December 1, 2024 • 19 mins
Hey there TeamTOM In this episode we’re diving into the mental load—the invisible work of managing a household that overwhelmingly falls on us. From remembering appointments to organising everyone’s lives, the mental load is exhausting—and it’s heavier than ever. We’ll explore:
💡 What the mental load is and why it’s often invisible
📜 How history and societal norms have left us juggling it all
📈 Why modern life (and social media!) have made it worse
🔥 The emotional and physical toll of carrying it all
But it’s not all doom and gloom—we’re also talking solutions: how to share the load, communicate better, and start breaking the cycle for the next generation.If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything and it’s still not enough, this one’s for you.
Listen to the TOM Rocks Guided sessions via The Organised Mum app. We’ll start you off with a 7 day free trial 🎉
TOM Rocks guided sessions are available via an in app subscription on The Organised Mum cleaning app.
💡 What the mental load is and why it’s often invisible
📜 How history and societal norms have left us juggling it all
📈 Why modern life (and social media!) have made it worse
🔥 The emotional and physical toll of carrying it all
But it’s not all doom and gloom—we’re also talking solutions: how to share the load, communicate better, and start breaking the cycle for the next generation.If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything and it’s still not enough, this one’s for you.
Listen to the TOM Rocks Guided sessions via The Organised Mum app. We’ll start you off with a 7 day free trial 🎉
TOM Rocks guided sessions are available via an in app subscription on The Organised Mum cleaning app.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, Welcome back. In today's episode, I want to talk
about something that has been on my mind so much recently,
and every time I talk about it, the response I
get is overwhelming. And that is the mental load and
why it feels so massive at the moment. So grab
(00:20):
a cup of tea, sit down, and let's have a
chat about it. I'd love to know your experiences. I'd
love to know what you think about it. If you're
watching this on YouTube, please join in the conversation in
the comments. So let's start with a simple question. Remembers
to buy the toothpaste in your house, not noticing it's
running out, but actively like keeping track. Same with toilet rolls,
(00:41):
like adding to the shopping list, ensuring it's more. If
it's you, del you're carrying the mental load. So the
mental load, what is it? It's an invisible force. It's
weighing down millions of people worldwide, and it's one of
the biggest reasons most of us feel stressed, overworked, and
completely burnt out into twenty twenty four. Now, the irony here,
(01:03):
the irony here is that we have so many labor
saving devices that we can use in our home. Right
We've got a washing machine, a dishwasher. Hopefully we've got
our mobile phones. But it seems the more labor saving
devices that we add in, the more we try and
like squeeze out of our day. And our brains are
(01:24):
not supposed to be functioning like this, right, Our blains
like are still they haven't right caught up. We're sort
of producing and creating technology faster than our brains can
keep up. Your brain isn't used to being a member
of like twenty WhatsApp groups or just trying to juggle
lots of different things. And also our phones are like
(01:46):
this little portal. So if you're watching me or listening
to this now on your phone, our phones are a
portal to a lot of that mental node, whether it's
your class, WhatsApp group, the school emails that are coming in.
They are coming in. They can fast the moment, aren't they.
Especially this is one of the busiest terms of the year,
Christmas Jumper Day, Christmas Lunch, all this, that and the other.
(02:06):
It's all feeding into your brain. So there's so much
noise going on. And I don't know about you, but
I am so used to like noise in the background.
So if I take the dogs for a walk. Normally
in the past, I would listen to a podcast. There's
so much going on in my brain floating around and
also being bombarded with information like social media, the news,
(02:30):
the radio in the car, the podcast that you're listening
to whilst sit the dogs for walk, or whilst you're
exercising that it's so noisy in there. And actually at
the moment, I'm really trying to deal with my own
mental load by going. When I go out for a
walk on the fields and I'm tredging through those fields,
which is one of my favorite things to do, I
don't take my headphones. I take my phone in case
I can fall over. That's happened before. But I will
(02:53):
not listen to anything. I will try and go in silence.
And it's having such a positive effect. This disappointingly and
disproportionate in the mental load falls on women. Modern world
has made this mental load bigger than ever. That is
the irony of all of these labor saving devices. So
we're going to have a little bit of a chat,
a deep dive really into the cultural, economic, and also
(03:17):
societal factors that might have put us here and crucially,
how we as individuals and women can begin to lighten
our own mental load. What is what is the mental load?
