My friend and most responsive blog reader Rachel sent me another awesome article. (Do the same! Did you read something others would enjoy? Be generous, forward it to me!)
It’s about a dad who realizes just how unequal mental load is in his household. He decides to take more upon himself and plan a birthday party.
Forgive me if you feel I’m discussing this theme ad nauseum… But mental load is difficult to communicate. This article could be eye-opening because it is from the less-involved partner’s point of view. Also, this does not apply only to parenting! At work or in your social circle, do some people (not necessarily gender-based) tend to do more? This could give you ideas for how to share responsibilities in a fairer and more sustainable way.
I’ve discussed the concept of mental load and how breaking down tasks encourages better communication and sharing. But this little experiment is useful, because it demonstrates the barriers to entry that accumulate when one partner consistently does less.
Psychologist Joshua Ziesel saw himself as a “feminist husband”, and was certain he was contributing equally to the household until the pandemic hit. Being home all the time and hearing what his patients were going through forced him to conclude that his wife was doing way more.
To remedy this, he decided to take upon himself a single task start to finish – planning a birthday party.
I like this approach, because it’s not as analytical (and possibly exhausting) as the discussion of various stages of cognitive labor mentioned above. Doing something like this in your household can give your partner startling insight into everything that’s involved in planning and executing – the part that they’re often conveniently unaware of.
[And when I say partner, I also mean kids! If you have older children, I recommend giving them opportunities to do projects rather than specific chores. But this merits a separate post.]
The article did remind me of something that my husband brought to my attention years ago. Because so many households have this built-in inequality, mothers often form networks and share knowledge that is unavailable to fathers. This magnifies and cements the inequality, and makes it harder for dads to succeed when they do want to take part.
I’ll give you an example: My eldest volunteered to create an end-of-year game, for which she needed baby photos of her classmates. I sent the request in our whatsapp group, which includes all the mothers and most of the fathers in the class. Some responded quickly. Some needed personal reminders. Did I remind the fathers? No. With tight lips, being fully aware of what I was doing and beating myself up for it, I contacted the mothers, one by one. The only parents I approached in parallel were the divorced ones.
My excuse for being lame was that it was late and I didn’t have time for an exercise in feminism. I’m better friends with the moms, and they’re more likely to know where to find the baby photos. Also, they identify with me and might reply fast because of our relationship. But it was definitely a missed opportunity to get the guys to do the work! It also shows the disadvantage my husband would have had if our daughter had come to him for help. This is a barrier that everyone can own and attempt to lower.
Mental health and stress management have much to do with setting boundaries and feeling supported. Taking too much upon yourself, and feeling taken advantage of, are strong indicators you might be heading toward chronic stress and burnout. Don’t go there, share the workload!
Read the full article here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/06/18/dad-pandemic-mental-labor/
This such a great article, thanks for sharing, Shlomit.
Shlomit, what a great article. Recently, my mother, my sister and I decided that we would put the planning for Mother’s Day onto our (quite capable) husbands. I sent an email to the three men, plus my sister and my mom, outlining general time and date ideas, then turning it explicitly over to them. It was REALLY hard not to ask my husband how it was going, or to try to check in to see that the plans were happening. And of course, it all went fine! A real lesson for me around the complexities of mental load.
There are always hidden layers that aren’t there. I love your point about support systems and biases that maintain the status quo!
Right? The importance of this realization for me was to be more understanding of my partner when things kept sliding into my plate. I couldn’t figure out why this was happening in families that explicitely wanted to be egalitarian! So part of it is how we were raised and the conscious efforts we all need to make to breaak that. But the other part is that even with teh best intentions, there are hidden frameworks at work. It’s a real problem for families who want to improve, and similarly – for organizations.