Mental Load

[EmseB]

I am not speaking about two income familes. I don't know how people divvy that up without someone feeling put upon. At that point, everyone wants to come home to relax, but no one really can because all the home work isn't done.

Even when we were at our lowest income level after baby came, qualifying for govt assistance, both of us put so much importance on having one person manage home that I stayed home. I could deal with beans and rice; I couldn't hack staying at work all day and having enough left over for my kids. Outside work exhausted me.

I am at a loss for people trying to run a career and a family and yet I know people who wouldn't ever choose to stay home with the kids, and I know some for whom it's a necessity...But that's not what I was posting about in any case.

[maize]

I think there is some truth to the idea that only one person can have primary responsibility in a given sphere. Spheres can be large or small, but expecting two different people to be and act equally responsible for the same things at the same time is not something I see working well.

My grandparents had large, clearly delineated spheres. He was a farmer, a back-breaking, never ending job in a time and place where crops depended on irrigation turns at all hours of the day and night with hand set siphons. Grandma's sphere was the house and kids--all the cleaning, cooking, canning, etc.

Both of them worked like crazy and I'd say the load was pretty evenly shared--he never slaved over a hot stove canning quart after quart of beans and applesauce and tomatoes or kept up with the endless laundry and childcare and she never spent night after night driving between fields and managing the water turns and mucking out ditches and endless plowing and harrowing and planting and harvesting.

That's not the way most of us live now though; men and women both usually have breadwinning jobs which means easy subdivisions like the man does outside work and the woman does inside work (as on the farm, though of course it wasn't quite that simple a division) just don't work--certainly not when children are involved. And while many here are at home parents we are also homeschooling parents and of course educating children is itself a full-time job. Not only that but the expectations around parenting are much more complex than they used to be--in previous generations little Johnny and Jane were expected to be either helping with the work (mostly that of the same sex parent) or were left to their own devices, maybe sent to school for a few months of the year. 

Things have shifted towards women taking on more roles that used to be exclusive to men, but generally independent of their husband's spheres (i.e. they're not just sharing a husband's career) so there hasn't been confusion on that side with regards to who is responsible within a given sphere. But that leaves all the home and family stuff, what used to be fairly clearly delineated as the wife's sphere but now she's got too many spheres and it seems this sphere needs to be shared so she wonders why her husband isn't taking equal responsibility with her. But I don't think he really can--not as long as she is also claiming responsibility. Maybe some couples can in fact share responsibility without discomfort and friction but I doubt most can.

Probably the solution for many needs to be fairly explicit subdivision of the home and family spheres. Maybe wife handles all the bills and husband manages bedtime and wife supervises homework and husband cooks dinner and wife manages lawn care and husband manages car care and wife keeps up with kids' clothing needs and husband handles regular medical and dental appointments.

But I dunno, it's all theoretical to me. 

Edited March 15, 2019 by maize
Edited because my phone likes to randomly capitalize things

[EmseB]

8 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

OK. 

You don't believe there is a gender-based mental load.

I disagree.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

Maybe being around mostly military familes makes me think it's more egalitarian? Could that be the difference?

I can say I think there was a huge one in previous generations. Basically the attitude from husbands was, "if you want to go to work, that's fine, but it doesn't change anything on my end." And women were told they could do it all! Bring home the bacon and fry it in the pan!

I don't see that attitude in my peers/neighbors hardly at all anymore. There are no more assumptions about household tasks or who takes care of what and wives are expected by their husbands to get a job, but they are expected to handle more of the home stuff. Or it's expected to be hired out. There was a neighbour kid just here who has a lawyer mom, mil dad, I overheard, "What's Dad making for dinner?"

I rarely encounter traditional gender load homes anymore outside of my own...enough that I always feel like a weirdo, only mom hime with kids during the day, etc.

[maize]

13 hours ago, StellaM said:

 

Wait...so you think gendered mental load exists, but women are to blame for that too, because they don't relinquish the home sphere, and they should do that and not complain, whether it's done competently or not ?