Let's start right at the beginning. The mental load isn't
actually doing the household tasks or everything that goes around
a home. It's also thinking about and managing those tasks
(03:40):
as well. So it's remembering the school bake sale. It's
knowing where the tupperware is when someone says what's for dinner.
It's booking doctor's appointments. He's planning holidays, coordinating schedules, preemptively
solving problems before they arise. That is such a parental skill, isn't.
It's like you know before someone falls over, like they're
going to up, so you're in there. This is called
cognitive labor, and while it often goes unnoticed, it is essential.
(04:05):
It is like the magical inadverted commas cogs that are
going on in the background to help a household run smoothly,
and overwhelmingly it's women who carry it. A twenty twenty
three study found that it's seventy eight percent of women
in heterosexual relationships reported being the primary manager of domestic
(04:27):
and emotional responsibilities in their household. And obviously, obviously, while
men are stepping up. The numbers haven't shifted significantly in decades. Now.
I have my own theory on this, but to understand
how we got there, we have to go all the
way back into history for centuries and have a look
(04:47):
at societal norms that have dictated that a woman's role
was to manage the home while the men worked outside it.
Even as women enter the workforce in the twentieth century,
they didn't stop being the homemakers. They just added working
outside the home onto all of the jobs that they
had to do inside the home as well. And this
(05:09):
is that it actually has a name. It's called the
second shift, and this was first identified in the nineteen eighties.
I was born in the nineteen eighties, and this is
where my theory kind of evolved from when I was
at school and I sort of was in primary school
in the eighties and then I went into secondary school
in the nineties. I went to an all girls school.
We were like taught, we could have everything. We were
(05:30):
really high achieving school, and we were like you can
go out and be doctors, you can go to Oxford, Cambridge,
ree lawyers, this that and the other, and none of
us like we were all taught all of the academic loveliness, right,
and then we were all watching these romance films and
these rom coms about falling in love. We were taught
how to sew a cushion in like domestic science. We
(05:52):
were taught how to baker cornish pasty randomly, but no
one taught us how to marry all of this together
there And indeed there was no conversation as like, is
it actually possible to go out and be a lawyer?
And so the cushion and baker cornish pasty, it was
kind of like a taboo subject. We're like, oh, you know,
feminism has happened. We can do all this, we can
(06:15):
be everything, but we can't because there are a not
half hours a day realistically for a lot of us,
there is not enough budget in the pot to have
cleaners and have help. So the women are faced with
this problem now where we've all got these full time jobs,
we're having kids, we're having paternity to leave or paternity
leave whilst we're at home. It makes sense, doesn't it,
(06:37):
to do all of the washing because we're at home anyway.
So whilst we're feeding our baby, we're looking over there,
we can see that washing needs put away. We're at home,
so it makes sense for us to do it. We
choose to go back to work, who's going to do
all of these jobs? Now we're in an ideal world,
there'll be split fifty to fifty. But anecdotally, I'm going
to tell you now, and as much as I hate this,
and it is women that carry on doing it, because
(06:58):
all of a sudden, we're as nags, aren't we We're
labeled as nags. If you need to do this, you
needed this. So this phenomena called the second shift was
first identified in the eighties, where women were going to
work all day, coming home and then handling dinner, laundry,
bedtime with the kids. And we're fast forwarding to twenty
twenty four, and whilst the division of physical labor has
(07:20):
improved slightly, the mental load remains firmly in the women's hands.
Why because managing the home is still seen as a
woman's default responsibility, even when she works full time. So
why it does it feel heavier in twenty twenty four
(07:41):
whereas you know, you would think that we'd kind of
like moved on. Now listen, don't get me wrong. I
am married to Mike. He will do literally fifty to fifty.
