Mental Load — All the Rage says men just flit it all away

[Anonymous]

I am definitely the primary caretaker, but there are some things my DH has decided to take on and he does them pretty much completely. He plans the birthday parties, he does the summer camp stuff, and most of the logistics around each of our kids’ main activity. I’m not sure why he feels ownership of these Particular tasks but he does and I appreciate it. He’s much better at handling things that happen once or at intervals throughout the year (sports and summer camp signups) than Every day things, like homework and food.

[Anonymous]

My DH is great with our social calendar and DD’s activities. He has a more efficient system with schedules than I do. However, he is my second husband and a stepdad. I think he secretly feels he has to bring his A game all the time.

[Anonymous]

I was married for 13 years before I got pregnant. It was great. We did roughly equal stuff.

I stayed home for 2 years with DS, and we moved when baby was 3 months old so DH could chase his dream job--which, I will note, is a 9 to 5 job and doesn't pay 6 figures. When I went back to work after 2 years, also 9 to 5, making the same as DH, DH made zero move to help pick up the slack. He still assumed I would do everything child-related, all the cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, household tasks, etc. (We are car free and rent, so don't give me this "but I bet he takes care of all the car and house maintenance!")

Despite numerous discussions, despite going to therapy, DH refuses to make any effort. Oh, maybe for a day or two, and then we are back to me doing all the work and him complaining about how put out he is if I ask him to pick up some bread on his way home from work.

And that, my friends, his why he is my STBXH.....though he's unaware of that. I file Jan. 2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look I used to have a lot of rage about this- a lot. Then I figured out that I want the control. You can’t have it both- either you do it yourself and control it or you pass it to DH and cede control. In my case, if I cede control, DC would have the iPad all day, chicken nuggets every night, may or may not have childcare, would go to bed at 11 pm... just easier for me to do it bc I need the control.

What you describe is not control my dear. It’s just being a responsible parent and doing right by your kid. Sounds like your husband is a child.

+1

[Anonymous]

My DH is pretty great and really helpful. But yeah, all of the mental load is on me. Something also that no one here is mentioning- cost. When I delegate things to DH, he will likely pay 2-3x what I would. Instead of buying a gift for his parents on black friday, he'd get it on December 24th for full price. He'd never get the nice, lower cost camp my kids really want, he'd do it late and be stuck with $600 a week camps that no one wants. When he takes the dog to the vet, they run allllll the extra tests, extra shots and then schedules an $800 teeth cleaning. It drives me insane that I can't task him with things like this because then it blows our budget.

He is a great traveler though and will get us great deals on airfare, hotels and rental cars. He's also an excellent grocery shopper (but he comes home with too much food because he doesn't meal plan, but that's okay because usually it's pantry goods that don't go bad quickly). If I lay the kid's clothes out, he'll dress them. If I don't, they often wear pajamas by mistake or he'll forget to put shoes on them (DS is 2, he needs shoes).

DH really likes lists and he asks me for lists every week of things I need for him to do around the house and fix. He typically will do the entire list. But I do have to plan it all and come up with the list in the first place.

This is all untreated ADD, not laziness thank god. I can't imagine lazy + ADD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DH is pretty great and really helpful. But yeah, all of the mental load is on me. Something also that no one here is mentioning- cost. When I delegate things to DH, he will likely pay 2-3x what I would. Instead of buying a gift for his parents on black friday, he'd get it on December 24th for full price. He'd never get the nice, lower cost camp my kids really want, he'd do it late and be stuck with $600 a week camps that no one wants. When he takes the dog to the vet, they run allllll the extra tests, extra shots and then schedules an $800 teeth cleaning. It drives me insane that I can't task him with things like this because then it blows our budget.

He is a great traveler though and will get us great deals on airfare, hotels and rental cars. He's also an excellent grocery shopper (but he comes home with too much food because he doesn't meal plan, but that's okay because usually it's pantry goods that don't go bad quickly). If I lay the kid's clothes out, he'll dress them. If I don't, they often wear pajamas by mistake or he'll forget to put shoes on them (DS is 2, he needs shoes).

