So I’ve been in my head about this lately. I work 40-50 hour weeks depending on what’s going on, and honestly I’ve always thought my job was to make sure we’re financially stable. That’s how I contribute, you know?
My wife handles most of the day-to-day kid stuff because I’m literally not there.
But I keep seeing these posts about dads being “assistant parents” and how if you have to ask your wife what needs to be done, you’re basically failing. Like you’re supposed to just know when the kids need new shoes or what their teacher’s name is or whatever.
And I don’t know, man. I get it in theory, but I’m genuinely fried. My brain is making decisions all day that affect our income, our benefits, whether I even have a job next quarter. So yeah, I ask my wife what needs to happen because she’s the one who’s been there. She knows what’s going on.
Is that really so terrible? Like am I supposed to somehow track pull-ups inventory and quarterly projections at the same time?
I’m not trying to be defensive, I actually want to understand this.
Do you guys who work long hours somehow manage to keep all that stuff in your head too? Does your partner expect you to? Or is there some middle ground where you’re still a good dad without being the one who remembers picture day?
Just feeling like no matter what I do it’s wrong. Either I’m a ghost dad who’s never around, or I’m around but not “mentally present” enough. Can’t win.
Anyway, curious what you guys think.
My wife and I both work, so I can’t really comment on your specific situation, but I will say, if you guys are not using Google Calendar or some kind of shared calendar, I highly recommend it. Once you fully commit to it it makes things a lot easier.
We have separate calendars for each of us, including our kids. Any events we have go in there, it gives both of us a clear view of what the upcoming week(s) look like. Because yeah, we’re both working, how else are we supposed to remember everything that’s going on?
I don’t know how old your kids are, but mine are 10 and 12 and it’s just gotten worse as they get older and have more and more activities.
So yeah, shared calendar. It’s an essential communication tool with your partner.
Shared Calendars are rhe way to go. I use a marker board.
My middle school kids get specific study/homework time blocked off so we don't forget.
I even put optional things on, movies, plays, or sports to watch or go to. It seems weird but it has helped a lot.
Also my summer calendar for my kids is effing wild. almost like a murder board, but we always know what is going on.
Shared calendars, shared shopping lists, shared packing lists. Both parties are fully responsible for populating them as you go through each day. There really isn’t much mental load otherwise.
Do you think it's interesting that it seems nearly everyone disagrees with your interpretation (in this and other comments) that mental load isn't "that much"?
Not really. I think there are a couple things here.
A lot of fathers are absent or otherwise inadequate, so if one parent is parenting, yeah, it’s not fair. Those fathers need to hear it.
There is an aspect of this conversation which ties supporting mental load to supporting women, so saying anything otherwise is like you aren’t supporting women. I’m not saying it’s explicit, just an implicit undertone.
I am the primary parent in my household. I know the mental load and otherwise of caring for a child. I am also generally not worried about speaking against the grain. I don’t mind being downvoted. It doesn’t change my opinion that it’s not all that hard.
Edit: I do want to be clear that any parents that need so much direction that they don’t know where their children’s clothes are or when to buy diapers or shoes are bad parents. When I speak to the above, I’m saying “When you notice diapers are running low, add it to a shopping list so it doesn’t create mental load,” but if you aren’t changing diapers to even know that, you’re a bad parent who isn’t doing enough.
I think what you're confusing here is the effective systematisation of mental load with it not really existing. Edit: or at least, that's how it comes across in your comments
It's great you've got systems in place, plus the time, the skills and the tools to effectively organise things. But that is also a fortunate place to be - if you didn't have those skills and tools, or perhaps the time to get them systematised, what would all that work become, and how would you manage it?
I think there is absolutely some bias in how this stuff is talked about, and I'm 100% on board with systematising as much as possible, but that doesn't mitigate that there is mental load (abrogated by systems or not), and that it can be overwhelming for an already overloaded parent.
While I hear your point about it "not being that much" in your context, I don't think it helps convince those deadbeat parents to hear someone say "it's not that much" - to those deadbeats it sounds like evidence that they're doing plenty and that their partners are just bad at life.
My suggestion to you, is to think about your wording - instead of saying "there's not much mental load", you could say "I've found systematising things in this way XXXX, really helps me reduce my current mental load".
Just a suggestion, but I think it might help your point be better received without the implication that some parents aren't strong enough to carry the load.
I do hear your feedback on how this can sound dismissive to deadbeat dads that need to hear the message. Some dads use weaponized incompetence. Others are not active/participatory and don’t see what it takes to care for a child. At the same time, my point is truly that it’s not that hard. I’m not trying to shy away from that, and I know that sounds abrasive, but it’s true. My tools/systems are simple native functions of my phone (calendar app and notes app are both native) and I’d wager every parent on this forum has a smartphone. I’m not talking about revolutionary, new, or uncommon tools. There are items that don’t work with my “system,” like replacing the wipes in the go-bag when they’re running low, or grabbing clean scissors on the way out to cut noodles. I don’t mean to minimize that it exists, I just also believe generally it’s not as burdensome as some make it out to be.
But yes I accept your feedback on the messaging.
I guess the other thing to keep in mind is, cognitive capability.
Not everyone is very good at organising - some people are so cognitively lacking that they can barely handle themselves, let alone a house or a little person.
So what seems to me and you as "not that much", could be an overwhelming amount of work for someone who doesn't have the cognition to easily strategise and systematise these things. What could be second nature to us would take weeks of learning for some to do.
I appreciate you listening and taking what I'm saying on board. It's always refreshing to have a conversation on Reddit where it feels like the other person is actually reading your words as they're written, let alone as intended 😅
I'm not trying to be unfairly critical or unkind, and broadly, I share your view (having experienced the dissonance between what my wife considers overwhelming and what I thought was 5 minutes in a spreadsheet to automate), but I think we have to remember we're all playing the game of life with slightly different base rules. There is parts of life my wife can do in minutes that would borderline leave me in tears, and when I get frustrated at how long some things take her, I have to remind myself that this goes both ways 🙂
I don’t know how I lived before a shared calendar.
Agreed. You can’t be expected to read each others minded for a lot of stuff so communication is key and a shared calendar/email for family stuff is very helpful.
Other stuff around the house that clearly needs to be done is also a no brainer, your wife probably plans to do the dishes or put away laundry but just hasent gotten a chance to, something easy yiu can do to help or just watch the kid(s) for a bit so she has time.
My wife refers to it as having tabs open, and needing to close some of them to free up mental bandwidth.
Nothing wrong with asking her what she needs help with on a regular basis, just not when she looks busy or stressed.
The most helpful thing we ever did was establish a weekly check in meeting . Share what each of us have going on , what coming up with us and the kids and discuss schedule.
Not sure if you do this already but it helped me a lot with what you are experiencing when I was working 50-60 hour weeks
We do the weekly meeting too. It helps a ton. My other advice for OP is to write everything down. Create a mini wiki for your family life where you can track things all the things like teacher info and kids sizes. Also put all the school/ family events in your calendar with reminders. Lastly, look for small ways to help. If you notice something needs to get done, just do it. Goes a long way.
Lurking mom and NOT looking to argue. The mental load flip flops in my house from week to week (I have the higher paying job but my husband is a supervisor and honestly his job is 1000% more stressful than mine though I work longer hours)
Can I hear more about this weekly meeting? We have a 2.5 yo and one on the way. We have a shared calendar (multiple actually 😅) but what stuff do you guys go over? Is it a set day of the week?
I'm not the original commenter, but for my wife and I we talk through logistics because sometimes something doesn't make the calendar or something on the calendar has some nuance. But more importantly we talk through things like "I have back to back meetings that day and might need 30 minutes to decompress, can you take the kid while I shop for groceries" or "what are the things important to you this week to take priority in the house (dishes being done, specific clothes washed for that event on Thursday, progress on X house project)". It's also just a vibe check where we can say if we're drowning or not. Hopefully we're both not drowning at the same time.
We used to have weekly meetings on Sunday night, and this was our agenda:
What went well this week?
What went wrong this week?
What do we have coming up this week?
How can we help each other get through this week?
Holy crap, implementing agile retrospectives is both funny and makes total sense for me right now
Man idk… if I had to do a life retro that felt like a work retro after working my brain might explode
I had no idea this was an agile "thing." We based it on a book called the Secrets of Happy Families, by Bruce Feller.
That’s amazing.
Retros are important because they’re literally the only recurring meeting mentioned in the Twelve Agile Principles. That webpage has been unchanged for at least 25 years. At the time it was a radically minimalist and pragmatic counter to complicated project management, but a whole consulting industry has sprung up around it and everyone complains about how many meetings they’re now stuck in.
Anyway, I’m posting it because I’m wondering how much that book adapted it. For sure if you substitute out “software” for something about kids and keeping your family happy, there’s probably a decent amount that’s relevant.
We meet every Sunday once kids are down (3&1 YO). In our meeting we fill in the below info into a weekly planer book that we keep open on our counter throughout the week . -We go over our work schedules (start and finish times ) -who’s doing daycare pickup and drop off - meal plan for the week - any appointments for anyone - social events - to do list for this week
Usually takes 10-30 min depending on what’s going on . It is worth it makes both our lives easier .
Same! Our planner is a whiteboard on the fridge, and it also holds a running grocery list.
Voice assistants shopping list + Walmart/Target/Aldi pickup are what we use
Thinking of meals for a week in less than 30 minutes is crazy impressive
Some context that I didn’t put in my comment to keep it brief . Typically on Thursday or Fridays we talk about what we want to eat during the week , buy groceries on weekend and then finalize on the Sunday
For us we use our weekly Sunday night meeting just to catch up and get on the same page. We share calendars and talk throughout the week but we're both working parents so things get lost. Having that set weekly meeting gives us time to remember things. We divide up tasks, talk about upcoming large expenses, inform each other of bigger things going on at work, even plan social things. Our focus is for the upcoming week but we'll plan out larger things like business trips or school holidays further in advance.
Honestly use an agenda like you’d use for a work meeting. It’s not sexy, but put anything you need on tha agenda. Maybe you’re thinking about summer holidays, put that on to talk about and then split out tasks.
Note that I’m saying this but not doing it because my partner hates treating family like work even though it means we’re less efficient and things go less smoothly.