 

I think spheres need to be explicitly divided out.

Women tend to fall into carrying the home and family load partly because that's what their mothers did, partly because that's what men saw their mothers do, partly because we've got some darn strong biological drives when it comes to taking care of our children from infancy along with certain biological equipment that men don't have and certain patterns are easy to fall into.

Not a fault thing, but a reality. Turning around and saying "men need to just take equal responsibility for all this big home and family sphere" isn't something I see working. What workplace runs with everybody equally responsible for everything? 

Realistically yeah it's likely the women who are going to have to head up any re-organization and division of spheres effort cause they're mostly the ones who know what's what in the home and family sphere and who are currently carrying the load.

I'm looking for practical and practicable, not idealistic.

Edited March 16, 2019 by maize

[Corraleno]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

Again - if the shoe were on the other foot - if the husband were publishing criticisms of his wife to the whole world and not caring if she got embarrassed;

She's a writer. She wrote an article, with her husband's permission, about the effect on her of having to carry nearly 100% of the mental load for the family, and how frustrating and stressful that is to her, and how common it actually is for women to be forced to carry an unreasonable shore of the load. But by all means lets focus on the poor mistreated husband, who may have preferred that his refusal to pick up his own socks remain forever hidden. If he found the behavior she described embarrassing, then maybe he shouldn't have behaved that way.

 

1 hour ago, SKL said:

if a group of men were piling on to a wife for not doing her husband's usual job perfectly, on the first try, without asking questions - you would probably not be sounding so supportive of that husband or those critics. 

She wasn't complaining that he didn't do HER job, or a "lack of perfection," and this was for sure not the first time he had ever been asked to step up and take over some of the tasks that were being dumped on her by default. But thanks for proving my point by framing this in a way that makes the husband entirely blameless for leaving his dirty clothes all over the place, not putting things away, and not providing his wife with the help she asked for even when she was reduced to asking for basic help as a present. The idea that hiring a cleaning service is of course her job, all these things are by default her job, is EXACTLY what she is complaining about. Why is this, like pretty much everything else, automatically her job? Why can't it be his job, why does it even need to be framed as a "present" to get him to hire a cleaning service? And then he wouldn't even do it as a freaking present. 

 

1 hour ago, SKL said:

Why must support for other women include trashing their husbands?  

Saying  "I am so stressed out and unhappy, I cannot handle 100% of the emotional labor for the entire family, I really need a partner who will step up and do his fair share" does not equal "trashing her husband." The fact that people are determined to portray the husband as the victim, and the stressed out, overwhelmed wife who has had all the responsibilities dumped on her, as the person who is in the wrong, is part of the reason so many women deal with this crap. It basically validates exactly the excuses that many men use to avoid taking on responsibility.

 

1 hour ago, SKL said:

And if someone makes a constructive suggestion rather than pile on, then somehow that's an attack on the woman. 

Telling an overwhelmed, unhappy, stressed out woman who is already shouldering way too much of the emotional labor that she needs to be more sensitive to her poor husband, she needs to explain things really slowly, provide him with step-by-step instructions, be prepared to repeat the same thing 100 times with infinite patience in the hopes that eventually the penny might drop, is not "constructive criticism." It is just one more way that women are blamed for the behavior of men.

[EmseB]

7 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

 Tell me where you live! I need to move to a place where women never take on more than 50% of the overall family load 🙂

I doubt it's as neat and tidy as all that! Especially since it's usually the dads getting deployed for six to nine month stretches. I know that the running joke around here is that when dad gets home from deployment, mom books a nice, quiet hotel in a lovely vacation town...by herself. And it's mostly a joke...but not really a lot of the time. I do think there is something about dad really being more purposefully present when he's not deployed, although it's not universal.

[EmseB]

35 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

 

Telling an overwhelmed, unhappy, stressed out woman

What if, just for the sake of argument, he is also unhappy, overwhelmed, and stressed out? Not that that's a given, but what if he were?

