What is with DCUM women and "mental loads?"

[Anonymous]

I picked up my daughter from school once and she was sitting on her teacher’s lap with a hot-hands, shivering. DH had sent her in a rain jacket, and it was in the high 20s in the evening. The teacher told me she needed to wear appropriate clothing. No shit.

Of course I knew that it would get cold that day (this was November) but DH was oblivious to such things. I remember to lay out clothes the night before on days with erratic weather now.

That’s mental load: checking the weather when picking out the kid’s clothes. Is it hard? No. But men in the US haven’t been conditioned to know to do those kinds of things. So the women do them. Even if the man does some of the physical labor, like dropping off the kids, the mom still makes sure the clothes are appropriate and clean. While one example is just that — one — these things add up into a pretty big pile of distracting and annoying stuff moms deal with every day.

Could I just ‘trust’ my husband? Maybe, but the result is likely to be a cold kid and a teacher who talks to ME about correct clothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in an elementary school and often kids are sent to school without coats in the winter. Every single time, it's when the dad drops them off. Every. Time. If you say something to the father, their reply is along the lines of "oh, she forgot to grab it this morning! Oops!" Which may be acceptable for a 5th grader, but for a kindergartener or first grader, who can't be responsible for remembering every single thing they bring to school, it's not okay. The parent needs to verify that the kid has everything. And the next day, guess what, dad forgets the coat again.

But, talking with the dads got nowhere, so now we have to say something to the moms as well if we want the kids to be warm. So now, while dad is technically doing the drop off, mom has to take on the mental load of letting dad know he forgot the coat and making sure he brings it at all future drop offs. Now mom has to pack all school things up the night before, double check that dad got everything, remind her child to grab their coat, etc. And when that's happening for multiple little things, it all starts to add up.

And, even worse, dads will have excuses like "I don't know where her coat is" or for the divorced ones, "she doesn't have a coat at my place". So it's clear they think knowing where basic necessities are isn't important since mom can do it, and that mom should be responsible for getting necessities for dad's house, too.

Saw it play out in action among 8th graders at school today.

My kids *know* if they want outdoor play time, they need to clean up after lunch. They’ve been told a million times.

Yet without fail, the boys will finish eating and then start goofing off. The girls want to go out, so their options are to either do all the cleaning themselves, or they have to nag the boys over and over to clean up. This goes on until finally lunch time is over, they lost the opportunity to go out, and the boys are pissed at me since it’s somehow my fault they can’t remember to clean. Or, girls will finish cleaning everything, I’ll let them go out, and the boys start heading out the door thinking they’re entitled to go, too, despite doing zero work.

So the girls are carrying the load of 1. Remembering to clean up and 2. Doing most of the cleaning themselves.

Pissed me off so much today that the rest of the week, girls get to go out while boys have to stay behind and clean everything. They gotta learn somehow.

See the problem here isn’t the dynamic you describe. It’s the stupid rule that you have to clean up before going out.

WHo's going to clean up their lunch if they don't?

Cafeteria employees? Custodians? Isn't this their job?

To pick up the trash from their desk, put it in the trash can, pack up their Tupperwares back into their lunch box, wipe down their desk, and push their chair in?

You really think schools have it in their budget to hire multiple people to come to the school for 20 minutes to do this work? Or that anyone would even do that job? Who the hell wants to pick up after spoiled middle schoolers? It's not like they're being asked to mop the floors, it's literally cleaning up their own garbage.

Hell, if my H's solution to mental load was to make the extra money and hire someone to come over, literally follow me around cleaning up after me, and do every task I told them to with a smile on their face, AWESOME. But if a man doesn't make that kind of money - and most of them don't - he's gotta pitch in.

[Anonymous]

Superdad, the reason people are hostile is that their husbands don’t go any of that. They do nothing. Dead weight. Many women are married to men who don’t engage with their kids, don’t handle any finances, don’t cook or clean, don’t help with picking pediatricians or therapists or summer camps or whatever. You sound like a great dad. Surely you must know it’s not the norm.