Doing not sexy things to hopefully bring sexy things back in life is exactly what I’m looking for 😭
Idk there are families where both parents work more than 40 hours a week. Who’s supposed to keep track then?
Yup we’re one of those families, you just… do it? Idk communication, caffeine and a proactive attitude go a long way. To pick one example from OP’s post, keeping track of whether we need pull-ups is as simple as checking the closet before I go to the store, just like I’d check whether we need eggs or milk
Yep, same experience here. Wife and I both work 50 - 60 hour weeks and things work because they have to!
Caffeine and a shared calendar gets us 75% of the way there. And some days I drink more caffeine to get closer to 80.
I just buy pull ups and wipes and the other staples regardless. If I'm not sure, buy them. It's hard to balance all our needs and communicate well all the time, but you just keep trying, keep working together, call each other out when you need to. The best parenting advice I ever got was just to keep trying.
Exactly. The communication is a two-way street, sometimes we each forget something and simply text each other to ask. It’s not that deep.
The examples in OP’s post are pretty revealing. How do you know when the kid needs new shoes? Um, when they don’t fit anymore or have a hole in them, just trust your eyes. What’s the teacher’s name? This is one you should definitely have on lock, pretty embarrassing to have to ask your wife tbh. If OP is only working 40-50 hours and struggling with these details, well… step it up man?
Yup! Shared calendars and shared shopping lists apps really help out tons.
Because when we both work overtime, and the both deal with kids, there is almost no time for face to face communication.
I think dividing up the tasks and having one parent clearly in charge of each tasks (but dividing between them) is key. So I'm in charge of doctor's appointments, dealing with daycare, groceries, meals for the kids, and dishes. My wife is in charge of social engagements, laundry, buying clothes, and cleaning/grooming the kids.
Agreed 100%, while also being flexible about shifting roles when circumstances dictate it
I get the feeling that OP expects the wife to go to the store. At the very least I doubt he’s going without a list she made.
In my family its usually i say I'm taking care of a b c, she argues a bit saying she wants to do more but then relents as I know she will go to midnight if i don't limit her.
Know your spouse, know yourself and most of all get the kids to do a bit ffs!!!
This is my wife and I. We live by the shared calendar and we have clear division of labor.
She's hybrid and I'm WFH so Monday-Wednesday she's on pickups and drop offs and I'm responsible for all meals and household duties. Thursday & Friday we switch.
She's responsible for school activities and deadlines and I'm responsible for non-school activities and deadlines.
She's responsible for healthcare/dental and I'm responsible for homework.
I'm responsible for anything on the outside of the home and anything inside the home that involves tools. She's responsible for anything technological (wifi, printers, etc.).
I'm responsible marshaling the kids and ensuring they do what needs to be done in a timely manner (bed time, getting out the door in the morning). She's responsible for their social calendar.
It works for us as well as is possible given how little time we have both being at demanding jobs.
I will say that I do not believe that the condition we're in is one that society should require of us in order to stay afloat. It does not feel right or healthy. Cost of living should not be so high and the labor expected of us so much that we have to keep moving as fast we do just to hold our socioeconomic position. There's something wrong with the current social contract/economy to make all this coordination and efficiency necessary.
Women joining the workforce WAS a trap, but not in the way misogynists claim...it made the rich realize they can pump WAY more profit out of each household if every household has two incomes instead of one, so they made everything so expensive that very few people can actually survive on a single income.
This is a super reasonable approach. I largely agree with your last paragraph too, though I think it’s slightly more complicated than that. My wife and I both choose to work because it gives us each a sense of individual identity, purpose & accomplishment, as well as parity within the household. It’s not just about the economic necessity of “staying afloat”. We’d both be miserable as stay-at-home-parents, as much as we love our kids. In an ideal world we’d be able to maintain our standard of living with more like ~30 hrs/week each 😊
We both chose to work for the same reasons but given that we’ve both been reasonably successful we should be financially comfortable and moving up the socioeconomic ladder. We’re the type of people that don’t mind working hard, we’d probably be doing this if things were right, but something is broken. We shouldn’t HAVE to do this. A couple should be able to maintain their family’s status with either one person working or two people working part time. It shouldn’t require two people working their asses off. And if they choose to do that then they should be getting ahead.
Fair enough. I do agree with that. I guess I just feel like we are getting ahead, relative to our broke 20s at least. We’re not filthy rich or anything but we pay the bills, own a home, are gradually building a retirement, etc. We don’t own fancy cars or go on fancy vacations, but we also don’t really stress about finances on a day-to-day basis in the way that I absolutely would if I was the sole breadwinner. Our quality of life has gradually risen as we’ve advanced in our careers. I like the equitable distribution of “mental load” on both the work and home fronts.
For real, people act like mom is just k9f at work. When you include the fact that she's doing daycare run my wife is working more than me.
I don't disagree but this is a different scenario from when one partner works a longer week than the other, and the other partner feels resentful without realizing that keeping track comes easier to them than their SO who worked a full week.
This is in no way an excuse for the working parent to tap out.
But it is a common human error to assume things are as hard/easy for others as they are for themselves, and when you deal with two team members (i.e. parents) who have very different experiences on a day to day basis, it's easy to measure the other with your own measuring stick and become resentful over a perceived imbalance.
In a scenario where both parents work a full week the odds of resentment are lower (on the premise that both parents put in the effort) because their experiences are not that different from one another. If you're both tired then it's easier to remember that the other person is feeling the way you are feeling.
People who claim things are easy, which is disproportionately the case for those who publish parenting advice on social media, generally have a lifestyle that allows them recovery time that the average person does not get. Whether it is generational wealth, reduced working hours, household assistance, a large community, ... You rarely see these kinds of posts from people who are overworked or scraping by.
This strikes on the same "different experiences" point from before. One person's advice is not always meaningfully measurable to another person's situation when they live different lives.
Its like anything else in a relationship, its collaborative. If you both work the same, then you both support the same. If only one of you is working, the other has more bandwidth to manage the household stuff. Its not a one-size fits all, and we should stop trying to fit every relationship into the same box as our own.
"Like am I supposed to somehow track pull-ups inventory and quarterly projections at the same time?"
Regarding this, I think it's just like you record quarterly projections and then another set of quarterly projections. You keep track of multiple things at work, right?
What helps us is a shared family calendar and very clearly delineated stuff to keep track of. I enter all my hard appointments and stuff into the calendar and so does my partner. I'm responsible for all doctor, dentist, and hair appointments - finding a time that works, calling multiple times, booking them. I take notes at the appointment and just text them to my partner to keep them informed. I have a reminder set on my phone for hair once a month that just says "look at hair - too long?". I'm also responsible for the shoes. I am the shoe parent. I have a reminder for that, too ("look at shoes - too tight? seasons coming up?"). My partner does all the school stuff and all the sports and arts stuff, which is so much. Partner is responsible for organizing Christmas and Father's Day, and I'm responsible for Thanksgiving and Mother's Day.
I honestly think being a good parent means knowing your kids, and that means knowing their routines and what the heck they do all day. It is a lot of work. It is more work. But I wouldn't know how to be close to my kids otherwise. What does knowing your kids mean if not knowing these things about them? I don't know. Before, I didn't manage any of that stuff and I just didn't know my kids as well. I wasn't really well integrated into my own family. It felt like I was sort of a bystander
Adding on to using texts, thats how we keep track of what needs to be bought too. So if one of us has a chance to stop by a store, we have the list. Notice we're onto our last sleeve of diapers? Text "shopping: diapers" and then we just copy and paste that text, adding and erasing as we shop/get things done.
We use shared notes for this - Google keep or Apple notes both work fine. Think of something we need? Add it to the list for the relevant store. Going to a store? Get everything on the list and cross stuff off.
Shared grocery lists are a massive aid!!!!
We use Walmart pickup. Also voice assistants are fantastic for this. “WakeWord, add milk to my shopping list.”
My wife felt like too much of everyday planning fell on her shoulders. And she was right. She had a mental model of the entire families needs in her head at all times, and I was just too used to her knowing everything.
I introduced shared Google Calendars (one for each kid + one general purpose) and Microsoft ToDo with multiple lists (shopping, chores, general tasks) for family planning.
The todo-app helps a lot. I just added two yearly tasks (spring + autumn) to check the kids outdoor clothing for the coming season.
Being able to both write down tasks so they don't get forgotten and also having the satisfaction of actually checking them off leads to better accountability than just scheduling an appointment.
I'm setting up a family dashboard in the living room as well.
For shopping there may be better alternatives, but I hesitate to use yet another application.
How did you convince your wife to be actually use these apps? I want to do this but my wife doesn’t really want to invest the time in the digital version. She wants to do certain things per Handwriting (the calendar and plan) and certain things just in her head. I do all these things with those apps, but since I’m alone she doesn’t see the work or accept that it is taken care of :/
Well, we had an argument. This was my offer for actually improving the situation. She wants me to take over more responsibilities? Use the apps. Why? Because she married me and knows that I absolutely suck at "just knowing these things". But I'm an IT guy. I'm good at working tickets.
My pitch is: Transparency, Accountability, Convenience.
For example, she often comes up with things to do while out of the house, or during pauses at work, or any other time when a physical plan or calendar just isn't within reach. Guess what's almost always at hand: the smartphone. I immediately see the new task and I always have the updated data at hand when I'm not at home to check.
It's a process, we still argue from time to time, she still gets the feeling of having to do everything sometimes, questioning the need to write certain things down that should be common sense from her perspective. But it improved our communication dramatically.
This. As a lurking mom and one who struggled with my spouse a lot in those early days and adjustment. This ended up being the true saving grace we fell into over the years instead of us both trying to tackle it all. It was so nice when we both took our son for a dental procedure and the staff kept looking to me and I was like “nope, he’s the dentist guy I know nothing of what’s been going on. I’m the asthma parent”. This is the way. He also sets timers and for early years supplies (diapers, wipes) he kept subscriptions to make sure things came in.
A couple of starting thoughts. Yes, your job is big and stressful and requires decision making, but your home life also requires that. Even if your wife is a SAHM (you don't explicitly say that but I'm assuming it's the case), you still owe the family unit some of your brainpower. If your wife is dealing with everything, she's likely effectively working more than 40-50 hour weeks dealing with all the responsibilities, you're just not crediting that time because it's not bringing in cash.