But there are a lot of women out there. I
see it in their Facebook group. You just have to
ask a question and then andreds of people be like,
I've got the same thing. Women are threatening to go
(08:04):
on striking their own home like they're like, literally, I'm
at my wits end. I don't understand how I can
get people to lighten the load. All of the housework
always falls on me, and they're getting so frustrated. They're like,
I'm just gonna I'm just gonna go on strike. A
spoiler alert that never that never works, never works. So
I've already spoken about like the always on culture. The
(08:25):
rise of phones and constant connectivity has blurred the lines
between work and home. So many women are not just
managing their lives, but also managing jobs that follow them everywhere.
Especially if you're like working flexi time and you're trying
to like, you know, squeeze things in around childcare, pick
up your kids sick, the lines are really blurred. So
(08:48):
you're answering work emails whilst you're helping with homework, or
maybe you're doing the cleaning, or maybe you're trying to
prep dinner, or you're organizing a birthday party in between
zoom meetings or it's half term. I got logged onto
a work call the other day, or an all female
work call, and it was in the middle of October
half time, and there was about five of us, and
every single one of us we're like, Hi, how's everyone doing?
(09:10):
Everyone's half time? Right? So this is a massive issue.
And we know that technology was supposed to make our
lives easier, right, but it's created an environment where we're
always accessible, we're always multitasking, and I know we're laughing, like, oh,
we're great at multitasking, but it's not always great for
our brains because we're always on and the mental load
of coordinating it all work, home, social life can be crushing.
(09:34):
And then when you add to that like rising costs
and economic pressures, the cost of living is at an
all time high every like everything from groceries to houses, mortgages.
Households very often these days require two incomes just to
make ends meet, leaving the women juggling the mental load
whilst also working to pay the bills. And for single mothers,
(09:55):
the burden is even greater and there's no one to
share the load with. There's no one to talk it
through with, and that can feel really, really lonely, and
then you're just adding more and more on on top
of that. Societal expectations, the pressure to have it all
is more intense than ever. If you use TikTok, if
you use Instagram, especially at this time, you picture perfect
(10:16):
is flooding our feet. We're supposed to succeed at work,
maintain a picture perfect home, rose well, behave children, stay
fit and healthy, have a fulfilling social life. It's like
this isn't possible, Like literally not enough hours in the day. Instagram, Pinterest,
TikTok all bombard us with images of beautifully organized entrees, kids,
(10:39):
Beno lunch boxes, clean girl aesthetics, and these platforms often
fuel unrealistic expectations, leaving us just feeling like complete failures,
like it's impossible, it's impossible for anybody to measure up,
and working in that industry really really try my best
(10:59):
to not portray an unrealistic image. Is so easy to
fall into that trap as a content creator because a
lot of people like to watch it because it's it's
aspirational and it can be inspiring, But you have to
be a little bit careful because it can shift from
aspirational and inspiring just to crushing, So it's very hard
(11:23):
to strike that balance. Another thing that's really tricky as
well is that we are become increasingly like insular and
isolated as a society, which means there is a lack
of support structure. So we've all heard that phrase, haven't we. Oh,
it takes a village, all this, that and the other,
and years ago, going way back, communities would have been
(11:44):
more involved with each other. But nowadays, like how many
of us don't really speak to our neighbors or we
you know, we don't really interact. We go to work,
we pick up the kids, and we just haven't got
time to do anything else. In many countries, there's a
lack of systemic support for working parents, and affordable childcare
remains a sick, magnificant barrier. Parental leave policies are very
often lacking or inadequate, and this leaves women not only
(12:06):
doing it all, but also feeling like they are doing
it alone. And this has an emotional toll. Carrying it
isn't just a logistical challenge, it's an emotional one. I
speak to so many women on a daily basis and
women often report feeling overwhelmed. The sheer volume of decisions
and responsibilities going on in their brain is exhausting. So
(12:30):
many of us have got decision fatigue. We're resentful when
no one else in the household seems to notice or
appreciate the invisible labor means the resentment builds. Then we
feel guilty. There's a pervasive guilt that comes with, oh,
my gosh, I've dropped the ball, even when the ball
should never have been given to you in the first place.