You say your wife was a SAHM for a time when the kids were little, that she probably handled potty training. Well another thing you must realize about the posters being hostile is that they are in that phase now, or close to it. They might be SAHMs who don’t feel appreciated (presumably you appreciated your wife when she did this, you sound like someone with good relationships skills). Many of the hostile posters are working moms who are doing a lot of the SAHM stuff, have deadweight husbands, and have jobs. It’s a lot. It’s different when kids are older. Yes, there’s a mental load but as you demonstrate, you can share it with your kids if you e done a good job giving them independence. It’s been a while since you experienced young kids, and it sounds like your wife handled a lot of that. So people are annoyed by the “it’s not hard” comments from you — you are comparing apples to oranges.

Also, some husbands are not only dead weight but an added burden. They have undiagnosed ADHD or personality disorders or just… issues. And their wives are accommodating that while also doing most/all the housework and childcare. If you’ve never been married to someone like this it’s hard to explain. It increases the mental load in exponential ways. Your spouse becomes like another child, only one who is hostile to your attempts to help because he often is embarrassed and defensive about his issues and wants to pretend they aren’t happening.

Again, you seem like a great dad. Your girls are lucky. I’m sorry your wife passed. You should be proud of the family you’ve built. But you don’t know what others are going through. You don’t understand because you’ve not been in the same situation. Not all parenting experiences are the same. Sometimes you just have to listen and realize you only have the answers for your questions. You haven’t solved marriage, or parenting, or life. Accept that others may struggle in ways that seem foreign to you, and that does not automatically mean they are doing it wrong.

[Anonymous]

I’m not the pp who grilled you super dad but I do think you sound a little bit dismissive (kind of a lot dismissive). You do do a lot of work. You’ve got a well oiled machine now, I assume it was not always. Especially in the beginning (like when they were young not just when your wife passed, sorry about that btw). But acting like it’s not that hard of a load to bear when you say even in your description that getting your daughter into a god therapy program was not always easy.

You carry the mental load. I assume your wife provided value to your partnership, when she passed the things she did fell on you. Was that really no big deal?

Many women have shi??y partners. You don’t sound like a crappy partner, but acting like you can’t relate at all to wanting a present and active partner rings false

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Superdad, the reason people are hostile is that their husbands don’t go any of that. They do nothing.

Bingo.

Superdad does those things because he HAS to. No one else will.

But in a marriage where 2 people are supposed to divide the tasks, it's problematic for someone to one-sidedly decide they don't need to participate in those tasks and it's okay for the other person to take them all on solo.

Sort of like, I knew a couple who started a business together. Ownership was 50/50. After 3-4 years, business was doing GREAT. They were making tons of money. And then the male partner decided he'd rather pursue other things and completely checked out. Still owned half the business, still got half the profits, but spent his days pursuing hobbies and side interests rather than on the business. He figured things would run on autopilot, his partner could handle it alone, that somehow the money would still magically appear.

The female partner's workload was suddenly doubled and she ran herself into the ground trying to keep the business afloat. Developed severe anxiety and panic attacks from the pressure. And, the business fell apart. She suddenly had to take on double the clients, produced low-quality work as a result, and they all left. And she was stuck, because her options were to give up the business, the resources they'd acquired in the business, plus their relationship....or to just suck it up and hope she could manage until things improved.

Now, I own a business in the same field and run it solo. I know many people who run similar businesses solo. But, I know I'm running it solo, so I adjust my workload, prices, practices, etc accordingly. And, I don't have a second person who is dead weight that I have to carry. If, say, I had a business partner who could do half of the client meetings, but I had to put it on the calendar, explain to them exactly what to say, remind them of the meeting, following up afterwards, etc - or if, say, I didn't even know if they would show up or if they'd have an excuse of why they couldn't do it that day - it wouldn't be worth it for me to have the help, I may as well do it on my own.