DH really likes lists and he asks me for lists every week of things I need for him to do around the house and fix. He typically will do the entire list. But I do have to plan it all and come up with the list in the first place.

This is all untreated ADD, not laziness thank god. I can't imagine lazy + ADD.

This is how my marriage looks too. DH is a willing spirit and wants to help, but I’ve never figured out how to get him to take initiative. In general this arrangement works okay for us, but during times when I’m really busy the model falls apart and I feel a lot of resentment and stress, like I’m the only adult in the relationship and the burden feels to big for me at times. There’s just too much to remember.

[Anonymous]

I’m the immediate PP. I’ll also add, that oftentimes the things that we have to do may not fall neatly into a little list that I can just give to DH. Sometimes things require some deeper analysis and consideration and I’m just not sure what we should do. I bear these burdens alone. DH only responds to neat little projects with a beginning, middle and end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look I used to have a lot of rage about this- a lot. Then I figured out that I want the control. You can’t have it both- either you do it yourself and control it or you pass it to DH and cede control. In my case, if I cede control, DC would have the iPad all day, chicken nuggets every night, may or may not have childcare, would go to bed at 11 pm... just easier for me to do it bc I need the control.

+1

OP described it herself: "One tale is about the mental load, such as summer camp regs, health forms, carpools, etc and how even after assigning a task to her DH he just blows it off until she does it."

Women want to do all this stuff. If we didn't, we wouldn't.

-1 that's just called crap and lazy parenting. You want the control because you know the dads are lazy a$$ parents who care more about their comfort than their children. That's the whole point of the article, that these dads don't take on the mental load and that's why the mom's have to do it.

And moms continue to do it because otherwise, you would constantly be fighting and be frustrated because the lazy dads won't pick up their share of the mental load even though the wife also works.

[Anonymous]

It's hard for me to relate to because my husband is by nature a caretaker. He likes to cook, he's more nurturing than I am. He's more emphatic. He tries harder. He's very involved in our kids' lives even though he is the breadwinner by far. For instance, I do all the activity drop offs but he does the pick ups. He oversees most homework and project assignments. He's much better with them when they're sick.

I am cleaner and tidier though. He can overlook crumbs and clutter that I can't. Also he'll just pile laundry around while I take the time to put it away.

[Anonymous]

Take whatever gender stereotypes you have for couples and flip them. The result is my failed marriage. My ex-wife didn't do much as a mom while we were married. At first I thought it was post-partum, but I later realized she just didn't have it in her. I have no doubt that she loved our daughter, but she lacked the compulsion to be involved that you associate with being a mom. I did everything from taking her to the pediatrician to buying all of her clothes, toys, and food. At one point I thought that if I stepped back and did less then it would prompt her to step up. Everything went to hell. We ran out of diapers, the house looked a mess, and she seemed completely unfazed by it. During our divorce, there was a moment of peace where we were both honest with each other. She told me that she had no interest in settling down when she married me, but I seemed like too good of a guy to let go. She pretended to be something she wasn't because she didn't want to wake up alone one day. The realization that she didn't want to be a wife or mom was too strong to ignore, so she just tried to stay out of my way. Now that we're divorced, she's a lot better. She still doesn't know our fifth grader's teacher's name. She calls to ask what size clothes and shoes to buy, but at least she buys them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's hard for me to relate to because my husband is by nature a caretaker. He likes to cook, he's more nurturing than I am. He's more emphatic. He tries harder. He's very involved in our kids' lives even though he is the breadwinner by far. For instance, I do all the activity drop offs but he does the pick ups. He oversees most homework and project assignments. He's much better with them when they're sick.

I am cleaner and tidier though. He can overlook crumbs and clutter that I can't. Also he'll just pile laundry around while I take the time to put it away.

I think when you have a dynamic where you and your spouse have different strengths and weaknesses and you can compliment said differences is fine. My DH is a much better cook than I am and hates fast food, but I, too, am better at cleaning and laundry, so I do most of that and cleanup after him in the kitchen. I think that works.