It's not yours to carry alone. And over time, this
(12:53):
constant pressure leads to burnout, a state of chronic stress,
thease you physically, mentally, and emotionally depleted. A twenty twenty
four report by the World Health Organization identified burnout as
a leading cause of mental health issues in women that
was linked to anxiety, depression, and physical health problems like
hyperod pressure. And this stuff is serious, And I think
(13:16):
some people when you talk about the mental load on
like TikTok, they sort of roll their eyes in the
eye or whatever. But it's really really important. It can
have and real negative effects on not only on mental health,
but also on our physical health as well. So if
it's so important, why isn't the mental load shared? The
mental load is so harmful, why hasn't it been redistributed
(13:37):
more evenly? Well, several factors come into play here. First
of all, social conditioning. From a young age, girls are
often socialized to be caretakers. They're praised for being organized, nurturing, thoughtful,
and obviously this is a huge generalization here, whilst boys
are encouraged to be assertive, independent, and this conditioning will
(13:59):
follow us through into adulthood. This means women feel a
sense of duty really to keep the ship running. And
you might have heard this phrase sort of on your socials,
and it's weaponized incompetence. So people genuinely don't see the
mental load because they've never been expected to carry it right,
And others, whether consciously or unconsciously, use something called weaponized
(14:24):
incompetence to avoid taking on responsibility. So it's the classic
I don't know how to pack the kids lunches, or
pack the kids lunches as well as you do, or
but you're just better at it than I am, excuses
that ensure the task will always fall back onto you.
And often, like you know, we don't communicate or articulate
the burden we're carrying, because it just feels easier to
(14:47):
do yourselves rather than explain it. And like, I don't
know if you've ever seen that TikTok about making a list.
It's like it's a song this lady does. I can't
remember her name. It's gone viral a few times. It's like,
if you.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Want to have help with the housework, make a list,
and she's like, I don't want to make a list,
And it's like making the list in itself is a job, right,
and then ensuring the.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
List has been actioned is also a job. So it
just feels easier just to do it yourself. By the
time you've written the list and explain the list, you
could have already done the job right. So sometimes we
just can't have bothered. I'm just going to do it myself.
But this comes at a cost. So when the mental
load isn't acknowledged or shared, the consequences ripple far beyond.
(15:32):
Family suffer. Stressed out parents have arguments they've got less patience,
less emotional bandwidths. Workplaces suffer as well, because you've got
a burnt out employee that's less productive, more likely to
leave more likely to get sick. Society as a whole suffers.
So what can we do to fix it? Well, surprisingly,
(15:54):
there is no quick fix. There is no quicks fix.
I'm really really sorry, but there are some steps that
we can take, both individually and also as a society.
First of all, it's to acknowledge that the mental load
or the invisible load exists, and to recognize it and
to normalize it, and to normalize the fact that in
most cases, in most heterosexual relationships, it's the woman that
(16:18):
carries the bulk of that invisible load. Partners, families, and
also employers need to understand this and understand that this
invisible labor is real. It's really real, and it carries
weight and it carries implications. Second thing is to communicate.
As women, we really need to feel comfortable, which is
(16:39):
why we're making this episode today, articulating the burden that
we are carrying around without fear of being dismissed or
ridiculed or whatever. You're right as if were made to
feel guilty for moaning. Open, honest conversations about household responsibilities
really help readers tribute the mental load more evenly. But
(17:02):
we've got so much work to do. We have to
talk about it because sharing the mental load doesn't mean
just like sharing out chores. It means sharing the thinking
behind them. Partners need to take ownership of tasks from
start to finish, rather than waiting for instructions. Knowing that
the birth rate is falling, right, it's all over the
news at the moment that the birth rate is falling.
(17:24):
Many women are choosing not to have kids. Is there
any wonder? Is it any wonder? Right? So we have
to teach the next generation, right, So I've got I'm
raising all boys, and I really really try to break
the cycle by telling them and teaching them that running
a household is a shared responsibility. We all use the toilet,
(17:47):
we all use the kitchen. Boys and girls are like
should grow up seeing both parents manage the home. As women,
we need to give ourself permission to drop the ball.
The world will not end if your house is messy
or the kids have to eat chicken nuggets for dinner.