Step 1 is about making it clear what the jobs actually are and what you will do in the future, what you'll take active ownership of. It's - in my opinion at least - pointless you attempting to chime in on something like "kids need new shoes", what you need to be doing is carrying out the complete task of "ensuring the kids have the right clothes (in the right size) for the season".
The "Fair Play" book can give you a starting point to set out what the jobs are and who is the owner (there's a very long list of tasks in that book, from the small daily things to once-a-year things). I like the Fair Play method because it's clear that you need to be the manager and the executor on a task, you can't share or split responsibilities as that leads to failure points. You need to be actively claiming this work, managing it just like you do any task at your job. Put it on an effing Kanban board if it's helpful to you.
I work something like 50-60 hours a week but I have a set of tasks that I carry out for the family. It's not as long as my wife's set of tasks (because that's how we've chosen to divide the work, versus our respective job commitments), but it works for us. My key tasks, for reference: food purchasing and cooking, holiday planning and preparations, home maintenance, swimming lessons for the kids, home cleaning supplies, birthday presents for all relatives on both sides of the family, and a whole bunch of smaller bits and pieces.
As someone who covers the other side of that tasks list, big props to you for pickling up those planning things. I find those the most taxing. I'll gladly do all every mundane house chore over figuring out what's for dinner.
I'm the decision maker in my household (lurking mom), and I'm a professional project manager. It's easy for me to stay ahead of tasks, or find solutions on the spot.
But I DREAD diaper changes. Do them once a week, maybe, hubby does the rest. He's not able to figure out a meal plan tho. That's on me. Cooking is 50/50.
A real team knows how to split chores by talent.
Swimming lessons is a really good one. That's something that if you have a shared family calendar is one of the clean/easy to cut from the other tasks and assign to yourself
This is a great thread and its something I want to look more into. I struggle with this and it was a major source of contention in our marriage before my wife went nearly full-time SAHM.
I see my wife bought the audiobook of Fair Play years ago (during the conflict) - so I will commit to listening to it, but I'm just wondering if the lists it includes would be published elsewhere, as I suspect it will be challenging to transcribe from the audiobook.
Many thanks
Edit: Nevermind, pretty simple google search got me to a reddit thread with this link: FAIR PLAY cards FOR DISTRIBUTION - Google Sheets
The division of duties, where one is a SAH parent is always going to be imbalanced in terms of at-hone duties. Its impossible and frankly unfair to expect it not to be. If, once the out-of-home working parent gets home they're saddled with more than 50% of the home duties, or there's resentment the SAH parent that they "still have to do stuff " that's frankly just terrible.
You're thinking way too all or nothing. No one knows everything, and asking and helping is better than doing nothing. Splitting the mental load is just about taking initiative and not ALWAYS relying on your wife to direct you. You should be able to figure out on your own if your kid needs new shoes. Keep a shared family calendar in your phones so you can do some of the scheduling doctors appointments or whatever.
You seem like a work oriented kind of guy, so think about if you had a coworker at the same level as you that constantly asked you what they should do next. At some point you're going to get fed up with that and they should get a feel for what work needs to be done.
She ain’t gonna help on the job though? Splitting responsibilities seems practical and functional in a single income household.
I always thought the mental load tax and message was more fir (but not totally aimed at)dual income households, like “we both work and we both have to parent.”
Plus the acknowledgement that the during the day stuff is its own full time job and no parent gets real downtime until the kids are sleeping… so really it’s an “all hands on deck” until bedtime.
But it’s not like OP doesn’t contribute. He executes but does not strategize to make it corporate af. But like… executing is still something.
One partner setting the schedule and tasks for the home while the other works seems okay? It’s when both partners work and only one partner carries the house where it seems unfair. If you can set clean splits of responsibility for planning “here’s how we get money” vs “here’s how we run the house” and both parties are expected to put in labor/execution… it seems right?
It's just too much to have one person entirely set the schedule and tasks, IMO, because it separates you from the family. You become an "employee" and your wife is the "manager". I hated it.
Way better to take full ownership of some household tasks to a) actually know your kids better, and b) be a full participant/member/manager/partner in your own house.
This will really depend on the family dynamics. I understand that when you work it feels reasonable to expect that the other person will take care of all the planning in the house. But the whole working day with kids during the time when one partner is working is not really give the stay at home partner time to plan anything, their mental capacity is used on managing tiny human beings that consume all their attention. So the split is actually not house vs work. It is taking care of kids during the day vs taking care of work that brings money. That load is more or less fair split. The rest of the mental load needs to be split accordingly after the working day is done when both parents at home and can juggle kids or once kids are asleep.
That of course if we talk about the situation when one partner is at work and the other is looking after kids full time, not when they are in nursery/school most of the day in which case it is fair to expect that most of the things would be taken care of by the partner that is staying home.
More true for young kids, but once they're in school this will not hold up either.
I find a lot of the resentment in threads like this one involve young kids, and patterns established when kids are young will likely continue.
The good news is that negotiating responsibilities, finances, etc should be an ongoing conversation so building that muscle early sets you up for success when school starts and obligations, time requirements, commutes, etc change.
Yep, your kids needs change so the job as the parent changes with them. Important for all involved parties (kid included) to have input on the plan.
You seem determined to absolve working parents from any responsibility for their children.
OP isn’t in a single income household.
A parent who leaves all planning, scheduling and organizing of their children’s lives to their partner isn’t going to have a very close relationship with their children.
Maybe, if they are actually sharing responsibilities during non-working hours. There is no weekend, vacation, or time off from parenting. And in general, men tend to underestimate the amount of effort it actually takes to set the schedule and tasks.
In a single income household with pre-school aged children, both parents work. One doesn't get paid.
Do you think nannies don't work?
Yea. If one parent is working 40+ hours a week, but the other parent isn't working, or is only working part time work 25-30 hours a week. Of course, it wouldn't make sense to split the mental or domestic load 50/50.
There’s a huge gray area between “straight down the middle 50-50 split” and “OP doesn’t even fucking know the name of his kid’s teacher”
Some of these replies are so out of touch they have to be satire. My favorite is the busy lawyer who “contributes” to sharing the mental load by carrying the heavy burden of vacation planning. Real championship worthy stuff there.
As someone who works similar hours to OP and a lot of other commenters (~45-65/week depending on the week), contributing to the household, much less knowing basic information about your kid’s life like the name of the person who’s in charge of their care 5 days a week, is not challenging. Are tasks and “mental load” split 50/50 between my wife and I all the time? No. Do I sometimes have to work late or travel? Yes. Can I see that a pair of shoes is getting worn out when I put them on my daughter’s feet, or notice that the pull ups or wipes are getting low when I change a diaper? Surprisingly also yes—and you can too unless you’re not doing those things (which given OPs tone, I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t because he’s a big powerful business boy who works too hard).
With only the barest efforts to not be a slovenly piece of crap, it’s perfectly manageable to do laundry, empty the dishwasher, help with cleaning, bathe your child, read a bedtime story, talk to your wife, or any number of other basic tasks associated with being in a functional relationship. But apparently a bunch of you can’t even get over a bar that is so low it may as well be on the floor.
Just for reference , do you know your kids teachers name, right? Because that's such a small thing that if you don't... I'm sure you're not doing your part.
This stood out to me too.
We talk about school all the time in our house. My kid accidentally calls us by her teacher's name regularly.
Even with zero effort put forth, how is it possible to not know the name of your kids teacher?
Yeah, it reminds me of those videos of father's not knowing their kids best friend, teacher, grade and so on. If you are a part of your kids lives and pay attention to them, you will know that stuff.
Ok, but my kid has like 6 "best friends" which changes based on whom they've seen most recently hah
The fact that you know this already proves that you are a part of their life haha
I have 4 kids with I think 20 teachers between them... I know most of their names... not all though. The elementary to middle school jump is pretty insane.
I guess, how many hours does your wife work? Do you guys both work all day (you at paid job and her at childcare job) then share it equally when you’re home? And weekends? Is she also exhausted ?
She works 2 days. I work 5 days. If we are both home, evening and weekends, we divide and conquer and share the load equally (as far as possible), since our kids (4 and 2) sometimes prefer mama …
Does your wife also feel that it's split equally on weekends and evenings? Have you asked?
They are at daycare then?
Who determines what “the load” is for evenings and weekends?
Working up to 50 hours a week is nowhere near the "crazy hours" required to justify not knowing the name of your kids' teachers. Come on, dude.
Dunno why no one else mentioning this. Being a working parent is tough, but I don't know any full time employees not working 40-50. That's literally the 9-5 in "working 9-5". My wife and I both have stressful jobs working 40-50 hours a week plus commute.
Exactly. Nobody's saying it's not stressful, and I think if OP's wife is working significantly less then it absolutely makes sense for her to take on more (not all, but more) of the mental load in terms of keeping track of what household items they're running low on and things like that. But let's be honest--plenty of parents work significantly more than 50 hours a week and still manage to know basic information about their own kids (and their teachers' names definitely fall into that category).
If OP can't manage that, it's not because his job is genuinely so demanding that it's impossible. It's just a weird example for him to cite as a unreasonable expectation and makes me think his wife is correct that he can and should be doing more.
Adding another "agree" here. Some things like not knowing teacher's name shows, IMO, an active disinterest in the kid's day-to-day. Like, you pretty much have to actively be avoiding learning that kind of info. I chat with our kiddo every evening about his day, what was fun, etc... That information comes up in these basic, everyday conversations.
And the implication that he should be keeping a quarterly inventory on pull-ups seems odd, too. Like, no dude, it's pretty simple. You see they're low? Pick up another pack on your way home from work, or add it to the grocery list. Just be present enough to notice when somethings need done, and proactive enough to handle them before they become a problem. This whole thing seems like overcomplicating normal, daily interactions.
I work 50-60 hours per week plus a very long commute. my wife works 40-50 hours a week from home.
The only judgments on me being a “good dad” that matter to me are mom and the kiddos.
This is the giveaway to understand what's really happening in this post. Often the case with posts like this that obviously only give one perspective of the household
I'll be honest, I missed that on a first read through. You gotta be at least somewhat plugged in to your kid's lives, if for no other reason than to be a back-up in case the SAHM gets sick.
I think - as a stay at home mom with a husband who works - that there ARE certain things you should know and certain things you could ask/discover that would be fine.