[EmseB]

47 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

But the woman in the article was from a two income family!

I think people missed the bit about her having increased freelance hours.

Ha! It is funny I missed that or glossed over it. I will blame it on the fact that I do freelance work sometimes and it's nowhere near a two income family here, so it probably didn't resonate in my brain that way!

FWIW, I work at will, when it doesn't impact other responsibilities that I have, and the money is my own account for fun spending money on myself. I have, ironically, used this fund to hire a housekeeper before. 😄

[EmseB]

38 minutes ago, StellaM said:

Yeah, re writers, she was a very compassionate writer by getting permission from her dh. 

I know (live with, even!) writers who do no such thing. It's all grist to the mill for most writers. Why should a female freelance writer be held to different standards ?

Really?! I would assume the other way around. I would go bonkers. I'm going bonkers enough with a 3yo who does not understand "Circle of Trust". Guess what, every tiny neighbor friend, mom has a baby in her belly and it is very small AND dad put it there and it's making her very sick.

I was watching the Adam Sandler comedy special where he shares some, um, intimate details about his marriage and he made it clear he asked his wife about having it in the show before he shared any of it. And any pastor I've had says he always asks before sharing family stories as sermon illustrations. 

Anyway, tell your writers there needs to be a family hedge of protection!

[Corraleno]

51 minutes ago, EmseB said:

What if, just for the sake of argument, he is also unhappy, overwhelmed, and stressed out? Not that that's a given, but what if he were?

If they're equally overwhelmed and stressed out, and they're equally sharing the emotional labor, then they should talk about that and see if they can maybe reorganize their responsibilities more efficiently, drop some activities, hire outside help, etc., so they both have a better quality of life. If the reason he's unhappy and stressed out is because he thinks he should be able to come home from work and kick back with a beer and watch TV while his wife does everything else, then that's a different discussion.

[EMS83]

22 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I know.  But the issue is with the social perception that it’s possible to have two people have full careers and raise kids and still have some kind of quality of life.  Acknowledging that raising kids and running a house is mental work doesn’t seem that revolutionary to me but then a lot of extreme feminists seem to think staying home with kids or doing housework is turning brains into mush so maybe it is a big realisation that actually there is a tonne of mental work associated with it.

to me the biggest problem we have socially is actually acknowledging the work and contribution of caring roles.  In past times a divorce often did lead to even distribution of assets or alimony but because socially we’ve decided people doing the work at home actually aren’t doing anything that’s often not the case anymore.

It's turning brains into mush precisely because of how huge the <deleted> load is.  🤐

[Ausmumof3]

10 minutes ago, CES2005 said:

It's turning brains into mush precisely because of how huge the <deleted> load is.  🤐

lol well maybe... I just read it alongside disparaging comments like “I couldn’t stay home and do finger painting and bake cookies all day”. The kind of comments that make me assume commenter has never stayed with kids for any great length of time.

[Ausmumof3]

18 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

If they're equally overwhelmed and stressed out, and they're equally sharing the emotional labor, then they should talk about that and see if they can maybe reorganize their responsibilities more efficiently, drop some activities, hire outside help, etc., so they both have a better quality of life. If the reason he's unhappy and stressed out is because he thinks he should be able to come home from work and kick back with a beer and watch TV while his wife does everything else, then that's a different discussion.

This was certainly our situation when the three were under six and I was just starting out homeschooling.  Dh was doing a high stress job (turnover is about 2 years on average) and had nothing left to give.  We both were frustrated and snappy with each other and I think both probably felt the other wasn’t really pulling their weight but it’s just the reality of where we were at the time.  Eventually he stepped away from the role, my kids got older and homeschooling became more routine and everyone is in a somewhat better place.

[SKL]

Aside from the other arguments I'm not going to rehash, this lady (OP article writer) wrote that article, about what a dunce and a creep her husband is (and also how bratty her kids are), for profit.  I'm not sure I believe husband gave her permission to publish it as written, but whatever.  I am not buying the whole "this is going to help other families" thing.  I must have missed the helpful suggestions or inspiration that you all saw.

