The ‘mental load’ falls squarely on mothers’ shoulders—and it’s making us very tired

My husband has approximately three things he adds to our household grocery list:

• His shaving cream.
• His shampoo.
• Shower spray. (Don’t ask about this one. He has an obsessive thing about the glass shower door.)

That’s it.

It’s not his fault. Not really. I make note of the rest of the 8,000 things a family of four requires because it falls squarely under the duties of CEO of our household—a position I never interviewed for, yet I rose up through the ranks to find myself in, sometime between the day I got married and the day I popped out a second kid.

I stay home with the kids, which means I am the default day-to-day manager. Never mind that I also work, it just happens to be at the kitchen table. So while I attempt to craft the next viral essay on the hilarity of momhood, I’m also trying to teach my kids how to craft a homemade paper mache pinata.

This is 100 percent what is happening right now. See?

As moms, our minds are always going. Going fast. Going in a million different directions. Going away. Going.

And it’s not just the children and the shopping lists we manage. It’s all of it—we think about the cleaning, the cooking, the organizing, the planning, the dressing, the gift-buying, the brushing, the laundering, the caring about everything.

But, even though he handles certain chores, there is always me, magically elfing behind the scenes

If you are lucky like me, hubs is happy to pitch in. Mine shares carpool duty and manages bedtime. I have never cut a blade of grass or taken out the garbage. He is known as “Lord of the Dishwasher.”

But, even though he handles certain chores, there is always me, magically elfing behind the scenes—managing the stuff that makes his duties possible.

I tell him what time to pick up the kids and who has what practice when. Without me, there wouldn’t be dishwasher pods or garbage bags, and there certainly wouldn’t be toothpaste for brushing or new library books for bedtime stories.

This, my fellow moms, is why we are tired.

There’s also the fact that mom brain is a real thing, and if you’re nodding along with me—congratulations, you, too, are suffering from it.

That endless running to-do list is called the mental load. It is heavy, and in most families, it is carried by the mom.

Motherly’s 2023 State of Motherhood survey found that 58% of moms report they are primarily responsible for the duties of running a household and caring for children. The majority of moms (62%) still report getting less than an hour to themselves each day.

Since moms should the lion’s share of duties it comes as no surprise that 74% of moms report being stressed our somewhat stressed about their family’s finances.

Mothers are bearing the burden of childcare and household duties—and their partners are not sharing that responsibility equally.

The notion of the mental load is beautifully captured in all its glory in this cartoon by French comic artist, Emma. Her depiction of the struggle entitled “You Should Have Asked” nails this idea that for the majority of households, women are constantly managing and keeping track of all that needs to be done.

In the cartoon, when things go haywire in the kitchen, the husband points out he was there to help. “You should’ve asked!” he says.

But, do we really have to ask?

In short, yes. So, go ahead, add “Ask for help” to your to-do list.

Susan Walzer, a sociologist at Skidmore College, published a research article in 1996, called, “Thinking About the Baby,” that confirms some truths in Emma’s cartoon. Walzer interviewed 23 couples who had recently become parents and found that women do, in fact, carry more of the mental load.

Noting that, even when their partners helped out, women are the ones who noticed what needed to be done in the first place.

At no point is this more clear than when I travel for work. Before I hop on that plane I pre-pack lunches, I buy and prepare easy dinners, I do all the laundry, I lay out clothes, I write down the schedule. I make all the plans that I won’t be a part of. When hubs travels, he just kisses us and leaves.

The burden of this self-inflicted mental load is mine. I’m the one worrying, thinking, planning. But honestly, if I did none of this, he would be fine. The kids would be happy.

He might feed them donuts and nuggets, and they’d dress themselves in a cacophony of colors, but the world would keep spinning.

But I return, and hubs rejoices. The heavy baton of mental load passes back to me: manager in residence. Balance (or imbalance) is restored as I resume my position lying awake in bed making mental lists and taking note of every dirty sock and empty ketchup bottle.

That, dear mamas, is why we’re all so darn tired.

A version of this post was originally published August 23, 2017 on Simplemost.