From your own examples - yes you should know your child’s teacher’s name. Perhaps you need to talk about or to them, regardless you should be aware of who is educating your child even if you don’t interact with them. You might not interact with your CEO or a specific client or something but you probably know who they are because it’s important information that may be relevant at some point.
Pull ups/shoe size - look maybe you don’t have a tally on hand that we have x number of pull ups or ‘jimmy wears a size 7 right now’ but there are pieces of information you can still know regarding these things. When you go to help your kid with a pull up you can probably see if the stash is running low - doesn’t hurt to ask your wife ‘hey do we have more of these on order/ are you planning to pick some up?’ Or offer to pick some up on your own. With shoes, maybe you don’t know the size but you do know warmer weather is incoming and maybe you don’t see anything other than boots for the kid to wear, maybe when you go help your kid put their shoes on you notice they seem a bit tight so you mention it or ask about it. It’s not hard to notice those things in the moment. If you’re not helping with diapers or dressing well that’s indicative of a different issue because if you are doing those things - the condition and supply of the inventory would be on your mind. If your kid is older you could always ask ‘hey do your shoes feel comfortable or do your feet hurt when you wear them?’, ‘hey honey is Mary still a size 9 in shoes?’
I get you’re burnt out. My husband is burnt out, I’m burnt out. I take care of lots more mental load stuff compared to him because I AM home. And mostly I don’t mind that. But there are mental things he takes care of solely as well - he does all the grocery shopping and a lot of the cooking for example so he has a much better idea of food supply than I ever do. He picks up things we’ve run out of on the way home which means that’s on his mind. He takes care of the trash and recycling and managing all that entirely. And much more. It’s a massive load off my back because there’s tons of other stuff I have to worry about. But if all you are doing is working and not contributing in other ways then that’s not enough.
I’m not saying you don’t do that, I don’t know your life, but there are things you should know about your kid and your kid’s life and their stage of development and what is upcoming that is just part of being a parent whether you work more or not.
As a sahm i think some of it comes down to looking around and using your own brain before asking your wife.
I found my partner got in the habit of outsourcing thinking to me which became ridiculous and honestly made him look incompetent to our kid. Part of the battling the mental load comes with looking around you, seeing what needs to be done and doing it. If you see your partner struggling or trying to work through a big list of tasks while juggling a child you shouldn’t be stood there asking what needs to be done think about what needs doing or what would help in the moment and do it.
I’ve got to say it’s disappointing to see men commenting that if the wife is a sahm it’s essentially fine to for them to handle absolutely everything under the guise that 10+ hours working out the house is real work and 10+ hours working in the house isn’t
Absolutely agreed. So much of what I see women complain about could be solved by their partners just looking and thinking before either asking or blindly assuming someone else is taking care of it.
While I do more of both the physical and mental work simply by virtue of being home, having an enjoyment in fix-it tasks and an inability to sit still for more than 5 minutes I still very frequently find that my husband has taken care of things I wasn’t even aware of that needed doing or thinking about.
We largely operate on an unspoken ‘if you see something, take care of it’ policy. Just telling the person after the fact what we did so they know and can thank the other. We don’t argue about chores and neither feels like the other doesn’t pull their fair share. I honestly can’t imagine being with someone who didn’t take an active role in both the household and what their children do/need.
I dunno man, sometimes you just need to do both, but it also depends on the home situation.
My wife and I both work full time (well she’s just under) so we share a lot more of the kid load because it would be unfair of me to make her know it all. I’ll admit, mostly because of her personality type she knows a lot more of that stuff than I do, but I do a ton as well.
If our roles were more segmented I wouldn’t see as big of an issue with it personally. But I wouldn’t completely shut my brain off to those aspects either.
Want to know how to tell if your kid needs new shoes? Look at them. Try putting them on the kid’s foot. Your wife shouldn’t have to tell you stuff like that, you know how to do it yourself. If you see your wife trying to get things done, and see things that need doing, then instead of wandering over, slack-jawed and scratching your bum while you ask, ‘so what do you want me to do?’, just start helping. You don’t need to do ‘quarterly pull up inventories’, just look in the fucking spot where pull ups go and get more if you need more.
This is reading very much as weaponized incompetence, where you clearly aren’t a dumb guy, but are overthinking and being over dramatic about basic things to a point where it sounds a bit embarrassing and you imply you’re really doing nothing but going to work and forgetting about the home. When women complain about men who don’t take on the mental load, it’s referring to things that are so basic to being a part of a functioning home that it’s almost boggling women have to tell their husbands what to do, like where to put the dishes away in the house he’s lived in for years. She shouldn’t need to delegate for you constantly like a taskmaster. Just use your eyes and a bit of your brain and lend a hand. It goes a very long way.
Agreed. You can see the stash of toilet paper is running low and are able to add it to the shared grocery list. You can pick up a vacuum and quickly run it over the busiest parts of the house while she cooks dinner. You can rinse off the dishes and put them in the dishwasher without having to be told. It’s a team effort.
Typically I am on the side of the husband/father on these things, as I think people love to find reasons to be offended/shocked/outraged. HOWEVER, if you as a husband/father, can't look around the house and see "oh dishes are behind / laundry needs folded / floors need swept or mopped etc." then you are a loser.
I don't worry so much about shoes/clothes/groceries because I know my wife has a plan for those. If I go to the store I'll say "going to the store to get xyz, do we need more item A?" but typically she says "no, I have put that in our grocery order that comes in two days" or something like that.
Is not better to be neutral and understand things as individual situations than just siding automatically with men (or vice-versa, with women)?
What does your wife think?
Is she happy with the current split in terms of physical and mental load?
If she is, then stop giving a fuck what “influencers” say online
Divide and conquer. It makes no sense for you to try and track the exact same things as her. She's not tracking your job (I have a guess that you're in sales?).
What I've found helps my wife more than trying to take responsibility for the household mental load, is to one, acknowledge the invisible work that comes along with it, and two help minimize it by not adding unnecessary things for her to track.
Can you do meal planning instead? Can you plan date nights? Can you make sure the other piddly bullshit like making sure she's not thinking about when the trash needs to be taken out, or when the car needs gas, or when certain bills are due rarely hits her "mental load"?
Just noticing and doing the things that inevitably enter her mental load without asking her goes a long way.
This is not to say you shouldn't have any of the at-home mental load, but it shouldn't be anywhere near a 50/50 between a SAHM and breadwinner.
Working mothers track pull up inventory and quarterly deadlines!
40-50 isn’t “crazy hours”. That’s just a full-time job. Yeah, you should know who your kid’s teacher is.
You have the skills, just apply to your family as well. But, the fact you even ask your wife about things is half the fight. I usually spend Wednesday night doing a quick check on groceries and laundry. About 5 minutes total for all the day to day stuff ( I do most of the shopping because of wife’s longer commute). Then I look at our shard calendar for any appointments or just social plans. I check car gas levels, laundry level in case I need to help, and adult beverage counts for the weekend, depending on plans. This takes about 10 minutes total, that is usually combine with taking out a bag of trash. I ask my son every day about school, homework, projects, permission slips, anything. It usually catches stuff, but if he misses anything it’s a good lesson for him to be accountable. I check his clothes almost daily just observing what he’s wearing. If things look small, I check his size and see if this is just one of the smaller items. Same for his shoes. Just being present to notice his clothes and shoes daily helps to stay on top of things. I know more of his school than my wife, she takes the medical side. She is a former Paramedic, so it natural for her to know that side. My advice, I try to stay in the moment for everything, including the family. I like to see them and remind myself why I fight so hard. So maybe that’s how I stay connected.
It's terrible if your partner is also working a full time job which is the reality for most people.
A good way to start would be picking a few things to make “your” job. Bedtime, teeth brushing, snacks, there are probably thousands of examples of things you could take off your wife’s plate.
Like you, I worked 50+ hours most weeks. My wife was a SAHM. Still, I had duties around the house which we determined through conversation. For example, I got the kids ready for bed. After all day with them, my wife was happy to be shed of them for a while I enjoyed seeing them. It worked for both of us.
Likewise, based on grocery sales, my wife prepared shopping lists for 3 or 4 different stores and put them on the refrigerator. My job was to do the shopping when I could schedule it into my life. I normally took a kid with me for some valuable one on one time. Again, we both played to our strengths and desires.
My advice is to stop listening to social media. The ONLY person you need to please is your spouse. Have a conversation about working together for a mutually advantageous split of duties to each other and your family.
I’m a single dad with full custody.
I have to do all the things you do at work and pay bills, plus all the things your wife does to maintain the house.
It’s entirely possible to do more than you’re doing, I guarantee it. But also, is it necessary to do more? If your wife is happy with the dynamic then that’s great, if you’re just trying to live up to social media expectations then just stop.
This mentality makes some sense if you work full time and your wife's only job is to be a mother and housekeeper. That's exceedingly rare these days. But even so, if we assume that's true, that still means that if you divide the work that way, you work 9 hours a day while she works 16 hours a day. Because kids ALWAYS need a parent available until they're in the double digits. She works as hard as you do, if not harder, and her mental load is also at least as great as yours, because she's literally trying to keep small people alive all day.
Now, that said, you're asking great questions, and you should discuss this with your wife. Don't let keyboard warriors tell you that you're failing, because they're all probably speaking from a different situation than yours. Ask her whether the current situation feels unfair to her, if there are things she thinks you should be doing, and if she says yes, don't take it defensively, but also do present your side if you disagree. The primary goal of this discussion should NOT be convincing her that you're too busy to do more, but to find out how she really feels about it all and go from there.
I kind of fell into this trap a while back, where I was constantly pushing myself to take care of all kinds of things around the house that felt like my job, like I was a bad husband and father if I didn't do them. And it took quite a while for me to realize that I was stressing out and rushing off to do chores that literally nobody cared about. Instead my wife had been asking for me to be more present at home, and here I was doing the opposite, thinking I was doing the right thing. Eventually I woke up and asked her which of those duties mattered to her, and now have a messier house with a wife and kids who feel seen and connected with and everyone is happier.
Sometimes you can both be overwhelmed in different ways.
For example my wife said she doesn't mind cooking but hates planning 5 dinners a week.
A compromise was I plan cheap, easy, quick, healthy and filling dinners and recipes and put together a store pick up with the ingredients and she picks them up and cooks dinner.
