Reply to What is with DCUM women and "mental loads?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]Completely optional:[/b] Christmas cards, professional photo shoots, coordinating outfits, gifts or cards for extended family and friends, demanding extracurriculars/travel sports, decorating for holidays, travel for pleasure, home renovations

[b]Somewhat optional:[/b] Gifts or cards for close family/in-laws, camps or activities with stringent deadlines, charitable giving, volunteer work. Sports, scouting, tutoring, art/music instruction, clubs. Cultural activities/dining out. Pet care/vet/training. Holiday tips, teacher gifts, yearbooks, PTA. Church.

[b]Technically/possibly optional:[/b] Field trips, school pictures, orthodontia, birthday parties, fundraisers, school dances/plays/activities/snack/potlucks. Playdates, entertaining. Birthday, holiday gifts/celebrations for immediate family. Travel to see family, assisting elderly relatives, weddings. Supervising homework, teacher conferences, extra credit. Therapies, specialized programming. Home improvement, gardening. Meal planning.

[b]Not optional:[/b] tracking school calendar, securing child care/aftercare/summer programming, doctor/dental appointments, haircuts, clothes and shoes. Sick days. Forms/paperwork for school. Paying bills, grocery shopping, food prep, home/yard maintenance. Cleaning. Covid impacts/quarantines.
[/quote]

Agree to some extent, though the stuff in the "possibly optional" list includes things that, if you don't do them, could be considered neglectful, if not legally then by your kid's future therapist. A parent who didn't sign yup for school photos, throw birthday parties, help with homework, attend parent/teacher conference... that's a crap parent, sorry.

I also think the non-optional list is MUCH longer for parents of small children. Like... a lot. Kids under the age of five require so much care, even if you have a full time nanny. Potty training, bathing, feeding, getting dressed, discipline and emotional guidance, etc. Even if your kid is in care all day (and lining up care for kids this age takes a lot because the care is so much), a parent has to be providing all this stuff at home. Yes, some of this is physical  (physically dressing them, physically showing them how to use the bathroom, physically bathing them) but there are tons of mental load tasks involved. Figuring out how to potty train and then implementing that strategy and shifting as necessary can take a year or more, and a lot of it can be mental if you have a kid who trains slowly. Getting them dressed and bathing goes from a physical task to a partially mental one as they get older and you are actually teaching them/encouraging them to do it themselves. Discipline and emotional guidance is almost all mental load as they go through those difficult stages of developing huge feelings before they have much in the way of communication skills or other resources. I mean, having a 3 year old is draining in a way that is so hard to describe. It's physical, it's mental, it's emotional. When that falls primarily on one person, it's really hard.

And then people forget so quickly! It's such a relief when your kid gets to K or 1st grade and they can do so many things on their own and you just don't really think as much about having to check EVERY TIME you leave or return to the house to see if they need to pee. You can sit down to a meal and they just eat it and aren't squirming around, running away, demanding other food, etc. In the morning they just... get dressed. They even start reminding you of stuff "No, it's Tuesday, I have soccer remember." It's amazing. And you quickly forget what it was like when you had to do all of that for them. But you did. And if one parent was doing it and the other wasn't -- that is an enormous mental load. I was the primary parent through this stage and I've never been so tired in my life. Ever.  I'm sure I'm in for surprises in the teen years but the sheer minute-by-minute focus required to take care of a child between the ages of 0 and 5 is enormous.

That's what I think of when I think of mental load, and I think that's when it is most critical in most marriages. I'm surprised how much of the discussion I this thread has focused on older children because I don't think those are the moms who struggle the most under the mental load (at least not in my experience/observation). It's moms of young kids, especially as they return to work (if they ever left) and try to balance caring for largely helpless, tiny children and also having some semblance of a life or career. It's incredibly hard. That's the mental load, to me.[/quote]

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