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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain. [/quote]

All of these things being … picking out some clothing, getting some cookies and a birthday present? That … sounds … exhausting? Is that what my takeaway is here?

At any point was there some discussion in the family? “Larla, find a green shirt. Marla, get your read dress. Darla, pick out a present on Amazon. Honey, can you pick up some snickerdoodles on the way home?”[/quote]

Right. I definitely feel like a child writing and receiving an award for a speech is capable of getting a birthday present and saying dad my show is on x day and time be there.
Alot of this mental load stuff is being a parent and the struggle is created by the need for rigid control, and refusal to delegate [/quote]

Being the person who delegates is part of the mental load.

Why can't dad read his emails from the school and look at the party invite and figure out what needs to be done and delegate it? Why can't mom be the one who just follows orders and doesn't have to do any of the planning and organizing and delegating?

The reason why is because it's the hard part. Paying attention to all the dates and school requests and staying organized and remembering little details like that the blue shirt has to be long sleeve or the birthday kid likes dinosaurs is the hard part. And juggling it all without screwing something up.

This is why, for instance, a store manager usually makes a lot more than a cashier, and the store manager job requires more training and experience, and the cashier is completely replaceable. Because just standing there until someone tells you explicitly what to do is not actually hard. It's not nothing, but it's not hard. Being the person who has to figure out what needs to be done, figure out how best it should be accomplished, and then communicate those plans to a group of people is actually hard.[/quote]

DP Both spouses should be 50/50 involved. All family should be involved as much as possible.

Also, don't just over-burden yourself "noiselessly". If I need help, I ask. We delegate responsibility. We allow those responsible to execute.

[/quote]

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