This works fine for me because I'm far more planning/organization oriented than her and planning out five meals a week (especially with AI help) barely moves the needle on my mental load, but for her it was too much.
Yes, my dude, you are supposed to know that, check that, care about that.
If you don't you'll pay child support sooner than later.
You owe your children, and your spouse, more than crumbs.
I mean, I work 40hrs/week and yeah, I divide up running the house with my wife. I like to cook so I do dinners, meal planning, kid lunch prep, and track the stuff that comes from the grocery store so garbage bags pet food toilet paper dish soap etc.
I'm garbage at the personal calendar so that's my wife's thing. I do dishes, wife does laundry. If we didn't have kids under 5 the distribution would be different but we do, and if a parent is taking care of both kids that's what they're doing, period, in that span of time.
If you lived alone you'd hav3 to do all these tasks. Living together just means you get to divide them efficiently, but thst is gonna mean you have time for only half, 1 plus 1 typically works out to close to 2.
I feel like people are reticent to treat their family stuff like a job but…your work usually is trying to do stuff most efficiently, so use that knowledge.
Use spreadsheets for family stuff. Use calendars. Create checklists for repeating tasks.
If you don’t know your kids teachers name (???), put it in your notes, or add them as a contact in your phone.
Schedule a weekly meeting with the wife to look at what’s coming up.
When you’re changing a kids pull up (I hope you are doing thing), then glance at how full the drawer is.
Maybe I’m biased because I’m a mom and work full time, but it really annoys me when there’s some assumption that women are better at this stuff or that it’s not work. I literally apply many of the same systems at work and at home. I’ve used a household Trello board because it’s insane for me to remember everything. I schedule reminders in my cal for things like “book vaccine appointment”. I treat it like work because a lot of it is work. And if you’ve ever done project management you know it’s not just work, it’s shitty, highly paid work.
Mom lurker here. I stay home with our two kids and my husband is a firefighter. He works shift work and has a weird schedule. He still knows our kids teachers names. It does not make me mad when he asks to help, we all need to ask for help and we all have different things to worry about. A family calendar helps a lot!
First of all, is your wife telling you that she needs you to pull more of the mental load? Or is your exposure to this through posts alone?
It’s a good idea to show up as much as you can mentally and physically. Be aware of this dynamic and mitigate where you can. But don’t give yourself stress over posts you’re seeing.
I think the starting point is to understand that if it's a challenge for you, it's a challenge for your partner too. It's fine to have discussions about who's responsible for what, but even if your spouse doesn't work outside the home I'd caution you against completely abandoning familial responsibilities. That is how you become an absent father. Doesn't matter if you're succeeding massively at work making bank for your family, if you're just a paycheck you'll just be the behind-the-scenes reason your kid can go to the zoo with mommy whenever they want. And you'll start feeling isolated from your family and resentful - you make all the money, they take it and you don't get the appreciation. That starts here with these decisions. You see all the work you do and none of the work your spouse does - you just come home and the house is clean enough, food is available, and the kid is more or less happy. She sees how much work she's putting in but not the work you do - there's just money in the bank when she has to go out and get more diapers with the baby at 9am because he's wearing the last one.
My advice - once you build habits, the mental load isn't too bad and it can help your wife a lot. Using the diapers example, maybe stack the diaper packs in one spot and check it on your way out the door. Stop by the store on the way home if more are needed. Maybe even put in a calendar reminder on your phone if you tend to forget (which is my problem normally). If you check every weekday, you don't have to waste attention reminding yourself to check.
It does make sense to have parents do the things at which they have an advantage. E.g. have the parent with a higher income potential work more. However, at some point you are no longer being a parent, and are just a bankroll for your family. There is a very real cost to not being home, and it isn't that you don't know your kids' teacher, but that is a symptom of not knowing much about your kids. On an individual level, it doesn't matter if you change the majority of their diapers, prepare their meals, take them to swim practice, etc. But if you don't do *any* of those things because you are working, then is the extra money really worth the cost to your child, your partner, and, also, to you.
My advice is to pick up specific things that you always do for your kids. Whether that is making their lunch, taking them to a class, doing something on the weekend, etc. Discuss this with your partner.
What has helped us the most is offloading this mental load quickly and efficiently. The best way we found is to make Google Keep lists that we can both access. We've got quite a number at this point... Some examples.
Grocery List
Gift Ideas
Road Trip
Camping
Home Reno List/Projects
Bill Payment Schedule (when each bill is due and comes out the joint account)
The goal is to reduce the amount of mental load on repetitive or short term memory based tasks.
I think that usually "mental load" conversation is a trap because it assumes the only thing that matters is the work around the house and kids. The reality is that the effort managing both jobs and a house should be counted evenly. When you do that the effort expected by men and women is not nearly as lopsided as a lot of people on Reddit would like to assume. I literally went to therapy with my wife who was making the same accusation and when we went to list out all the things I was doing she had no idea because I'd never made a big deal about them and had never asked her for help.
As with everything, teamwork, communication, negotiation, and reasonable standards are the key to making it through parenthood.
The "mental load" conversation drives me crazy. It makes me feel like I'm being gaslit.
I don't ask my partner things like "what can I do to help?" and "where do you want this put this?" because I'm trying to offload my mental load to her. I'm asking because a couple of decades of experience with her and with previous partners has taught me that, whatever I choose without asking her, I will be wrong, and she will be annoyed. If I had an easy-going partner that accepted that I sometimes do things differently to how she would have done them, and that that's ok, I wouldn't ask things like "where do you want these towels put?" or whatever. I'd just put them where I think they should go. I have lived by myself, I survived. But you can't tell me everything I do is wrong, then turn around and complain that I'm "putting all the mental load on you" because now I am asking how you want things done.
I do most of the cooking. But my partner does the "meal planning", and pretends like that's a job. Why does she have that job? Because when I choose what meal we should eat, I get it "wrong". When she chooses a meal I don't feel like, I just eat it without complaining because I know that sometimes I don't get what I want, because that's life. So she gets to choose the meals she wants to eat, and because it's her making the choice she gets to call that privilege "taking on the mental load" and pretend like it's a chore.
This also goes for stuff that I think actually would be a real "mental load". My partner has planned pretty much all of my daughters birthdays so far. This is not because I have thrust the mental load upon her, it's because she wants things done her way and refuses to let me plan one. She stresses herself out planning them. I've asked "hey, let me plan this birthday", she always says no because she wants everything done her way. Fine, but don't then complain that you have the "mental load".
I agree with this a lot. It can feel like a punishment for being easygoing.
Those comments/posts are designed to gaslight husbands/dad's who work hard and somehow guilt them into coming home from work and "taking over" so that "she can have a break" (i.e check out for the rest of the day). That's all. It's unacceptable but society encourages all this garbage with phrases like "mental load" etc.
I think this issue with mental load applies more when both partners are working. Then it happens (often) that the father can focus solely on work while the mother works and has to think for herself + kids + in the worst case husband, too.
I don't think anybody is asking you to do it all, but does stuff not come up in regular conversation that you can remember down the line? I work 40 hours weeks, wife works 2-3 days, but I know her teacher's name, I can track things in the kitchen that are running out, I know if there are parties coming up etc.
Two main thoughts:
Because those are all very different levels of baseline workload for your spouse. If she also works, then yeah - on top of your quarterly projections you need to own some stuff at home just like she does.
If she's a SAHM and she's watching young kids all day, then you need to think about that as having a full time job, so same rules apply - her job is to feed, entertain, put to sleep, bathe, etc. a kid. Finding time to do the really long list of things that are required to run a house after being emotionally abused by a baby/toddler is not any different than doing diaper projections after doing quarterly projections.
Now, if your spouse is a SAHM to kids that are gone to daycare/school for more than 6 hours a day? That's when the equation changes. That is when it's reasonable to have a more substantial shift of responsibilties (including mental load) because in that case one spouse has a job that takes up mental load and the other one doesn't.
My spouse is a SAHM and both of my kids go to school. And in this arrangement, she is in charge of a disproportionate share of the logistics of the house - she does laundry, she cooks, buys groceries, etc. She doesn't take care of everything, but she takes care of a lot more than me.
Now, in all of those arrangements, there's still something that you are in charge of as a husband - and that is to show your wife you give a damn about her and your kids. That you think of them. It doesn't mean the same thing in each scenario, but if you take the stance of "I work a hard job, and therefore I don't have to do anything that requires thinking about my family", that's going to be a problem.
But what you should be expected to do is going to be very different depending on the situation.
Now, to be fair: I think there are some moms who have caught on to this mental load idea, but are interpreting it unfairly. So, for example, a SAHM with school aged kids thinking that their husband who works 80 hours a week should also be covering half of the housework because "mental load". That's asinine.
But I think what happens very often is that dads with jobs think "I have the big boy job that pays big boy money, therefore my wife needs to do everything else because I couldn't possibly do more" - and a lot of times a) your job aint' all that, b) a lot of people do that job and do plenty at home, and even worse c) a lot of these dads are married to women who have jobs that are just as demanding and just don't pay as well.
When we were both working, I made about twice what my wife made, and I sure as shit didn't work harder than her - let alone twice as hard. But I think some men think "I make twice the money, therefore my job is twice as important, therefore my wife should take care of the unimportant things" and that is not cool.
I always ask my wife what SHE wants me to do around the house/with the kids. Shes simply got a particular way she wants most things done so it’s better for her stress levels if i found house what/how sh wants something done at that particular moment. Ive also got gnarly adhd so that doesnt help matters. She knows this an will often write/text me a list of things to do as she knows i work well with lists as opposed to being told “just do x,y,z”.
The obvious things I do (unloading the dishwasher/putting laundry in) but she does the other half of those things as “you fold laundry and load the dishwasher like a savage”
I work 40, she works 32. 2 kids, 7 and 9 where the youngest isn't easygoing. No friends / family to rely on to help really.
We just write everything in a calender, stuff concerning kids on the paper weekly planner for them to see as well.
Rest (some overlap where nessecary) goes digital in a shared calender with reminders if needed.
Then you have your 'need to remind to jot this down/do this later' stuff that comes in from anywhere, on which i set an alarm to go off about 10 min after im home, so I don't forget to write it up or change on the digital.
Appointments during the day itself also get a silent alarm on my phone in time to act on them.
That's just keeping track.