You need now to prioritize your own wellbeing. It isn't selfish,
(18:08):
it is essential. Essential to not only acknowledge the burden,
talk about the burden, share the burden, push and talk
about change. Is if we can start to lighten the
load for ourselves, even though it might feel a little
bit icky and a little bit awkward, and we might
feel that sense of guilt and you know, oh my god,
I've dropped the ball. We're not just doing it for ourselves,
(18:28):
but we're also doing it for other families, for future generations,
because we know, don't we How many times do we
say on this channel there is more to life than housework.
There is more to life than running a home, and
maybe maybe we start living like it and leading by example.
A little bit of a different episode from me today,
but as I said at the beginning, this is something
(18:49):
that so many people I know want to talk about.
If you would like to join in the conversation, then
you're and you're watching this on YouTube, then pop a
comment below. I'd love to know what you think. And
until we speak together, or you follow a Tom Rocks
guided session with me, or you re check in with
each other on our socials, remember there is more to
life and house works.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I
Hello, Welcome back. In today's episode, I want to talk
about something that has been on my mind so much recently,
and every time I talk about it, the response I
get is overwhelming. And that is the mental load and
why it feels so massive at the moment. So grab
(00:20):
a cup of tea, sit down, and let's have a
chat about it. I'd love to know your experiences. I'd
love to know what you think about it. If you're
watching this on YouTube, please join in the conversation in
the comments. So let's start with a simple question. Remembers
to buy the toothpaste in your house, not noticing it's
running out, but actively like keeping track. Same with toilet rolls,
(00:41):
like adding to the shopping list, ensuring it's more. If
it's you, del you're carrying the mental load. So the
mental load, what is it? It's an invisible force. It's
weighing down millions of people worldwide, and it's one of
the biggest reasons most of us feel stressed, overworked, and
completely burnt out into twenty twenty four. Now, the irony here,
(01:03):
the irony here is that we have so many labor
saving devices that we can use in our home. Right
We've got a washing machine, a dishwasher. Hopefully we've got
our mobile phones. But it seems the more labor saving
devices that we add in, the more we try and
like squeeze out of our day. And our brains are
(01:24):
not supposed to be functioning like this, right, Our blains
like are still they haven't right caught up. We're sort
of producing and creating technology faster than our brains can
keep up. Your brain isn't used to being a member
of like twenty WhatsApp groups or just trying to juggle
lots of different things. And also our phones are like
(01:46):
this little portal. So if you're watching me or listening
to this now on your phone, our phones are a
portal to a lot of that mental node, whether it's
your class, WhatsApp group, the school emails that are coming in.
They are coming in. They can fast the moment, aren't they.
Especially this is one of the busiest terms of the year,
Christmas Jumper Day, Christmas Lunch, all this, that and the other.
(02:06):
It's all feeding into your brain. So there's so much
noise going on. And I don't know about you, but
I am so used to like noise in the background.
So if I take the dogs for a walk. Normally
in the past, I would listen to a podcast. There's
so much going on in my brain floating around and
also being bombarded with information like social media, the news,
(02:30):
the radio in the car, the podcast that you're listening
to whilst sit the dogs for walk, or whilst you're
exercising that it's so noisy in there. And actually at
the moment, I'm really trying to deal with my own
mental load by going. When I go out for a
walk on the fields and I'm tredging through those fields,
which is one of my favorite things to do, I
don't take my headphones. I take my phone in case
I can fall over. That's happened before. But I will
(02:53):
not listen to anything. I will try and go in silence.
And it's having such a positive effect. This disappointingly and
disproportionate in the mental load falls on women. Modern world
has made this mental load bigger than ever. That is
the irony of all of these labor saving devices. So
we're going to have a little bit of a chat,
a deep dive really into the cultural, economic, and also
(03:17):
societal factors that might have put us here and crucially,
how we as individuals and women can begin to lighten
our own mental load. What is what is the mental load?
Let's start right at the beginning. The mental load isn't
actually doing the household tasks or everything that goes around
a home. It's also thinking about and managing those tasks
(03:40):
as well. So it's remembering the school bake sale. It's
knowing where the tupperware is when someone says what's for dinner.
It's booking doctor's appointments. He's planning holidays, coordinating schedules, preemptively
solving problems before they arise. That is such a parental skill, isn't.
It's like you know before someone falls over, like they're
going to up, so you're in there. This is called
cognitive labor, and while it often goes unnoticed, it is essential.
