Mental load is a way of describing the unseen household labor most often carried out by women. Here is how we worked towards fairness in our household.

It’s an evolutionary advantage to only pay attention to things you need to deal with. When we were hunters and gatherers, it made sense to focus on what we were in charge of (gathering fruit, watching for dangers, etc.) and not worry about what others were up to. This division of attention was necessary for survival.
This plays out throughout our modern life. No one likes a coworker who double-checks everything you do. And if someone else replaces the printer cartridge at work, then you don’t have to do it too.
Likewise, it doesn’t make sense to duplicate mental load and effort in households.
–> But this doesn’t explain why women do the majority of household labor in heterosexual marriages.
Lyz Lenz in her book, This American Ex-Wife, does a good job of outlining how governments, corporations, advertising, entertainment, and society as a whole foster gender inequality. (I liken the book to a cross between a memoir and a manifesto. It lays out a compelling argument for the need to shake up the whole system.)
How Gender Roles are Reinforced
I have been thinking about mental load since I wrote the first draft of a novel currently titled The Moon And The Night in 2018 (currently under submission, but hopefully, you’ll be able to read it in the future).
Mental load comes from many factors. Ones that I have experienced are:
- Societal Expectation: There are societal expectations that women are responsible for their children’s well-being. If kids don’t have clean clothes, brushed hair, and healthy food, it’s usually the mother who is blamed. There are societal expectations for most household chores. These are often unspoken expectations.
- Incompetence At Work: Systemic incompetence leads women employees to be more likely to clean up the coffee mugs, change the toner, and perform countless other housekeeping tasks that impact their ability to perform their desk jobs.
- Incompetence At Home: Systemic incompetence can often happen in households too. Once I started paying attention to it, I saw it everywhere. Even in households with stay-at-home fathers, the mother still signs kids up for summer camp, organizes dentist appointments, and wakes up early to walk the dog. (Once you start seeing it, you can’t unsee it!)
- Language: Our language reinforces gender roles. This goes beyond the fact that strangers compliment my daughter for her appearance and my son for his intelligence. It includes subtle things. Statements like, “It’s so great that your husband will pick up groceries for you.” (I’m pretty sure my husband also eats…)
A better system
When I signed the contract for my cookbook, I was given 4 months to write and test the recipes with an additional 2 months to complete all the food photography. My husband and I sat down to divide the household labor more fairly.
As my workload grew, between managing two blogs, my writing career, and working outside the home, we recalibrated the household labor. The kids were older, so they were given a share of chores as well. My kids help clean the house, wash dishes, do the laundry, and cook dinner one night a week. We still carry the mental load for their share of work, but they are good household helpers.
Boundaries And Mental Load
Mental load is the unseen organizational work that every household chore requires.
–> For example, someone can cook dinner and not do any of the mental load.
–> Mental load is planning what dinner is going to be. Making sure it covers all the food groups and uses up the ingredients in the fridge.
Dividing household labor and mental load starts with good boundaries. Loose boundaries are why most labor ends up on women’s shoulders. We automatically step in to fill the gap, inadvertently reinforcing our societal roles.
Here are a few key rules to follow, when dividing household labor and metal load.
- If it’s not your responsibility, let it go. Pick up a book. Go for a walk. Do whatever you need to do to not get involved.
- Let your partner fail. If you provide unasked-for support you are minimizing their ability to learn.
- It’s fine if it’s not perfect. If there’s something you absolutely have to have control over, then take it on as your chore. However, if you feel the need to have control over everything, then you probably need to work on your self-care.
- You don’t have to take on more household chores just because you have a special diet or other needs. Treating other people with respect includes accommodating their needs. Besides, pretty much everyone has some special requirements. This can include things like accommodating for work schedules or hobbies, dietary requirements, or self-care.
- Families are a team. Dividing labor is a fair way to share the work. But it doesn’t mean you can’t ask for extra help when you need it. And you can help out if you want to. It’s fun to cook together!
How to divide household labor
I have been working on a fair division of household labor in our relationship forever. We divided up chores, but that didn’t really divide up the thinking, planning, and prep behind chores. Even when Brad cooked dinner and bought the groceries for dinner, he would forget to check for pantry staples, and things in the fridge that needed to be used up. Or he would forget that dinner needed to be early because the kids had baseball practice. It’s not that he’s a scattered or forgetful person. He just knew that I was keeping track of everything so he didn’t need to.
I don’t think we should both have to be in charge of everything. That would result in a lot of extra and unnecessary work for both of us. It also means we might both assume the other person did the chore, when neither of us did. “I thought you were going to pick up milk?”
What worked for us was to set up explicit jobs. This means that we both take on a share of mental load, and we both get to take a break for some tasks.
These can be small. For example, I’m in charge of feeding the cats, so I make sure we have food and make sure the kids will feed them if I’m out. Brad’s in charge of the litter, and I have never had to check if we’re out of litter.
List of household chores:
The trick to dividing household labor is to list all the labor, even stuff that’s sometimes invisible labor.
Household chores include everything you can think of. Cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, taking kids to school, financial tasks, buying gifts, taking care of pets, taking kids to medical appointments, buying kids clothes and supplies, signing them up for camp, bike maintenance, lawn mowing. Everything that you do to contribute to the household.
Negotiate on chores that you might not agree on. For example, if you love gardening, does it count as a chore?
There are two ways to divide the chores. You can either take a chore and own it forever. (I’ve been feeding the cats for their whole lives). Or you can swap back and forth.
Here’s how we divided our household labor. This list is more about mental load than execution. For example, I definitely help with cleaning and laundry, but Brad keeps track of when the sheets need to be washed and when the bathrooms were last cleaned. Brad cooks dinner at least twice a week, but I make sure we know who is cooking what and when. And I ensure that one of us picks up milk when we need it. 😉
Emillie
- Food: planning, shopping, prep, but not all the cooking.
- Kids’ school stuff: This is everything from filling out forms, buying school supplies and teacher’s gifts, to helping with homework.
- Feeding Pets: I feed the cats and make sure all pets have food.
- Kids Extras: Medical appointments for the kids, shopping for clothes, and things like that.
Brad
- Cleaning: Laundry, nagging kids to clean their stuff, and coordinating big cleaning chores.
- Kids’ Extracurriculars: This is easier now that they’re older. We used to both do it, dividing the activities.
- Kitty Litter: Perhaps part of the cleaning chore, but Brad does all the kitty litter cleaning.
- Banking: Brad likes to look over our bank and credit card statements. I do my work-related finances, but he does our family finances.
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