Doing it all, plus maintaining a house/household, funtime with and attention to the kids and social obligations pretty much wipe my free time and thus no switch off the mind a bit. Time that we have without all the stuff is precious and shared with my wife to have some semblance of 'us'
T.b.h. I just go to sleep (too) late sometimes just to veg out a bit and reset my headspace.
So.. I get it, no real advice but more of a shared experience. Don't burn yourself out trying to be perfect, be as good as your situation will let you be.
The core issue isn't the division of labor but the initiative and ownership—instead of asking "what needs to be done?" you can proactively manage specific, recurring domains (like all grocery shopping, kids' doctor appointments, or car maintenance) so your wife isn't the sole project manager of home life, which is possible even with long hours through shared digital calendars and lists.
Three key questions to consider here:
Most of the discussions on mental load are about working mothers who are managing a home and kids full time on top of work. That is still incredibly common and is an unfair imbalance even if you earn more.
If the answer to the above is no, does your wife ever get a child free break to herself?
When you are home with kids all day, getting to go to work and have adult conversations can seem like a break. It’s not obviously, but comparatively you can chat, eat lunch or pee without someone climbing on you. From your wife’s perspective you’ve had all day “off” from the kids.
And finally you have eyes right? You understand process and routine?
If the kids have a bath at 6 every night then just take them to the bath, don’t wait to be told. If you see the trash bin is full, then take it out etc. that’s the kind of thing women mean when they talk about the mental load.
Its not that hard man. If you are actually organized enough to be competent at your job im sure you are also competent enough to have a notes file on your phone and have a rough idea of things you need to remember. You also have a calender app on your phone you can share with your wife.
Teachers names? Picture day? These arent hard to keep track of.
I’m a woman, but I think my experience here is relevant. Both of my parents working extremely technical jobs that required 40+ hours a week. My mother was one of the earliest engineers at the companies she worked for, and worked her ass off overtime to get the same respect my father got.
My dad was similar to you - his responsibility was “provide for the family” and ended there. My mom, however, was waking up early enough to make breakfast and get everyone ready for school, go to work, pick us up, make dinner, help with homework, tell my dad which kid needed to be at which sport when for the day, somehow managed groceries and doctors appointments and all of the chores and laundry and teachers and shoes sizes and vacations and holidays and everything in between. My dad’s main chore was listen to my mom when she told him who needed to be where, and then drive us there. No brainpower, just needing to be told what to do like us kids.
So I don’t know you, or your wife, or your family dynamic. It probably makes sense for the parent at home to take on a larger share, I fully agree with you there. But generations of adults have worked 40-50 hours a week while doing everything else, sometimes solo as their partner “relaxed” after their respective workday. Your wife works a full day solo, same as you, even if hers is essentially running a daycare and a household without pay. What you’re proposing is a 40-50 hour week for yourself, and a never ending shift for her. When does she clock off? When does she get a partner to lean on?
End of the day, if it helps you to reframe: your wife is a provider too. She’s providing 40-50 hours of free daycare, free house cleaner, and free household manager. She’s working just as hard, and deserves your full partnership in your off hours. You both give 100% to your solo day job, and you both need to give 100% in shared partnership.
It does sound a bit like you're not making the family first priority. There's more to it than just bringing home the bacon. Lots of single parents successfully juggle full-time work (40-50hrs/week is what I'd consider a "normal" workload), while raising kids, doing the housework, staying on top of what's happening at school, extra-curriculars, organizing play dates and keeping up with everything happening in their kids life.
Small things like not knowing your childs teachers name or the names of your childs friends should be a red flag that you need to adjust how you spend your time and get more involved in the actual child raising.
This is some bullshit made up by women to denegrate their husbands. Sure there’s some nugget of truth there but it’s surrounded by layers of crap. First off, you can’t read someone’s mind so to expect someone to “just know” is unreasonable. Secondly, everyone’s relationship is different, sure you might both be working but if youre working more hours, your job is more stressful, and pays significantly more than hers, accommodations need to be made and you can’t really do the strict 50/50 thing. Finally, it’s a lot easier to criticize when you’re the one doing the judging!! It’s unfair for one partner to do something a certain way and to expect the other partner to do it exactly the same. There’s many different ways to skin a cat as they say and and long as your way gets the job done you should be good to go
The real issue here is one of communication and expectations. When one partner is having issues, they need to bring it up clearly and directly with the other partner and have a discussion from a place of good intent not blame!!! That means not just pointing out where your partner is falling short but also listening to why and coming up with solutions that work for both of you.
Is it as sexy as, he just knew!!! Or he read my mind? No but it’s the reality of life
I mean you're hitting the nail on the head for disagreements in my house. I work longer hours, have a more stressful job, cover more kid time on the weekends and make two thirds of our income. My SO complains that I'm not as involved as they are with kids logistics, but like, that's just not feasible if I'm supposed to also be covering more labor hours and more child watching hours. I think this is an inherently stressful and awkward topic.
"More stressful job" meaning she works outside of the home as well, or your job is more stressful than being home with the kids? Also, how much you make shouldn't matter in this discussion at all. If you're talking about who can lose their job, then sure, but not if you're talking about effort at home.
Don't hear me saying you're inherently wrong in your disagreements, I don't know your situation. But the language used implies, at least to me, that you think you have it harder than your wife and therefore should get a break when you get home and I'm not sure that's really true. Parenting is hard regardless, sometimes you just have to do it tired even if you already put in a full day.
I hear you and agree with your general principle, but that's not what I'm asking for exactly. I work longer hours at a more stressful, less flexible job. I then compensate my lower involvement in mental energy for kid stuff by covering significantly more kid hours on the weekend. My partner is frustrated that my job is less flexible, but that's unfortunately tied to the compensation. I ultimately have fewer "free" hours during a given week, even if I'm doing less of the parental mental load. My thought is that the mental load stuff is incredibly important, but like OP, it can be a problem if someone thinks it's the only form of labor. I've run into problems in my own relationship when my partner takes my longer hours at work and with the kids for granted, because they are only focused on the many responsibilities that they have. What I'm ultimately asking for is for my labor to be recognized. Recognizing the labor the other parent does can be hard, especially if you're feeling overwhelmed or are otherwise stressed about the work that you know you need to do.
I get that. It sucks to not have your efforts acknowledged or recognized. Sometimes reality dictates things that nobody likes (longer hours). I think open communication about it is the only way to handle that. "I wish it were different but it's not" can go a long way. But it sounds like you need more recognition for the work you are doing, which I think is important to bring up. I hope you can get to a place where you both feel more valued and supported.
This is my personal opinion, and is part of how i live my life and my experiences etc (i.e, unpopular opinion)
The mental load thing sounds like horseraddish to me. Yeah I get it, the wives need to remember a lot of things, well guess what, so do we. I can tell you while sleeping what shopping needs to be done, what the laundry situation is and when the next garage inspection is due for both cars, There's so much information stored in my head that is readily available at any moment, and I don't mind adding another one like a dentist appointment, something needs fixing, whatever it may be.
The posts and tweets and the content being made about the mental load just sound like ragebait to me, it's there for engagement.
life is hard, it's hard for me, it's hard for my wife, we should make eachothers' lives easier, not compete for who suffers the most. what made my wife react a bit more gently was asking "what do you need help with" instead of "what needs to be done".
Keep in mind that women don't think like men, we have different trains of thought, they usually, empirically, won't know what/how to delegate to you the same way you would if your wife came to you and asked what you need help with
Yep. Because it is.
It is used as an excuse to complain and claim that the division of labour is unequal in total. It is the same as how the nesting phase is used as an excuse to go on a spending spree for no reason. Postpartum depression is used as an excuse to become a narcissistic pig as well. They're all excuses for poor behaviour and no accountability.
Edit: before people jump down my throat.
100% aware that PPD is a real thing. My wife had it. I took 2 years off my career to relieve her of the stress of the kids so we could survive. But she hadn't turned into a carnt.
The ones that turn into vindictive carnts aren't suffering PPD, they're just narcissistic and vindictive hateful people who use PPD as an excuse to drop the mask. And this sub gaslights father's who come here looking for support when it happens to them.
The only things that matter are that your kid is happy and has what they need and you and your spouse are on the same page. Don’t worry about people on the internet and their opinions. It sounds like you’re working your ass off for your family, and showing concern when you have doubts is a good thing.
It's a complicated topic, but I get what you mean. It's not black and white. In some ways, the older generation's plan of "one breadwinner, one home caretaker" simplified the ownership of responsibilities quite a lot. The breadwinner not needing to make space for the mental load of caretaking made thriving at work a lot simpler. However, relationships suffered (children and wife), and the wife was often over-burdened.
I think social media is overcompensating for the shortcomings of the old setup in a lot of cases. But there's no doubt that the old way of doing things had serious issues. Ultimately, you need to have a conversation with your wife and figure out how to balance it together. Maybe she doesn't care if you know when the kids need new shoes, but would like you to know what they're doing at school. Figure out which things you can unburden from her that will have the highest payoff for your family. And vice versa, if you are unable to be present then you are probably at a severe energy deficit. Feel like that issue is worthy of its own topic, honestly.
Best thing you can do is not take advice or guidance from social media posts.
In my house, we both work (me: full time, wife: half time). We have pretty clearly delineation of roles, but i ask if she needs help regularly and ask what tasks she wants me to take on. I generally don’t just take on tasks on her list without asking because some of the tasks she enjoys doing a lot more than others and she’s shown displeasure in the past when i take on something without talking about it because it’s one of the things she was looking forward to.
My suggestion, if you feel you aren’t keeping up with the load, have that discussion with your wife. See if she needs help and where.
I work a stressful job in a leadership role and my wife is a SAHM too but when I think about her solo handling the twins, I think I have it far easier to be honest.
I think it’s fair for you the ask some basic questions to get up to speed when you clock out of work. For example, when did they last eat? Anyone whos stepping into a situation fresh gets to ask basic catch up questions.
After that, I go through the checklist of things that need doing i.e, are there enough clean bottles or do you need to wash some, is the trash overflowing, hows the diaper or any other household supply doing?
I don’t think of it as her or my job, while we may default into certain tasks you both are a team and need to fill in wherever it’s needed. For example, shes the primary caretaker and I keep the house in order usually but if she has time, she’ll clean or do dishes. Or I’ll jump in to do bath time or whatever other baby care as needed.