[Anonymous]

I've been divorced for 2 years now. I still carry the entire mental load. I run my own business full time while raising two young children. It's infinitely easier to do it myself by myself, than to try to drag my spouse along begging for help, initiative, common sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Superdad, the reason people are hostile is that their husbands don’t go any of that. They do nothing. Dead weight. Many women are married to men who don’t engage with their kids, don’t handle any finances, don’t cook or clean, don’t help with picking pediatricians or therapists or summer camps or whatever. You sound like a great dad. Surely you must know it’s not the norm.

You say your wife was a SAHM for a time when the kids were little, that she probably handled potty training. Well another thing you must realize about the posters being hostile is that they are in that phase now, or close to it. They might be SAHMs who don’t feel appreciated (presumably you appreciated your wife when she did this, you sound like someone with good relationships skills). Many of the hostile posters are working moms who are doing a lot of the SAHM stuff, have deadweight husbands, and have jobs. It’s a lot. It’s different when kids are older. Yes, there’s a mental load but as you demonstrate, you can share it with your kids if you e done a good job giving them independence. It’s been a while since you experienced young kids, and it sounds like your wife handled a lot of that. So people are annoyed by the “it’s not hard” comments from you — you are comparing apples to oranges.

Also, some husbands are not only dead weight but an added burden. They have undiagnosed ADHD or personality disorders or just… issues. And their wives are accommodating that while also doing most/all the housework and childcare. If you’ve never been married to someone like this it’s hard to explain. It increases the mental load in exponential ways. Your spouse becomes like another child, only one who is hostile to your attempts to help because he often is embarrassed and defensive about his issues and wants to pretend they aren’t happening.

Again, you seem like a great dad. Your girls are lucky. I’m sorry your wife passed. You should be proud of the family you’ve built. But you don’t know what others are going through. You don’t understand because you’ve not been in the same situation. Not all parenting experiences are the same. Sometimes you just have to listen and realize you only have the answers for your questions. You haven’t solved marriage, or parenting, or life. Accept that others may struggle in ways that seem foreign to you, and that does not automatically mean they are doing it wrong.

Be that as it may, the point remains that a lot of this whining about “mental loads” is self-inflicted dysfunction, likely internalized by what they think they *should* be doing.

I also reject your assertion that the disengaged dad is the norm. I will not concede that for a minute. It certainly isn’t my experience with my circle of
Dad, ie my poker buddies. It’s actually more of a cliche and a trope. You hear it here because people with axes to grind are whining — do not confuse that with the norm. Sucks to be them, but they are the ones having deviances from the norm.

Also, there is a heavy bias toward what contributions to family life should be valued or “count” as mental load. But you are insane if you are going to assert with a straight fact that the mental load of remembering to send a nephew a gift is the same as being sure the mortgage is paid or retaining job security more broadly. Or the mental load of many other things martyr moms don’t value but are every bit as important if not more so than the relatively insignificant things they obsess about, often because they feel pressure to be in competition with other women in their communities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in an elementary school and often kids are sent to school without coats in the winter. Every single time, it's when the dad drops them off. Every. Time. If you say something to the father, their reply is along the lines of "oh, she forgot to grab it this morning! Oops!" Which may be acceptable for a 5th grader, but for a kindergartener or first grader, who can't be responsible for remembering every single thing they bring to school, it's not okay. The parent needs to verify that the kid has everything. And the next day, guess what, dad forgets the coat again.

But, talking with the dads got nowhere, so now we have to say something to the moms as well if we want the kids to be warm. So now, while dad is technically doing the drop off, mom has to take on the mental load of letting dad know he forgot the coat and making sure he brings it at all future drop offs. Now mom has to pack all school things up the night before, double check that dad got everything, remind her child to grab their coat, etc. And when that's happening for multiple little things, it all starts to add up.

And, even worse, dads will have excuses like "I don't know where her coat is" or for the divorced ones, "she doesn't have a coat at my place". So it's clear they think knowing where basic necessities are isn't important since mom can do it, and that mom should be responsible for getting necessities for dad's house, too.