(04:05):
It is like the magical inadverted commas cogs that are
going on in the background to help a household run smoothly,
and overwhelmingly it's women who carry it. A twenty twenty
three study found that it's seventy eight percent of women
in heterosexual relationships reported being the primary manager of domestic
(04:27):
and emotional responsibilities in their household. And obviously, obviously, while
men are stepping up. The numbers haven't shifted significantly in decades. Now.
I have my own theory on this, but to understand
how we got there, we have to go all the
way back into history for centuries and have a look
(04:47):
at societal norms that have dictated that a woman's role
was to manage the home while the men worked outside it.
Even as women enter the workforce in the twentieth century,
they didn't stop being the homemakers. They just added working
outside the home onto all of the jobs that they
had to do inside the home as well. And this
(05:09):
is that it actually has a name. It's called the
second shift, and this was first identified in the nineteen eighties.
I was born in the nineteen eighties, and this is
where my theory kind of evolved from when I was
at school and I sort of was in primary school
in the eighties and then I went into secondary school
in the nineties. I went to an all girls school.
We were like taught, we could have everything. We were
(05:30):
really high achieving school, and we were like you can
go out and be doctors, you can go to Oxford, Cambridge,
ree lawyers, this that and the other, and none of
us like we were all taught all of the academic loveliness, right,
and then we were all watching these romance films and
these rom coms about falling in love. We were taught
how to sew a cushion in like domestic science. We
(05:52):
were taught how to baker cornish pasty randomly, but no
one taught us how to marry all of this together
there And indeed there was no conversation as like, is
it actually possible to go out and be a lawyer?
And so the cushion and baker cornish pasty, it was
kind of like a taboo subject. We're like, oh, you know,
feminism has happened. We can do all this, we can
(06:15):
be everything, but we can't because there are a not
half hours a day realistically for a lot of us,
there is not enough budget in the pot to have
cleaners and have help. So the women are faced with
this problem now where we've all got these full time jobs,
we're having kids, we're having paternity to leave or paternity
leave whilst we're at home. It makes sense, doesn't it,
(06:37):
to do all of the washing because we're at home anyway.
So whilst we're feeding our baby, we're looking over there,
we can see that washing needs put away. We're at home,
so it makes sense for us to do it. We
choose to go back to work, who's going to do
all of these jobs? Now we're in an ideal world,
there'll be split fifty to fifty. But anecdotally, I'm going
to tell you now, and as much as I hate this,
and it is women that carry on doing it, because
(06:58):
all of a sudden, we're as nags, aren't we We're
labeled as nags. If you need to do this, you
needed this. So this phenomena called the second shift was
first identified in the eighties, where women were going to
work all day, coming home and then handling dinner, laundry,
bedtime with the kids. And we're fast forwarding to twenty
twenty four, and whilst the division of physical labor has
(07:20):
improved slightly, the mental load remains firmly in the women's hands.
Why because managing the home is still seen as a
woman's default responsibility, even when she works full time. So
why it does it feel heavier in twenty twenty four
(07:41):
whereas you know, you would think that we'd kind of
like moved on. Now listen, don't get me wrong. I
am married to Mike. He will do literally fifty to fifty.
But there are a lot of women out there. I
see it in their Facebook group. You just have to
ask a question and then andreds of people be like,
I've got the same thing. Women are threatening to go
(08:04):
on striking their own home like they're like, literally, I'm
at my wits end. I don't understand how I can
get people to lighten the load. All of the housework
always falls on me, and they're getting so frustrated. They're like,
I'm just gonna I'm just gonna go on strike. A
spoiler alert that never that never works, never works. So
I've already spoken about like the always on culture. The
(08:25):
rise of phones and constant connectivity has blurred the lines
between work and home. So many women are not just
managing their lives, but also managing jobs that follow them everywhere.
Especially if you're like working flexi time and you're trying
to like, you know, squeeze things in around childcare, pick
up your kids sick, the lines are really blurred. So
(08:48):
you're answering work emails whilst you're helping with homework, or
maybe you're doing the cleaning, or maybe you're trying to
prep dinner, or you're organizing a birthday party in between
zoom meetings or it's half term. I got logged onto
a work call the other day, or an all female
work call, and it was in the middle of October
half time, and there was about five of us, and
every single one of us we're like, Hi, how's everyone doing?
