5d ago

How do you manage the mental load in a partnership as parents?

www.bodyandsoul.com.au /houseofwellness/it-feels-like-im-the-only-one-truly-holding-it-all-together-what-i-wish-my-partner-knew-about-mental-load/news-story/d4f4575b888dfd5fc9e7dd6ec2e15bdb

Before we became parents the concept of "Mental Load" was largely theoretical as both of us were easily able to manage the everyday logistics of our own lives. With children coming into the equation everything suddenly becomes a juggling exercise - at least that was our experience.

I've read in several publications that the mental load or, to use a different wording, the organisation of everyday logistics is often predominantly done by women/mothers.

We try to share all tasks as evenly as possible. We both work approximately the same amount of time. We both earn similar wages. We share costs on a 50:50 basis. We both took the exact same amount of parental leave. However, the logistics of everyday life have, without even trying to aim for that, drifted more towards my wife.

How do you go about sharing this task? What kind of technical/IT solutions do you use to remain on the same page? Is it even necessary to share this task or are there others ways to "specialise" in certain areas of being a parent?

16 comments

I'm a dad of two kids, but married to a man, so we didn't have preconceived gender roles. Instead of looking at what is fair division, look at what's important to you and your partner. Then take that role on.
For me, birthday cakes, homemade is important. He prefers store bought. I do that. For him, laundry should be done when the basket is full, for me, it should be done when the cupboard is empty. He does that.
The issue is if one parent is doing too much or things don't get done. The other stuff that is not important, you just have to divvy up. It's important that you're both clear on that. I wouldn't to leave the cake to him and be disappointed it's storming bought. If he's busy and can't do laundry, he tells me. Obviously both help out where possible. If I'm at end of closet and going a load of clothes, I do his and the kids. If he's at the shop the day before a kids birthday, he checks it I'm baking or need ingredients.
You just need to cover the basics. The rest is as it happens. However, when simple stuff like school forms. Having one parent responsible for all permission slips means less checking with each other as to if it's done. One parent can just ignore emails and reminders.
- Thanks for sharing! It's interesting to get the perspective from a non-heterosexual couple. We should really try to share our experience as a "regular" married couple with friends of ours who also have two children but happen to be two mothers.

I am not qualified to speak on this in any way, but here my 2 cents:
I really like your relationship dynamic, and how you try to do everything 50/50. But keep in kind, this is not a contract. You don't have to do anything in particular so long as you're both happy.
What I'm getting at is that if your partner hasn't mentioned being dissatisfied, then by attempting to solve a non-issue you could potentially create one.
On the other hand, from your perspective, if you want to feel like you're doing more, then just do that. It doesnt have to be planned or signficant or anything at all really. It can be as simple as opening the door for them or taking out the trash or handwashing their car. Any time you have free time and want to help out more, just find something to do. If they've already done the housework, maybe that was their decision. Maybe they wanted to do that to make things easier on you. It's good to appreciate that, but it oeaves you with seemingly nothing to do in return. But housework isnt the only thing you can do to show appreciation. Give them a massage, get them a gift, secretely handle one of their responsibilities. Whatever you do, do not handle this as a bargain unless thats the relationship you two have. Ultimatums (this is my responsibility, that is yours, if you dont do yours i wont do mine) are always bad, and its not like youre doing this so they owe you. Presumably they feel the same way.

It’s important to identify the tasks you and your spouse do, and how you feel about them. Sharing the loaf works better if there are things your spouse does that you personally despise doing.
For example, I do all the shopping, cooking, working, and clean the kitchen. It’s a heavy load, but those are all things I don’t mind doing so it’s tolerable. My wife handles laundry, cleaning most of the rest of the home, meal planning, and does a higher proportion of the direct child care. She doesn’t mind those things nearly as much as she hates the tasks I do.
As one of us burns out from one task or other, we frequently check in and adjust. Sometimes I just can’t deal with the kitchen anymore and we order in takeout for a couple days. Sometimes she’s overwhelmed by chores and we tag team getting the obvious tasks done while the kid is napping.
For technology, AnyList has been a killer app. Being able to collaborate on meal planning and building shopping lists is amazingly useful.
I think the broader problem with mental labour is that men have typically been blind to many of the general maintenance tasks that women have silently done for generations, and this unspoken arrangement creates resentment. As long as you keep that in mind, it’s pretty easy to have conversations about it. Like other posters have said - make a list! Once you’ve written down all the things that have to happen to keep a household running, you can delegate them accordingly or at least make it highly visible as to who does what. It’s not necessarily wrong to have an imbalance, provided you’re both aware and honest about it.

