield to pedestrian, to keep kids safe in places that aren't just school zones! Pedestrian safety is a very victim-blamey environment! Go figure. Ugh. I just want my kid to walk to the pool too.
Oh, and if you forget a piece of the mental load you are carrying (because of course you will), it just might affect your husband or ex-husband - “I forgot that little Timmy needs to go to whatever, and he won’t be able to do that other thing with you” or “you’ll need to pick him up; sorry for the last minute notice”. This will be greeted either by profound annoyance (maybe actual anger) or with condescension. “Of course you forgot”, said with a smirk and possible eye roll - the implication being not to worry your pretty little head about it - we all know women are flighty, disorganized, and forgetful.
Oh man, this hits home for me. My ex-husband is ready to pounce on me for just about everything, no matter that I'm essentially single parenting his children and still managing our "family" calendar. When there's a miscommunication or he perceives I've dropped the ball, I am automatically crazy or "playing games."
When my husband and I were together, I got the rage response. Rage (whether open or suppressed in a noticeable way that almost felt worse) was a big part of our marriage. Now I get the condescending response. I guess it's better? But I still find it infuriating. I have a little rage of my own now, and like a healthy person, I try to find ways of letting it out that don't make my family feel like they're walking over a minefield.
I know the rage you mean. It was never FOR anything, which still bugs me. It was just this red hot anger, that hovered over our lives, and it didn’t have an intent or a reason or a purpose, it was just there - waiting for a moment to explode.
God I’m glad I don’t live with that anymore.
What a fucker! Glad he’s your ex.
Yes. All of that.
And a demonstration of how men don't actually understand this, is that you can tell them these things - or they could even read this article - and they'd point out helpfully that unlike the men mentioned, they do help out with the things that were mentioned.
Men, it doesn't matter if you're helping out with it or not. If you don't take personal responsibility for it, and make sure it's getting done all the time, and that it's getting done well and completely, then it's part of my mental load, because I never know when or if you're going to do it, so I'm the one that has to monitor it all the time, prepare for it, plan for it, and sometimes do it, and frequently do the parts of it that you didn't do when you were doing it, because if it's not your responsibility, them by default it's my responsibility.
And I don't get the luxury of saying, I don't know how, or I can't, or I don't have time, or my personal favorite, I don't like doing that. It has to be done, and if you're not doing it, then I have to, and that makes it my responsibility, not yours.
That's mental load.
I thought I developed ADHD my ability to focus and remember was so bad. Turns out I was just overwhelmed. I’ve since let go of quite a bit. Not even in purpose but because I just couldn’t do it anymore. My brain could not handle anymore and stopped its function. I’m working on getting my nervous system to feel safe again. It’s taking some time but it’s coming along. Cannot stress the importance of self care. I preach about it for survival. It’s not a want. It’s an absolute need. So is that village. Are we going to start that up? Who’s responsible to starting the group chat lol?
Yes, yes, and yes! It's wild to me that getting support with scheduling and organizing a single activity can be a Herculean effort worthy of praise when men do it, yet the mental load is dismissed when women take care of the countless other similar tasks. Bonus points if it's because we are just "better multitaskers".
I describe “mom brain” like someone juggling plates, but every one of those plates is also holding a juggler who is juggling plates, and each of those plates is also home to a juggler juggling plates and you have to keep them all spinning all of the time and when you inevitably drop one (or two or a dozen) you get scolded by the non-jugglers or told you should just be more organized or conscientious or just write a list, why don’t you.
Very vivid and apt metaphor!
The school communications kill me! I’ve just given up. I think I read a grand total of 5 weekly updates from one of my son’s teachers last year and maybe half the general communication. Seems like a good idea in the moment except for that part when I miss something and am scrambling at the last minute.
I’ve done my best to heave some of the mental load over to my husband, and while it helps that he’s in charge of things like summer camps, after school care and sports sign ups, there’s still so much to contend with. It has helped and he does his fair share of coordinating play dates with other kids, but I always get the text first….so.
OOF. I feel ALL OF THIS.
This is excellently put! The yard-work-men give me the heebie jeebies. (Must be from all the wind coming off their red flags)
Precisely this, perfectly told.