Sharing the mental load

Life with an under-five is undeniably busy; going to groups, vaccination appointments, buying the right size clothes, playing with them and much more. If you’re parenting with a partner, you might share these tasks – but have you ever stopped to think if you are really sharing all of the task? Or is one of you still taking on more of the jobs that make the task happen? 

Taking your baby to a vaccination appointment isn’t simply about getting there at the right time, it involves:  

• Researching tips for during and after the vaccination – what pain relief can you give? Does it help to have it before? What worked for other people? What vaccinations will they be offered? 
• Remembering the appointment time and place 
• Thinking about what they’ll wear (you might choose an outfit you can get on and off quickly)  
• If you have other children, you might be arranging for someone else to look after them 
• Have you got everything you might need to take with you/at home? 

All of this thinking, that is part of every task you do, is known as the mental load and in heterosexual relationships the load often (but not always) falls more on mothers than fathers.^[1] 

Even when your partner is doing the task itself, if you have done all the research, planning and organisation then you have taken on the mental load of that task.  

Researcher Allison Daminger, describes this as ‘cognitive labour’.^[2]  

This work involves: 

Anticipating household needs 

Identifying options for meeting those needs 

Deciding among the options 

Monitoring the results 

In her interviews with couples, Allison found that women did most of this work, particularly anticipating and monitoring, with deciding between options being shared roughly equally.  

If you start to see the various tasks that are part of having children as involving thinking and planning as well as doing, this could help to share the load more equally. 

This week on our podcast, My First Five Years co-founders Jennie Johnson and Alistair Bryce-Clegg are joined by Zoe Blaskey, transformational coach and founder of Motherkind, to talk about the mental load.  

You’ll hear how to start sharing the load in a way that feels achievable and how to tackle it as a team, as well as five top tips to take away. We loved this comment from the episode, which really sums up why it can feel so overwhelming for mother’s especially: 

“80% of people consuming parenting knowledge, trying to learn how to handle feelings, and learning about milestones, are mothers. And that takes an awful lot of time, energy and effort… It’s a really important part of the mental load that mothers are picking up.” 

Having the My First Five Years app will be a step towards reducing the weight of that part of the mental load, as you can trust our experts to have done the research for you. It means you can pick up your app and know that the activity ideas and articles are all there to support your child with the skills they’re working on now.  

We hope this article also helps you to think about asking for help from your partner, family or friends to share some of the tasks that make up the mental load of parenting and give you a little breathing room. To learn more, you can listen to the podcast episode with Zoe which comes out on Tuesday 3rd October – find it here.  

You can also read more about the mental load and another approach to sharing it in our article Done in by your to-do list? How to share the (mental) load.  

References: 

[1] Grose, J. (2021, 21 April). Why women do the household worrying. The New York Times. Why Women Do the Household Worrying - The New York Times (nytimes.com) 

[2] Daminger, A. (no date). Research. Research — Allison Daminger