But things that you mentioned like appointments, I definitely make it a point to put them on my calendar because I will 100% forget otherwise.
I think there is definitely some middle ground that can be reached but I hope you are able to steer clear of your job/my job and who is doing more or “holding up their end of the bargain”.
Not everyone is the same not every method works for every family. Have a conversation with your wife about it. Be honest with each other and see if there's anything either of you can help with.
Well, I'm in a similar boat. Wife manages 60-70% of the household stuff, shopping, etc. that said, similar to work, I'm embedded enough to know the context of what's going on - so if there's a PTA meeting or whatever, it's not my priority 1 but I'm aware of it and ready to assist
communication is important in every relationship...and that can look different from other couples. whatever works for you and your wife, works...it doesnt matter if others do it differently if your method works for you 2.
We gave fixed duties, that makes it easier to count with what is ahead of you. It does not make the work less though, days are still 6 to 22…
It’s about expectations. Obviously you should try to have some grasp of the house needs.
My house is a bit more aligned to you (I think). Wife has the money required for our basic needs. Most things have delivery so no need to stress taking the kids out and about if she doesn’t want to.
As for “failing” bruh, it’s Reddit. Do whatever works for your family. We are all strangers in a void.
The person saying you’re failing might be near divorce and realized what they missed in their marriage.
There are like five general rules to follow in most marriages. The rest you decide with your partner as you go.
My wife and I go over our budget every two weeks on payday to make sure we assign our funds in alignment with our long-term goals. This sparks discussion about things coming up we will be spending money on and helps keep me involved. Every Thursday my wife and I sit down and order groceries for delivery on Saturday. This again sparks discussion what supplies do we need, what will we be cooking this week etc. If a pack of diapers lasts two weeks, then I know every other week it needs to be on the list. I think it's more about being involved and sharing the mental load than anything else. I don't know the names of my kids' teachers; I am not the one at pick up. Am I at the extra curriculars I can make it to 100% yes.
I do think this changes a little bit if your spouse has taken up full time job of parent.
I think it is kind of case by case dependent, but also you should know your kids teachers name, just to choose one random example you gave.
As far as knowing what’s going on, my wife and I use a few shared calendars, one for my work(since it’s different every month), one for home stuff, one for appointments. We both edit these, and there’s some things that’s only for me to work on, and there’s stuff that there’s only her to work on. For example I do drop off at school every morning, but depending if I’m working or not on a given day maybe she does pickup maybe I do. The default is her, but we have it in our calendar so we don’t make a mistake. Another example, oh today kid has swim class tomorrow it’s music class, then Friday a dentist appointment, who’s taking her where gets into the calendar so we know.
Even if all of that is handled by your wife, it would be good to have the calendar so you can know what’s going on in case you need to.
Is this something you feel because your wife is expressing it to you, or is it because you spend too much time on social media?
The most important question is whether what you are doing is working for your family. Aside from who has more time available, some people are just better at doing some things and/or prefer to do them.
There is also a lot of value in specialization.
There are also seasons. Sometimes work is more or less draining than other times and you have more or less to offer at home. Sometimes your wife may just get burnt out on the managerial role and need more help. The thing about a family is that there is always way more to do than you realistically have time for, so you have to prioritize.
Dude, most of the other dads I know can barely be trusted to work, much less take care of their kids.
I've been thinking about starting a standup routine talking about wives afraid to leave their kids at home with their dads, because the behavior is just so ridiculous from both sides. If you're a dad who's never been alone with your child by your own choice, then you're not a dad. If you are a mom who is afraid to leave your child with your spouse, and you haven't gotten a divorce, then you deserve how miserable your life is.
Mid 40s male with an 11&9 year old.
I load/empty the dishwasher every day, do a load of washing per day, cook about %30 of the food and do the shopping as well as the bins, all the science and maths homework etc. none of these tasks take up much mental load but the do help a lot and make her feel like she is not running the house by herself.
I did too much during the pandemic and completely burnt myself out so you have to be careful but you can add tasks to your routine and it helps a lot. It also makes me feel less burnt out.
In my experience, "fried" usually is an emotional state masquerading as running low on some finite quantifiable source of energy. I feel most fried when I sieve a long time working on something and looking forward to a "me" thing at the end of it, only to be surprised at the end of the work that there's more work I didn't know about amd I won't get to do the "me" thing after all.
If you're absorbimg all the other comments about taking over something fully, pick something that is in some way enjoyable for you. Bonus points of you can make it something with the kids. Make up games you can play with the older one while at a grocery store together. Stuff that will seem less like doing time and more like something you'd look forward to. I know there are limits to that but to the extent you can shift your expectations, it'll help with the fried feeling.
40 to 50 hours! You’re just working harder than everyone else OP. Dont stress it you’ve got no extra room in that brain to help.
For consumables, buy 2x what you need. When you empty the first one, add it to the list as you throw away the package. If you don't have a list, start one. Also, create a family calendar and share it. Google calendar works great.
We're a dual-income household (as I imagine most of us are these days), but because my wife's job is very inflexible on scheduling, I'm the primary income (by a wide margin) as well as the primary errand-runner, kid-chauffeur, cook, etc. My brain perpetually feels like a browser with 27 tabs open. It's exhausting but that's the job. I leave myself lots of notes on my phone to keep up with everything.
Gotta put those synced calendars setup and use it for everything events, todos, medication reminders, anything and everything in the calendar.
As a SAHD, I feel like I have something to contribute.
My wife works crazy hours and puts almost her available "free" time into the kids. She is absolutely doing more work than me, in the family, overall. She is a fantastic parent and provider, both.
But its shocking to me just how much she doesnt know about the kids, what jobs need to be done and what their schedule is. I've literally stood slack jawed staring at my wife while she asks me what seemed to me the most obvious possible questions. And to reiterate, she is an amazing parent who I am grateful for every day.
There is so much scheduling and managing that just needs to be done by the primary caregiver, because they know what's going on.
Mental load is a real thing and it absolutely needs to be acknowledged. I get so angry at parents I know where its not acknowledged and the mum ends up doing so.kuch more work which isnt respected.
But its also not that complicated? You work, you come home, you do the work that needs doing, you sleep, you do it again the next day. Thats a fair division of labour. Listen to your wife on what needs doing, do the work in front of you - and playing with your child is work - and give both of yourselves a break.
My perspective is she's working a full time job too. Recognize the toll managing the kids and house takes as hopefully she recognizes the toll being the breadwinner takes.
You don't have to manage the house but be there as support so she isn't on call 24/7 and can get work breaks and recharge just like you do at the end of your day.
How you manage responsibilities is dependent on your relationship, but everyone needs a break to recharge.
I would really push you to try and disconnect work and home. Try and put away the work phone or laptop until after the kids go to sleep. It's hard to be present and give them the attention they deserve if you are distracted with notifications.
Also big for us is if there are things I'm responsible for, taking care of them before needing to be reminded or told to do something. So if I usually take out the trash, this means taking out the trash before it becomes a problem or I'm told that I should be taking it out.
I hesitate to comment since I don’t want to come across rude, but 40-50 hour weeks really isn’t that crazy. Yes, you should still be on top of kid things at that point. I thought you were going to say you were working 80-100 hours per week or something
6 and a half years in and all I can say is "yes"
Does your wife help you with your quarterly projections?
At some point it's someone's responsibility.
There is always going to be the next latest buzz word or phrase.
The wife and I just say to each other "everyone works"
If your wife is a SAHM, then yes, she should manage most of the medium-term needs of the children. This is literally what the role entails, it's not just babysitting. She has the most visibility into whether clothes fit, whether you're low on diapers, etc. It's not reasonable to expect you to play the same active management role as she does. That doesn't give you license to fully check out of course -- you should make an effort to understand what's going on and address the needs that she shares or you see. You can also take ownership of some smaller areas to fully offload them from your wife.
If you both work, then yes this needs to be divided up somehow. It's worth talking to your wife to decide ownership of responsibilities -- e.g. maybe you manage the diaper stash and she manages clothing. Then from there you can both work it into your routines to make sure things stay managed.
40 hours is not crazy hours. Money is not the only thing you're supposed to contribute. Does your wife not work? Sounds like you feel it's all in your shoulders financially. Think you should consider spreading out the risk and the mental load and you should both work.
My wife and I both do 40 hours and we're taking care of kid and it's fine.
Setting up visual cues and committing to observe them can help.
An easy one is dishes in the sink. If you see dishes in the sink you clean them without being asked. If the hamper is full you bring it to the laundry room.
A harder example where I think you can be excused for now taking on that mental load is "are the dishes in the dishwasher clean and need unloading or are they dirty and it needs to run?" She probably knows that inherently at all times. You inherently won't know without asking her. If you put a sign near the dishwasher that says "clean" and she puts it ON the dishwasher when it's run, that can be a visual indicator that you need to unload it without having to ask your wife if it has been run.
Take that idea of designing your household chores so that visual control is easy to understand. If your wife can commit to setting things up where it's easy to help you, you should be able to commit to jumping in as soon as you get home. It's still on you to go look for the visual cues, but I think you'll find she feels a lot less like you're an extra burden if you're actively looking for those visual cues and taking action.
For some things that need to be done like weekly/monthly/at irregular intervals, shared online calendars or shopping lists help a LOT.
My wife handles most of the day to day. But we have a shared family calendar, and we catch up on important stuff when needed, either over dinner or on rides out to places. For some stuff I pretty much just watch what she does (ex. Laundry, meals, etc) and just do the same thing. For dad specific things I follow instinct. But. I’m also fortunate enough to have a work from home job, where I’m technically always around. Not sure if I could keep up after an 8-10hours work day outside the home.
Weird. I have no trouble working 40-50 hour weeks, tracking everything I need to work related and also tracking everything around the house. I'd be embarrassed if my wife handled all of the day to day kid stuff by herself because I was overwhelmed mentally. I get not being able to handle it all when you're younger, but it's not that difficult as an adult.
I think it is most relevant for couples who both work full-time.
So it sounds like you might have spent a little extra time on social media, careful with that because they tend to have some extreme takes. Having said that, if you thought your job was to keep you financially stable and your wife's job was to track all the home and kid admin while looking after the kid then that is a very unfair distribution of effort.