Saw it play out in action among 8th graders at school today.

My kids *know* if they want outdoor play time, they need to clean up after lunch. They’ve been told a million times.

Yet without fail, the boys will finish eating and then start goofing off. The girls want to go out, so their options are to either do all the cleaning themselves, or they have to nag the boys over and over to clean up. This goes on until finally lunch time is over, they lost the opportunity to go out, and the boys are pissed at me since it’s somehow my fault they can’t remember to clean. Or, girls will finish cleaning everything, I’ll let them go out, and the boys start heading out the door thinking they’re entitled to go, too, despite doing zero work.

So the girls are carrying the load of 1. Remembering to clean up and 2. Doing most of the cleaning themselves.

Pissed me off so much today that the rest of the week, girls get to go out while boys have to stay behind and clean everything. They gotta learn somehow.

See the problem here isn’t the dynamic you describe. It’s the stupid rule that you have to clean up before going out.

Not teacher PP.

What? The students shouldn’t clean up after themselves before going out to recess?

Don’t tell me - you have a maid, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really don't understand this term "mental" load, maybe menial load, physical load, but mental - no, that's not right.

I think the idea is that even if you can delegate tasks to your spouse, you still have to do the mental work of figuring out what’s coming, figuring out the solutions and assigning the tasks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in an elementary school and often kids are sent to school without coats in the winter. Every single time, it's when the dad drops them off. Every. Time. If you say something to the father, their reply is along the lines of "oh, she forgot to grab it this morning! Oops!" Which may be acceptable for a 5th grader, but for a kindergartener or first grader, who can't be responsible for remembering every single thing they bring to school, it's not okay. The parent needs to verify that the kid has everything. And the next day, guess what, dad forgets the coat again.

But, talking with the dads got nowhere, so now we have to say something to the moms as well if we want the kids to be warm. So now, while dad is technically doing the drop off, mom has to take on the mental load of letting dad know he forgot the coat and making sure he brings it at all future drop offs. Now mom has to pack all school things up the night before, double check that dad got everything, remind her child to grab their coat, etc. And when that's happening for multiple little things, it all starts to add up.

And, even worse, dads will have excuses like "I don't know where her coat is" or for the divorced ones, "she doesn't have a coat at my place". So it's clear they think knowing where basic necessities are isn't important since mom can do it, and that mom should be responsible for getting necessities for dad's house, too.

Saw it play out in action among 8th graders at school today.

My kids *know* if they want outdoor play time, they need to clean up after lunch. They’ve been told a million times.

Yet without fail, the boys will finish eating and then start goofing off. The girls want to go out, so their options are to either do all the cleaning themselves, or they have to nag the boys over and over to clean up. This goes on until finally lunch time is over, they lost the opportunity to go out, and the boys are pissed at me since it’s somehow my fault they can’t remember to clean. Or, girls will finish cleaning everything, I’ll let them go out, and the boys start heading out the door thinking they’re entitled to go, too, despite doing zero work.

So the girls are carrying the load of 1. Remembering to clean up and 2. Doing most of the cleaning themselves.

Pissed me off so much today that the rest of the week, girls get to go out while boys have to stay behind and clean everything. They gotta learn somehow.

This needs to be the status quo until the boys get it together and clean up their share. Please don’t allow the girls to clean up the boys’ messes or be penalized for the boys’ poor behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in an elementary school and often kids are sent to school without coats in the winter. Every single time, it's when the dad drops them off. Every. Time. If you say something to the father, their reply is along the lines of "oh, she forgot to grab it this morning! Oops!" Which may be acceptable for a 5th grader, but for a kindergartener or first grader, who can't be responsible for remembering every single thing they bring to school, it's not okay. The parent needs to verify that the kid has everything. And the next day, guess what, dad forgets the coat again.