It's just a drop in the ocean, but I set up a family calendar and I put in everything I come across which needs to be dealt with into it and we both can see it in our phones and on the morning dashboard in the living room. I ask my wife to also populate it which she occasionally does. It helps to not need to keep it in your head all the time because you see it every morning on the dashboard for the next couple of days. Things like:
Renew child A's visa
Make child K write an essay on a regular basis
Vaccination for child A
Prepare for child K's school trip
Change bed sheets
Bring child K to birthday party
Register for child K's Summer Program
Go to Photo studio with child A
Call the bank about moving money abroad
Ceramic class
Visit grandparents
and so on. The thing is when I don't know about it then I can't even offer to take it over. This way it's also a bit more visible for both of us what the other is doing so we can share easier.
- Awesome! Which tool(s) do you use for the family calendar and task sharing?
  
  We practically only use the calendar, it's possible to use tasks also with it but there is no native tool for it on iOS which my wife uses so we don't use it.
  I selfhost https://radicale.org/v3.html and just added the calendar to iOS as a CalDav calendar, in GNOME Calendar and with help of DAVx5 on Android with the built in calendar. And then I added it to Home Assistant too, and made a dashboard which I automatically show at 7am on the TV.

Talk through how you want to deal with this in your family, but here are some suggestions:
Give daycare, pediatrics, classmates parents, and family and friends your contact info and instruct them to call you first hand for appointments, meetings or emergencies. Don't ignore calls from babysitters, daycare or medical staff regardless of how important your current meeting is. You're the primary contact.
A lot of them will still probably call your wife first no matter how hard you enforce this, so enforcing this will split the burden and responsibility.
Make sure you know your child's SSN, birthday, allergies, sizes, current number of socks, favourite toys, and teachers and friends. Dress them for the weather they will be in throughout the day, and always pack extra because they will get wet or dirty or lose stuff.
Keep a family calendar where you can see appointments, and make sure to take a majority of those appointments if possible (plenty of responsibility will be pushed onto your wife regardless).
Add playmates and family members birthdays and other events to the calendar, and go shopping for gifts at least a few weeks before, without being prompted by anything other than the calendar. Wrap the gifts yourself or pay for wrapping at the store.
Let your wife know (or maybe add a checkbox to the calendar and check it off when the preparations are done) that it's taken care of if it's a shared task, but don't bother her with it if it's your specific job - that's your responsibility and nothing she needs to keep in mind at all.
Keep count of diapers and socks and formula etc, and buy new (in the right size) without being prompted. You don't need instructions for every little thing regarding your own child, you can take responsibility without being given it.
- Give daycare, pediatrics, classmates parents, and family and friends your contact info and instruct them to call you first
  Where I live (Germany), many organisations seem afraid to call the father, even if specifically instructed to do so in my experience. Our day care for example never hesitated to call my wife for every little last thing when they knew she was on parental leave. When they knew that she was working full time again and I was on parental leave the day care seemed reluctant to call me. Even when they did, they apparently had a mental block that meant they would communicate very differently with me than with my wife. It almost feels like a man's time is usually respected while a woman's time is regarded as "free", so she can pick up the kids anytime anywhere at the drop of a hat.
  Make sure you know your child's SSN, birthday, allergies
  We found that keeping a shared cloud storage for things like mail from the various bureaucratic institutions we need to deal with as parents has been very helpful. Everything is available at any time without having to spend half an hour searching for the right piece of paper.
  Keep a family calendar where you can see appointments
  We use a google family calendar, which works like a charm. We're trying to limit the exposure to google and similar evil tech companies recently. Do you know of a good alternative to the family calendar that doesn't consist of just inviting each other to dozens of events?
  