(09:10):
Everyone's half time? Right? So this is a massive issue.
And we know that technology was supposed to make our
lives easier, right, but it's created an environment where we're
always accessible, we're always multitasking, and I know we're laughing, like, oh,
we're great at multitasking, but it's not always great for
our brains because we're always on and the mental load
of coordinating it all work, home, social life can be crushing.
(09:34):
And then when you add to that like rising costs
and economic pressures, the cost of living is at an
all time high every like everything from groceries to houses, mortgages.
Households very often these days require two incomes just to
make ends meet, leaving the women juggling the mental load
whilst also working to pay the bills. And for single mothers,
(09:55):
the burden is even greater and there's no one to
share the load with. There's no one to talk it
through with, and that can feel really, really lonely, and
then you're just adding more and more on on top
of that. Societal expectations, the pressure to have it all
is more intense than ever. If you use TikTok, if
you use Instagram, especially at this time, you picture perfect
(10:16):
is flooding our feet. We're supposed to succeed at work,
maintain a picture perfect home, rose well, behave children, stay
fit and healthy, have a fulfilling social life. It's like
this isn't possible, Like literally not enough hours in the day. Instagram, Pinterest,
TikTok all bombard us with images of beautifully organized entrees, kids,
(10:39):
Beno lunch boxes, clean girl aesthetics, and these platforms often
fuel unrealistic expectations, leaving us just feeling like complete failures,
like it's impossible, it's impossible for anybody to measure up,
and working in that industry really really try my best
(10:59):
to not portray an unrealistic image. Is so easy to
fall into that trap as a content creator because a
lot of people like to watch it because it's it's
aspirational and it can be inspiring, But you have to
be a little bit careful because it can shift from
aspirational and inspiring just to crushing, So it's very hard
(11:23):
to strike that balance. Another thing that's really tricky as
well is that we are become increasingly like insular and
isolated as a society, which means there is a lack
of support structure. So we've all heard that phrase, haven't we. Oh,
it takes a village, all this, that and the other,
and years ago, going way back, communities would have been
(11:44):
more involved with each other. But nowadays, like how many
of us don't really speak to our neighbors or we
you know, we don't really interact. We go to work,
we pick up the kids, and we just haven't got
time to do anything else. In many countries, there's a
lack of systemic support for working parents, and affordable childcare
remains a sick, magnificant barrier. Parental leave policies are very
often lacking or inadequate, and this leaves women not only
(12:06):
doing it all, but also feeling like they are doing
it alone. And this has an emotional toll. Carrying it
isn't just a logistical challenge, it's an emotional one. I
speak to so many women on a daily basis and
women often report feeling overwhelmed. The sheer volume of decisions
and responsibilities going on in their brain is exhausting. So
(12:30):
many of us have got decision fatigue. We're resentful when
no one else in the household seems to notice or
appreciate the invisible labor means the resentment builds. Then we
feel guilty. There's a pervasive guilt that comes with, oh,
my gosh, I've dropped the ball, even when the ball
should never have been given to you in the first place.
It's not yours to carry alone. And over time, this
(12:53):
constant pressure leads to burnout, a state of chronic stress,
thease you physically, mentally, and emotionally depleted. A twenty twenty
four report by the World Health Organization identified burnout as
a leading cause of mental health issues in women that
was linked to anxiety, depression, and physical health problems like
hyperod pressure. And this stuff is serious, And I think
(13:16):
some people when you talk about the mental load on
like TikTok, they sort of roll their eyes in the
eye or whatever. But it's really really important. It can
have and real negative effects on not only on mental health,
but also on our physical health as well. So if
it's so important, why isn't the mental load shared? The
mental load is so harmful, why hasn't it been redistributed
(13:37):
more evenly? Well, several factors come into play here. First
of all, social conditioning. From a young age, girls are
often socialized to be caretakers. They're praised for being organized, nurturing, thoughtful,
and obviously this is a huge generalization here, whilst boys
are encouraged to be assertive, independent, and this conditioning will
(13:59):
follow us through into adulthood. This means women feel a
sense of duty really to keep the ship running. And
you might have heard this phrase sort of on your socials,
and it's weaponized incompetence. So people genuinely don't see the
mental load because they've never been expected to carry it right,
And others, whether consciously or unconsciously, use something called weaponized
(14:24):
incompetence to avoid taking on responsibility. So it's the classic
I don't know how to pack the kids lunches, or
pack the kids lunches as well as you do, or
but you're just better at it than I am, excuses
that ensure the task will always fall back onto you.