However I dont think both partners need to know everything. I track any inventories and do all the grocery shopping. Remember once you own a task you can do it how you want. Im not much of a remembering person, but I am a systems person. So I order click and collect. All the meals I make are in the supermarket app, I just add the recipes I'll make this week. I ask my wife to tex5 me if something is running out, which happens about half the time. I also have a check-list I go through just before submitting and order to catch things that are running out.
On the other hand, my wife buys most of the gifts for the kids and their teachers. So it's not that we both know and do everything, we just split up the mental tasks.
Oh, and it's really hard, no way around that.
Honestly the "mental load" argument kind of feels annoying now after a divorce. I feel like there's less "mental load" now I'm in charge of everything and I don't feel like I do much more now than I ever did.
Like it was just a phrase used to make me feel like I was never enough, no matter how much I did
Its like anything else in a relationship, its collaborative. If you both work the same, then you can both support the same. If only one of you is working, the other has more bandwidth to manage the household stuff, and incorporate you into it. Its not a one-size fits all, and we should stop trying to fit every relationship into the same box as our own.
On a personal note, my wife manages our household; if I were to track things independently or start running my own parts by myself it would create more problems then help (conflicting budgets, plans, meal prep, etc...). Instead, she 'owns' those things and support her plan, picking up groceries or doing housework where she wants my assistance, and only taking things completely off her plate when we've talked about it prior, and she knows not to worry about something.
As a lurking mom (who works) this post and a lot of these replies are so disheartening.
So im the breadwinner, wife has health issues so i also do majority of the cooking and cleaning and all that. The mental load shit is real, though ultimately it feels like a logistics issue. Dinner plans we got streamlined already through weekly planning; cleaning and shit we’re working on. No one WANTS to be a project manager but I think that’s where you need to be if you want to make sure everyone understands what they need to do, etc.
For cleaning, what I do is to clean one room per day and I put the chronometer for 15 minutes. I have to finish everything before times run out, it work very well. It's how I keep my house clean!
My wife and I split the school drop off and pick up pretty evenly, I know the teacher names. In terms of splitting the mental load, it depends on how you define it.
Some of those spreading that info online are just rage baiting. Like, my wife knows how much swimming lessons cost and when those direct debits come out. But I know how much soccer registration is and when each season rolls around.
I look after organising finances such as mortgage, investments, insurance etc. My wife looks after the more day to day stuff like the grocery shopping and school fees.
It's not impossible. It just requires communication and understanding. Where my wife does the groceries, I do the cooking, so she'll ask me about specific ingredients or things we regularly use.
Weird how no one calls my wife an "assistant parent" when I have far more success than her in potty training, or when I handle all the family's finances/budgeting (not by choice, TRUST me, that mental labor is a full time job on its own these days) or when I do all the cooking and meal planning/prep and have for years.
Ironically, as I've worked on being better at looking around and seeing what needs to be done without having to ask...my wife has had to get better at asking before she does things because, as happened recently with her using soap to wash my CI pan, she just assumed I was being lazy and left it dirty in the sink, meanwhile I was literally in the middle of dealing with it, stepped away for two minutes and in that time she came home from work and instantly started cleaning.
I work 72 hours a week and my wife works about 30ish on average.
I work 24 hour shifts and she works 10’s
Little one always has a parent but doesn’t really get to see us both at the same time unless weekends line up.
You are fine lol
The big thing here is whether you AND your partner are happy with this arrangement.
Check in with your partner. What you do is part of the mental load as well.
If you're partner isn't happy with the current arrangement then together you can work out what is fair and what you are able to take on.
Sharing the mental load does not mean both partners have to remember everything. It means as a team you delegate based on circumstances rather than it being assumed that it is one persons job (which it often is for Mums).
This is hard to answer without knowing what your wife does.
Yes. I work only 50 hours a week and I'm so exhausted all the time. I wish I had more time with my kids and my wife but we need me to have this job
Every relationship is different. Ask your wife if bothers her. If it doesn’t then who cares how other relationships are? If it does then it’s time to step up.
ya this perspective is wild to me. like, have this discussion with your wife? you wouldn't be feeling this insecure if you would just talk to her.
also, you both aren't supposed to be keeping track of all the same things! but you should know what are the things that you're supposed to keep track of.
again, get off reddit and talk to your wife.
Is your wife a SAHM? You seem to imply it but that's like...the most vital thing here.
I still don't think it's great to not know anything and have to ask about basic daily things every time, but if she's a SAHM then yeah that's her main job and I think the manager/assistant manager to the household dynamic is okay in that instance.
The issue is when couples have that dynamic and the wife works as well.
I have 4 kids and my wife and I both work long hours. Neither of us are good at handling the "mental load". I leave on 4 -5 day work trips 3 -4 times per month and I come home to a household which has been completely unknown to me while I was gone.
I try to focus on specific tasks. Division of labor is what I call it. I suggest you do the same. For example, I make sure the daycare has all the items they need, diapers, wipes, spare clothes. Communication with teachers is my job, I have all the necessary apps on my phone and I can do the job when I'm away from home. if you know something is always going to be your job, keeping track of it will be easier.
Prefacing this with: i am a woman who doesnt have kids yet
When my partner and I will have a child, we will both have to work. So the labour of life will have to be divided between us by necessity
Don't get too worked up about the Mental Load thing. There's a lot of social media which is clearly rage bait for dissatisfied wives and the separation of duties along with untreated neuroticism feeding much. There are absolutely a bunch of deadshit blokes out there but if youre pulling your weight and you can communicate with your wife fairly, on both directions, you're more than likely going to be fine.
Knowing the name of your kid's teacher is...not a high bar.
My wife and I both work longer hours. Only one kid though.
The big things for us were: 1) Outsource what you can. We pay $100 a year for grocery delivery. It’s worth every penny. 2) Build process and routine around regular tasks and mental notes. Every appointment for any of us goes to our shared Google Calendar that is displayed on a monitor in our living room at all times (old monitor plus Dakboard on a raspberry pi, took 30 minutes and cost $50). This takes the decision making out of scheduling and reduces the mental strain. Similarly we roll forward our grocery list each week so it’s a yes/no we need to restock question, not a general “what do we need” question. 3) Schedule regular checkins at the start of each week with your wife to walk through schedule/logistics. 4) accept that life works better if you both have different tasks. My wife can’t fix a thing at home or in the car, but manages groceries. She couldn’t find a wrench if her life depended on it, I have no idea what the password is for our grocery delivery service or meal planning app or where she keeps the grocery list template.
That said, some things you should both be aware of. In your examples you should know your kids’ teachers so you can talk about their day with them and understand what they tell you. You should pay attention when you’re with your kids and notice if their shoes are worn out.
My wife and I work full time, two kids 9 and 7.
The big factor is im a Shift worker, loads of graveyards, very dangerous work, wife works a labor job as well but lower impact m-f 7 to 4. She carries the family load for activities, and meals. I carry the financial, and take care of school drop off and pick ups, and picking up slack where I can, laundry , dishes, and taking care of dinner where I can.
I still feel like an absent Dad, even after reassurance that I'm not, she acknowledges that my late hours contribute to her understanding that Im tired a lot, and she knows that there are days where I've only gotten 5 to 2 hours of sleep depending on whats going on and then still going into work.
Do what you can, when you can, but the feeling won't go away, Some times being present is all you can do.
This week is 40 hours of work, 2 kids in elementary school, plus all the food and house shit while my wife is at hospital with our oldest for his last round of chemo.
The biggest issue i see with the mental load thing, there's a bunch of stuff that's all very connected. You can't really plan meals if you aren't also doing all the after school and weekend time planning. You need to know when swimming is. Are we going to Grandma's this sunday for dinner? Etc. So either you do all the household planning or none imo. You could split these, but you'd need to fully handoff the schedule before doing the meal planning.
The other trap i find myself in while "flying solo" is trying to do too many things at once. I cannot actually fold laundry, make dinner, and pickup at the same time. Doesn't matter how messy the living room is. It just doesn't work.
You can’t do everything. You can’t know everything. At some point there has to be a division of responsibilities and work.
I’m the sole provider and my wife is a stay at home mom. She takes care of the kids’ doctors appointments, play dates and things like that. I have a job to do and so does she.
in essence i don't think this point is wrong. there's two of you and inevitably one of you will know more than the other that, like, we're running low on milk, or we're almost out of garbage bags, or there's a playdate on saturday at 2 you need to be around for. for the one who knows to give reminders, or the one who doesn't know to ask ... that seems completely and totally reasonable to me.
speaking a little transparently about my own household, i think a dirty secret people don't like to discuss is that mental labor gets split like this because people instinctively carve out little niches of expertise for themselves, which they guard like 95% of the time, and don't like other people meddling in -- until there's a moment when they feel overwhelmed, and suddenly it's "why am i doing all this by myself" etc etc.
The mental load always seems like it’s going to be impossible. Then I just do it for a few days and then it’s the new normal. I know it’s not this “easy” for everyone and it certainly hasn’t always been for me. One of my favorite parts of parenthood though has been to see how much I can actually handle. It’s way more than I ever would have thought possible before kids. 4 and 6 fwiw, full time job for me and spouse. No family help.
It literally does not matter what you see on posts as along as you and your wife are in agreement. Why would you burden yourself with other people’s family?
That said. I too work a lot. Well over standard FT hours. I manage a whole dept for a non-profit and wear far too many hats. My partner is also in a very involved and taxing line of work with great mental load. So perhaps it’s simply not an option for us to snap at each other over who does what, but we don’t.
We both do a bit of everything. I tend to do Dr/dentist appointments. She gives us all haircuts. I make dinners and generally hit the grocery runs, we both try to cycle dishes as they come, we both run laundry (she tends to be the one to fold them), I usually hit up yard work and dog stuff, she usually vacuums. I do medical bill stuff, she watches/manages the utilities and mortgage payments. I typically to monitor oils changes/vehicle stuff. Some things fall naturally within the parameters of our respective job hours/responsibilities as well as our individual skills, strengths, weaknesses.
If something arises like a sick day, a school event, or whatever, we just check in, see who has the most flexibility that day and take care of it.
I think knowing both partners are working in good faith just goes a long way. We’ve never really had to say, “You must do this, and I must do that.” We see a thing, we take care of it, we express gratitude to each other, adapt on the fly, and another week is survived as very tired parents.
If your partner is happy, why worry? If they aren’t, sit down and figure out how to balance both of your daily needs to make it so.