What doesn't work is if one parent is doing all of the physical and mental load, which is the case in most households.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take whatever gender stereotypes you have for couples and flip them. The result is my failed marriage. My ex-wife didn't do much as a mom while we were married. At first I thought it was post-partum, but I later realized she just didn't have it in her. I have no doubt that she loved our daughter, but she lacked the compulsion to be involved that you associate with being a mom. I did everything from taking her to the pediatrician to buying all of her clothes, toys, and food. At one point I thought that if I stepped back and did less then it would prompt her to step up. Everything went to hell. We ran out of diapers, the house looked a mess, and she seemed completely unfazed by it. During our divorce, there was a moment of peace where we were both honest with each other. She told me that she had no interest in settling down when she married me, but I seemed like too good of a guy to let go. She pretended to be something she wasn't because she didn't want to wake up alone one day. The realization that she didn't want to be a wife or mom was too strong to ignore, so she just tried to stay out of my way. Now that we're divorced, she's a lot better. She still doesn't know our fifth grader's teacher's name. She calls to ask what size clothes and shoes to buy, but at least she buys them.

I feel that the bolded is how most men are. IMO, most men don't really care about having children. They do it because they know the wife wants to, but for the most part, if it was left up to the men, they would have no children because children mean life style changes; giving up your freedom, independence, money, your selfish lifestyle, etc... and IMO, most men don't like to give that up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m reading ‘all the rage’ and it’s a bit hard to swallow. Tells of all these DHs which only do chores or take care of kids when told, try to maintain their independence and life before kids well after becoming parents, and always put their careers ahead of their working (and often breadwinning) DWs

One tale is about the mental load, such as summer camp regs, health forms, carpools, etc and how even after assigning a task to her DH he just blows it off until she does it

So many working moms manage and carry this load at work? Do any of their DHs DO task while at work, let along take initiative and carry some of that load?

My DH shoulders far more of the burden than I do. While both white collar professionals, his job has more flexibility and zero travel.

While it sounds great, I honestly think he does it to control the financial aspect. As an example, I might simply ask the kids where they want to go to camp and pay whatever it cost, whereas he will shop around and sign them up for something less expensive. Similarly, he does all the grocery shopping and hires all the handymen/home project people.

Because he shoulders the burden (his choice), he’s often stressed out. I would be more inclined to just throw money at problems, but he won’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look I used to have a lot of rage about this- a lot. Then I figured out that I want the control. You can’t have it both- either you do it yourself and control it or you pass it to DH and cede control. In my case, if I cede control, DC would have the iPad all day, chicken nuggets every night, may or may not have childcare, would go to bed at 11 pm... just easier for me to do it bc I need the control.

+1

OP described it herself: "One tale is about the mental load, such as summer camp regs, health forms, carpools, etc and how even after assigning a task to her DH he just blows it off until she does it."

Women want to do all this stuff. If we didn't, we wouldn't.

What? do you have Stockholm syndrome? childcare, healthy food, and sleep aren’t optional in child rearing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DH does take on full mental load stuff, but he didn't when they were babies/little. I don't know what precipitated the change. It happened gradually when they were about 8 and 10. He started planning the whole summer of childcare and various sleepaway and day camps. He posted the job listings on the local college board, interviewed summer/school year nannies/mannies. Was the POC with them for years of driving logistics, and we had to get a new one nearly every year.

He has done all summer camp research, forms, pede visits, bookings, coordination with other parents for groups of friends to go to the same camp at the same time. For years. It is so amazing.

Now they are teens and we are in 2 busy carpools, one for school one for soccer. He handles ALL the annoying text exchanges for those - 6 families and all their changes and week to week random needs. It is so great.

I have no idea why or how. I just feel grateful.


Now they are 14 and 16 and he does SO much more than I do.

we’re in the middle of this transition as well at 8, although I still and will likely always do far more than DH. also I can’t really forgive him for being MIA for all those years. He also refuses to recognize that there was any issue.