Mental Load

Published: October 30, 2024

Blog

Have you ever experienced that moment when someone is ‘helping’ you by doing a task and then proceeds to ask you a load of questions in order to complete that task?

Even a simple task like changing the bed sheets can result in a barrage of questions. “Where are the clean sheets? Are these the right size? Do I need to change the mattress protector? How can you tell which way the fitted sheet goes on? Which doona cover should I use?”  After the bed is finally made you might even find that the dirty sheets have been left on the floor next to the freshly made bed. No, you didn’t ask for them to be washed but had assumed that this was part of the task. Then you might hear the most frustrating of statements; “you just should have asked me.”  This ‘help’ can leave you feeling like it might have been easier and less draining to just do it yourself.

I think this is something that most people can relate to. When it happens to you, it’s an example of you taking on the mental load associated with a task, even though someone else might be doing the hands-on work.

So, what is mental load?

Sometimes called the cognitive burden or mental labour, the mental load is all of the mental work; the list making, planning, anticipating needs, remembering, organising and decision making that you undertake to manage life. It’s all of the household and family ‘management.’  

While everyone carries some kind of mental load, in most Australian households, perhaps unsurprisingly, women take on the lion’s share. ABS data shows that women do significantly more in housework, domestic activities and physical and emotional care of children than their male counterparts. It is interesting to learn that, when it comes to mental load, the burden is even more unevenly distributed. A recent study (of two parent families comprising a male and female) found that women take on as much as 73% of the household mental load.

Activities that contribute to mental load include planning meals, making shopping lists, making, and remembering health appointments, planning chores, managing school and extracurricular activities and the list goes on. Many of these are intrinsically linked to the caring role traditionally fulfilled by women. Individually they can appear trivial but when we consider the number, frequency and scope of these tasks, the cognitive burden can be significant.

Bringing the magic

A component of the mental load that might be underestimated relates to ‘bringing the magic’ – creating nostalgic and emotional moments for the family. This includes bringing the tooth fairy, easter bunny and Santa to life as well as remembering birthdays and special occasions, organising gifts, honouring traditions, and doing those extra things to make occasions special. I’m sure there are more than a few of us who have witnessed a man sheepishly accept thanks for a birthday, Christmas, or wedding gift that he very clearly had no hand in selecting, purchasing, or wrapping.

This unequal distribution of the mental load is common, but it has been notoriously hard to quantify. While it is easy to see and recognise the effort of someone chopping vegies for dinner, the effort of mentally planning ahead for meals can go unrecognised. Time based metrics don’t effectively capture mental effort, which is often happening ‘in the background’ while people are busy with something else.

The mental load comes at a cost

It is important that we recognise and understand the mental load, and the impact it can have. It uses mental resources and drains mental reserves, and this drain can impact the ability to participate in and enjoy other activities. Stress and anxiety caused by the mental load are often exacerbated by a woman’s own sense of pressure to meet societal expectations of being a partner, mother and professional. The burden of the mental load is significantly associated with all measures of mental health and wellbeing. Women who report a high cognitive burden also report increased instances of depression, stress, personal burnout, reduced mental health and reduced relationship quality.  

In terms of work, perceptions that women can be overburdened with family responsibilities can impact career advancement and opportunity. Cognitive burden depletes mental reserves, and the resulting exhaustion can reinforce the gendered stereotypes and can even contribute to the effects of the glass-ceiling and gender pay gap. Carrying the mental load comes at a cost!

So, the questions about making the bed, and the “you just should have asked” approach to household chores aren’t as harmless as they might initially seem. They effectively assign the mental load to someone else and, in most cases, the someone else, is a woman. It not only exacerbates the mental burden the woman must carry but it perpetuates gender inequalities and traditional roles that see women as ‘in charge’ of domestic duties. This behaviour is sometimes described as a form of weaponised incompetence.  That is, individuals perform tasks poorly to avoid the potential of future requests, maintaining the status quo of women carrying most of the mental load.

Let’s share the mental load

I wish there was a succinct final paragraph where I could explain how to remedy this. The truth is that this is not a simple fix. The solution is not women striking, refusing to carry the load, and letting chaos reign (although, this might have some interesting impact!). It’s certainly not about women writing ‘to do’ lists in order for their male partners to meaningfully contribute to the household. I suspect the answer is seated in a bigger cultural and societal shift, one where care is valued, men are engaged and genuinely seek to understand, health and wellbeing is prioritised, gender roles are challenged and where we are all motivated to make a change.

A robust conversation about the distribution of mental load might be a good place to start though!