  If you're self hosting other things already then https://radicale.org/v3.html or https://nextcloud.com/ offer shared calendars.
  
  It's crazy. My short stint working in child care I would always call the male parent first if I had their contacts, but it seems deeply ingrained in people to consider a mother "parent" and father "helper".
  Maybe they'd be more comfortable calling you if you called them every day "just to check up, to see how the kid is doing", making it abundantly (and annoyingly) clear that you have nothing but time for your kid. And encourage your wife to respond "Have you called the primary contact?" whenever someone calls her.
  I only have my own phone calendar, no shared alternatives unfortunately, but there is a multitude of options when you search for "family calendars". Or create a personal calendar for your child with both of you having the password and colour code it for who is responsible for each entry.

So much good advice here. I came to say things that felt important and I actualy just read through the comments and learned.
I'd add just one important thing: it is a constant struggle, but it is should not be a fight between partners. It is so easy to just blame the special other and pick a fight, but it is wrong, plain wrong, not only morally wrong. No matter the composition of the family, even without kids, taking care is a job that we collectively give too little credit to, yet it is THE most necessary, in the many forms caring can take.
You writing this post is already a lot of care, am I right? Keep this up <3

It's important to talk and understand what is part of "mental load" for the other. There are some aspects of life that you might not think is a load but is for your partner. I'd say that anything that would make you less tired will have a positive impact on your capacity to handle mental load as well.
Go for a walk outside with the kid during its nap so the other can sleep (even a small noise from the baby could wake you up)
The house will be less clean and tidy than before : how much does it have an impact on you (you tired + house is a mess)
You can anticipate your medical appointements and check when are mandatory visits (check up + vaccines)
Clothes will not last long, try to get some "old baby clothes" (they have been worn like twice) so you have always clean clothes + you don't have to run to the shop because its too small
Leave clean baby clothes in your trunk.
You can subscribe to automatic diapers delivery online (+ wipes etc..) so are less likely to worry about running out of diapers

I'd say, try to identify WHY they are drifting towards her, and see if you (both) can change that underlying cause.
In my case no technical/IT solution (and I'm an IT person). We just talked. If we needed more help with something we asked each other. Sometimes you can preempt (e.g. putting in a wash load), sometimes you are just too tired for going with a walk with the baby and so you ask.
We were lucky that I need less sleep than her and we were already in a routine about shopping, admin, cooking etc. But she had more of a view of what kind of baby clothes we needed, because she was in touch with other moms (so they swapped clothes when they grew out of them). That and the health checks (and vaccinations) are the only thing that were pretty much only on her (health checks because the hospital had her contact details, plus health checks were for her too). She had much more parental leave than me (9 months vs 2 weeks!).
Basically if there was anything to do around the house (cleaning, shopping, cooking, admin) that I could do, I did. Stuff related to "baby admin" she did. That is not to say she did nothing around the house, just that when you are surviving in 2hours of sleep at a time it gets difficult!
Tl, dr: talk talk talk
- Thanks for the insight! We talk a lot and I would hope we still manage to share a bunch of the load by taking charge of particular aspects. For instance, just like you described, my wife is in touch with other mothers and is therefore much deeper into clothes thanks to clothes sharing. Meanwhile I try to keep track of always having an adequate supply of food for the children. Still, I feel like it's been drifting more into her direction lately, which we want to rectify.

This is a pertinent reminder that I too have let the mental load ratio slide at times, young kids here in hetero relationship. For a while we have divided the day-to-day duties into a morning and night activities split. For cooking and cleaning we both handle it as our timing allows and the mess develops. Since my work schedule is more flexible I address intra-day child needs like dropping things off at school, doctor's appointments.
My future planning and preparation are weaker than my wife's or maybe thats the tendency to shift my mental load on her for those sorts of tasks. To balance out I'm the one taking action on most of the activities that were scheduled, shopping for food. In that way the planning step was hers but the follow through is mine (and reliably so).
Regardless of the actual distribution though of any given tasks or load, as others have shared its probably the communication on the perceived burden that is more important.

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