But, talking with the dads got nowhere, so now we have to say something to the moms as well if we want the kids to be warm. So now, while dad is technically doing the drop off, mom has to take on the mental load of letting dad know he forgot the coat and making sure he brings it at all future drop offs. Now mom has to pack all school things up the night before, double check that dad got everything, remind her child to grab their coat, etc. And when that's happening for multiple little things, it all starts to add up.

And, even worse, dads will have excuses like "I don't know where her coat is" or for the divorced ones, "she doesn't have a coat at my place". So it's clear they think knowing where basic necessities are isn't important since mom can do it, and that mom should be responsible for getting necessities for dad's house, too.

Saw it play out in action among 8th graders at school today.

My kids *know* if they want outdoor play time, they need to clean up after lunch. They’ve been told a million times.

Yet without fail, the boys will finish eating and then start goofing off. The girls want to go out, so their options are to either do all the cleaning themselves, or they have to nag the boys over and over to clean up. This goes on until finally lunch time is over, they lost the opportunity to go out, and the boys are pissed at me since it’s somehow my fault they can’t remember to clean. Or, girls will finish cleaning everything, I’ll let them go out, and the boys start heading out the door thinking they’re entitled to go, too, despite doing zero work.

So the girls are carrying the load of 1. Remembering to clean up and 2. Doing most of the cleaning themselves.

Pissed me off so much today that the rest of the week, girls get to go out while boys have to stay behind and clean everything. They gotta learn somehow.

See the problem here isn’t the dynamic you describe. It’s the stupid rule that you have to clean up before going out.

Not teacher PP.

What? The students shouldn’t clean up after themselves before going out to recess?

Don’t tell me - you have a maid, right?

Probably a guy who thinks the magic cleaning fairy comes along behind him. Bet he leaves dirty dishes in the sink at work. UGH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Superdad, the reason people are hostile is that their husbands don’t go any of that. They do nothing. Dead weight. Many women are married to men who don’t engage with their kids, don’t handle any finances, don’t cook or clean, don’t help with picking pediatricians or therapists or summer camps or whatever. You sound like a great dad. Surely you must know it’s not the norm.

You say your wife was a SAHM for a time when the kids were little, that she probably handled potty training. Well another thing you must realize about the posters being hostile is that they are in that phase now, or close to it. They might be SAHMs who don’t feel appreciated (presumably you appreciated your wife when she did this, you sound like someone with good relationships skills). Many of the hostile posters are working moms who are doing a lot of the SAHM stuff, have deadweight husbands, and have jobs. It’s a lot. It’s different when kids are older. Yes, there’s a mental load but as you demonstrate, you can share it with your kids if you e done a good job giving them independence. It’s been a while since you experienced young kids, and it sounds like your wife handled a lot of that. So people are annoyed by the “it’s not hard” comments from you — you are comparing apples to oranges.

Also, some husbands are not only dead weight but an added burden. They have undiagnosed ADHD or personality disorders or just… issues. And their wives are accommodating that while also doing most/all the housework and childcare. If you’ve never been married to someone like this it’s hard to explain. It increases the mental load in exponential ways. Your spouse becomes like another child, only one who is hostile to your attempts to help because he often is embarrassed and defensive about his issues and wants to pretend they aren’t happening.

Again, you seem like a great dad. Your girls are lucky. I’m sorry your wife passed. You should be proud of the family you’ve built. But you don’t know what others are going through. You don’t understand because you’ve not been in the same situation. Not all parenting experiences are the same. Sometimes you just have to listen and realize you only have the answers for your questions. You haven’t solved marriage, or parenting, or life. Accept that others may struggle in ways that seem foreign to you, and that does not automatically mean they are doing it wrong.

Be that as it may, the point remains that a lot of this whining about “mental loads” is self-inflicted dysfunction, likely internalized by what they think they *should* be doing.

I also reject your assertion that the disengaged dad is the norm. I will not concede that for a minute. It certainly isn’t my experience with my circle of
Dad, ie my poker buddies. It’s actually more of a cliche and a trope. You hear it here because people with axes to grind are whining — do not confuse that with the norm. Sucks to be them, but they are the ones having deviances from the norm.