 

[EMS83]

10 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

lol well maybe... I just read it alongside disparaging comments like “I couldn’t stay home and do finger painting and bake cookies all day”. The kind of comments that make me assume commenter has never stayed with kids for any great length of time.

I agree; they're little people, so it's a multifaceted experience for sure, not to mention running a household.  And some people are just downright miserable that way, and that's ok, but I'd be downright miserable as a CEO.  That doesn't mean I get to belittle their job, and I think the problem is that respect doesn't go the other way. 
But then, I wouldn't belittle menial jobs, either.  We =/= our job, whatever it is.  Society forgets that.  We forget that, too.  🙂

[Corraleno]

9 hours ago, SKL said:

Aside from the other arguments I'm not going to rehash, this lady (OP article writer) wrote that article, about what a dunce and a creep her husband is (and also how bratty her kids are), for profit.  I'm not sure I believe husband gave her permission to publish it as written, but whatever.  I am not buying the whole "this is going to help other families" thing.  I must have missed the helpful suggestions or inspiration that you all saw.

You are going to really extreme lengths to mischaracterize what the author said — "dunce"? "creep"? "bratty"? She explicitly said her husband was "a good man and a good feminist ally" who had "a good nature and admirable intentions," but who was struggling to understand the concept of emotional labor. The only mention of her kids was that she sometimes just puts on her 4-yr-old daughter's shoes rather than remind her 10 times to do it herself. That equals complaining about "how bratty her kids are"? And you don't believe she cleared the article with her husband, so not only is she a huffy, pouty, whiny bitch, she's also a liar.

Yeah, obviously you missed the inspiration that literally millions of other people — both women and men — saw in the original Harper's article. It was viewed over two billion times, so obviously it resonated with a whole lot of people, and many people said it did have a positive impact on their lives and their relationships. But, hey, what is that compared to the slight, temporary discomfort of one husband, eh?

Edited March 16, 2019 by Corraleno

[Frances]

18 hours ago, StellaM said:

 

It's idealistic to believe that dads can think to themselves, hey me, time to pick up the slack (neurotypical dads) ? And say to their wives, lets sit down and make this work division more equitable, and include the mental load in that division ? I think this is just more of treating (neurotypical, healthy) men like babies.

In any case, the woman in the article DID take charge of that division by noticing the problem - I am working more, I can't do the bathrooms regularly - devising a solution - one benefit of working more is more $ in the budget, so it would make sense to hire a cleaning service for the bathrooms - and delegated - please dh could you organise a cleaning service for ongoing bathroom cleaning.

It's not her fault that her dh stuffed up the final step.

Nm

 

Edited March 16, 2019 by Frances

[KidsHappen]

On 3/15/2019 at 11:50 AM, Carol in Cal. said:

I would like to add—I do think it’s pretty awful to blog about your family in a derogatory way.

I picture them going to an office party and someone having read this and ribbing the husband about the Rubbermaid box or something.  It’s just really not good.  It’s too big of a public setting for that kind of thing.  I think it’s fine in a more private and impersonal group, but wow.  I hope she checked in with him first and that he was fine with it.

Maybe she is hoping it will motivate him to start pulling his weight.

[Kassia]

I didn't read all the comments but I read this about mental load and thought it was really sweet:  https://www.mother.ly/life/true-life-im-the-default-parent?fbclid=IwAR3QsezpoiV8RGYS5nYroBt0cf-SItjMDlZGE82V2wwJj6NBDQdiZPAR6IA

[fairfarmhand]

18 hours ago, Kassia said:

I didn't read all the comments but I read this about mental load and thought it was really sweet:  https://www.mother.ly/life/true-life-im-the-default-parent?fbclid=IwAR3QsezpoiV8RGYS5nYroBt0cf-SItjMDlZGE82V2wwJj6NBDQdiZPAR6IA

That’s lovely.