And often, like you know, we don't communicate or articulate
the burden we're carrying, because it just feels easier to
(14:47):
do yourselves rather than explain it. And like, I don't
know if you've ever seen that TikTok about making a list.
It's like it's a song this lady does. I can't
remember her name. It's gone viral a few times. It's like,
if you.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Want to have help with the housework, make a list,
and she's like, I don't want to make a list,
And it's like making the list in itself is a job, right,
and then ensuring the.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
List has been actioned is also a job. So it
just feels easier just to do it yourself. By the
time you've written the list and explain the list, you
could have already done the job right. So sometimes we
just can't have bothered. I'm just going to do it myself.
But this comes at a cost. So when the mental
load isn't acknowledged or shared, the consequences ripple far beyond.
(15:32):
Family suffer. Stressed out parents have arguments they've got less patience,
less emotional bandwidths. Workplaces suffer as well, because you've got
a burnt out employee that's less productive, more likely to
leave more likely to get sick. Society as a whole suffers.
So what can we do to fix it? Well, surprisingly,
(15:54):
there is no quick fix. There is no quicks fix.
I'm really really sorry, but there are some steps that
we can take, both individually and also as a society.
First of all, it's to acknowledge that the mental load
or the invisible load exists, and to recognize it and
to normalize it, and to normalize the fact that in
most cases, in most heterosexual relationships, it's the woman that
(16:18):
carries the bulk of that invisible load. Partners, families, and
also employers need to understand this and understand that this
invisible labor is real. It's really real, and it carries
weight and it carries implications. Second thing is to communicate.
As women, we really need to feel comfortable, which is
(16:39):
why we're making this episode today, articulating the burden that
we are carrying around without fear of being dismissed or
ridiculed or whatever. You're right as if were made to
feel guilty for moaning. Open, honest conversations about household responsibilities
really help readers tribute the mental load more evenly. But
(17:02):
we've got so much work to do. We have to
talk about it because sharing the mental load doesn't mean
just like sharing out chores. It means sharing the thinking
behind them. Partners need to take ownership of tasks from
start to finish, rather than waiting for instructions. Knowing that
the birth rate is falling, right, it's all over the
news at the moment that the birth rate is falling.
(17:24):
Many women are choosing not to have kids. Is there
any wonder? Is it any wonder? Right? So we have
to teach the next generation, right, So I've got I'm
raising all boys, and I really really try to break
the cycle by telling them and teaching them that running
a household is a shared responsibility. We all use the toilet,
(17:47):
we all use the kitchen. Boys and girls are like
should grow up seeing both parents manage the home. As women,
we need to give ourself permission to drop the ball.
The world will not end if your house is messy
or the kids have to eat chicken nuggets for dinner.
You need now to prioritize your own wellbeing. It isn't selfish,
(18:08):
it is essential. Essential to not only acknowledge the burden,
talk about the burden, share the burden, push and talk
about change. Is if we can start to lighten the
load for ourselves, even though it might feel a little
bit icky and a little bit awkward, and we might
feel that sense of guilt and you know, oh my god,
I've dropped the ball. We're not just doing it for ourselves,
(18:28):
but we're also doing it for other families, for future generations,
because we know, don't we How many times do we
say on this channel there is more to life than housework.
There is more to life than running a home, and
maybe maybe we start living like it and leading by example.
A little bit of a different episode from me today,
but as I said at the beginning, this is something
(18:49):
that so many people I know want to talk about.
If you would like to join in the conversation, then
you're and you're watching this on YouTube, then pop a
comment below. I'd love to know what you think. And
until we speak together, or you follow a Tom Rocks
guided session with me, or you re check in with
each other on our socials, remember there is more to
life and house works.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I
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