Also, there is a heavy bias toward what contributions to family life should be valued or “count” as mental load. But you are insane if you are going to assert with a straight fact that the mental load of remembering to send a nephew a gift is the same as being sure the mortgage is paid or retaining job security more broadly. Or the mental load of many other things martyr moms don’t value but are every bit as important if not more so than the relatively insignificant things they obsess about, often because they feel pressure to be in competition with other women in their communities.

Could be that you and your poker buddies are not the norm. Because there are many peer-reviewed sociological studies with much larger sample sizes that affirm what moms--especially moms who work outside the home with full-time jobs--are experiencing. Please do not dismiss this as "self-inflected dysfunction." Your small sample size, and your unusual position, are not the norm.

[Anonymous]

I look at mental load as who helps the kids emotionally. I have three daughters and there are lots of up and downs with emotions - some even with more serious mental conditions such as anxiety. My DH does not deal with any of that. He is somewhat checked out when it comes to their emotional needs so I take on the mental load of helping them or just being there and listening or sometimes taking action. I am very alone in that and it is hard. He gets defensive if I try to bring it up but quite frankly, they don't want his input these days anyway since he is so checked out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay, but it sucks that its up to women to "facilitate the learning" of their loving but clueless husbands. It's like having another child to parent.

Right? Delegating and teaching and reminding is more mental load. It was worth it for us, but not stress free.

And as I’m always thinking (as I’m explaining something to him that I took the time to learn/research myself): “We started this job (parenting) AT THE SAME TIME. ON THE SAME DAY! So why am I teaching you? If I learned this stuff, why didn’t you bother to figure it out, too?”

[Anonymous]

I’m not complaining bc I truly don’t mind it and accepted it when we decided to have kids but I handle basically every mental task related to raising our kids:
-meal planning and grocery shopping for family meals (DH does cook sometimes but I do all the planning and shopping, thus mental work of it, plus most of the actual cooking too
-scheduling and taking kids to all Dr. and dentist visits. DH might ask how the appt was later but that’s the extent of his involvement.
-registering kids for activities, school, camp, etc. I will ask DH’s opinion after I’ve done the research, gotten the info, etc but he has never been one to look anything up related to kid school or activities and doesn’t know when deadlines are or anything related to that. Thus I’m the one mentally thinking of it and planning and arranging it.
-scheduling play dates, planning bday parties, arranging any type of social gatherings my kids participate in. If it was up to DH, the kids would never have any play dates or social outings as DH doesn’t plan these types of things, doesn’t make an effort to get to know kids’ friends’ parents, etc. If I didn’t do this our kids would probably have some impromptu/unplanned get togethers w neighbors occasionally but that’s it.
-buying gifts for the kids for bdays and Christmas. I’ll ask my DH’s opinion on stuff and he does want them to get things they like/be happy w their gifts but he really doesn’t care what they get as long as I handle it.
-buying kids’ clothing and shoes. He doesn’t know their current sizes, has never once bought an article of clothing for them. I have no doubt that if I didn’t take care of this my kids would be wearing too small/weather inappropriate clothing and shoes for quite awhile before my husband noticed. He doesn’t think about things like this!
-planning family outings and vacations. We’d never go anywhere except the neighborhood park and occasionally my in laws’ house if it were up to my husband to think of this. My kids likely wouldn’t have ever been to a museum, zoo, special event, the pool.

I could go on but I think I’ve made my point. Are any of those things difficult to do? No. Is it a ton Of extra work for me? No. Do I resent my husband? No. And like I said I expected to be primary parent when we had kids. But that ^^ is a mental load i carry that he does not. If I were to die tomorrow I think it would take my husband a very long time if ever to get the hang of taking over all those “planning and organizing and thinking ahead” kid-related tasks. And he’s a loving, patient, involved father who is crazy about our kids. He just doesn’t think about their needs in the way I do bc he doesn’t have to bc I do all that mental work for him.