Why the Mental Load Causes So Much Tension — and How to Communicate Your Way Out of It

0:07Welcome to Motherkind, it is me Zoe, we are proudly sponsored by Wild Nutrition, women supplements And this is the show that is about you, the woman behind the mother. I'm so happy you're here. And if you're new here, welcome to the Motherkind family. You are so welcome here. You know, in my early years of motherhood, I didn't understand this phrase called the mental load. I knew I had no time, of course. I knew my mind never stopped thinking ahead. I always felt like I was about to forget something. Then I learned the term the mental load doing this podcast. And it all made sense. So the mental load is the invisible work that it takes to run a household and a family.

0:50It's the cognitive and emotional work of anticipating needs, noticing what's missing, making decisions, planning, organising and remembering all the things. Now, here's the thing with the mental load. You can reduce it a little. You can do less. You can simplify where you can. You can set up systems. But ultimately, it's part of having a family. You're now responsible for running other people's lives. But what is so important is that it doesn't just all fall to us, the women. The data shows that it does predominantly fall to women, whether we're also doing paid work or not. And that is simply not fair because the impact is huge.

1:29We have less free time, more stress, more pressure, and put simply more on our plates. And what I keep hearing from my community is that you know what the mental load is. You're living it every day. but how do you communicate it in a clear way to others so that you don't get defensive, they don't get defensive and you can have a really productive conversation about how you are going to share the mental load. Whether you're in a marriage or a partnership or you're co-parenting or you're solo, I think it's really important to think about who are the people in my life that want to support me and how can I communicate?

2:04How can we share this better? so for today's episode i have the three most impactful pieces of advice i've heard on the mental load and i'm sharing it with you here right now i know how valuable your time is so these are the three top pieces of advice of the mental load that i have ever heard i hope you love it if you found it useful please share it with someone else there is so much unhelpful content out there aimed at us mothers and i really want to be part and i want you to be part of the mother kind mission to share what is useful, what's inspiring and what is going to help us. So help me do that by sharing it with someone else and make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast.

2:45Okay, here's the episode.

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4:11Start 2026 rooted in wellness. T's and C's apply. The mental and emotional load is higher, you know, particularly if we think about pandemic and I know that was your experience, but now in a post pandemic world, still, I think trying to figure out and get our feet back from that awful lockdown and homeschooling. It makes sense to me that given that environment, so many mothers would start to question if they are neurodiverse. Is that what you see as well? Absolutely. You know, I talk a lot about how fulfilling gender roles in society has caused us the overwhelm and therefore we manifest our ADHD in the way that we do.

4:53A lot of it is emotional dysregulation. You know, and so many of us ADHDers are also autistic. and when we get to a certain age there is one thing that gets compounded and that sensory processing disorder because we get more sensory overwhelmed the older we get you know because everything is connected nothing exists in isolation because adhd is impacted by hormones and autism as well then when we get to a certain age when we get perimenopausal lack of certain nutrients in our body can cause sensory challenges like i know that now you know things can become that much brighter, that much louder.

5:30And we don't want to be touched as much as we did before. And that becomes a problem when you have small children climbing all over you. You know, that can be hard. I think with that sensory processing, that's something that I relate to. And I think it's something that I see a lot is just mothers saying, every mother actually that I know has said, I just want to lie down in a dark room. Something that I'm so curious about is how does someone listening to this thinking, well, I completely relate to a lot of the characteristics that Sam's talked about. How does someone know whether it's just the intensity of motherhood, of fast paced modern life, of the mental load?

6:10Like I am crazy forgetful, but I think that's because I don't actually think I have ADHD. I think it's because my mental load is just so high, the things I'm holding on to. So I walk into a room and I forget why I'm there. I forget, but I don't think that's a neurodivergence in my brain. I don't think my brain is wired differently. I think it's just how much I'm holding. So how does someone differentiate between being neurodivergent and just being an overwhelmed mum? You know, the crazy way that we mother today. You're completely right. Being overwhelmed as a mother and reaching a certain age can look a lot like neurodivergence, you know, and ADHD.

6:49But in order for you to be diagnosed with ADHD, the impairments would have had to exist before the age of 12. So you would have to have always felt like you're different. And a lot of us who are wouldn't know that because we never fitted in, you know, and we knew that we had to try that much harder to try and look like other people, you know, and a lot of us call this masking or coping. That is something that you're always aware of, you know, especially when you're autistic, like you look at the world through systems. You don't just look at it like any other people. You start to talk a bit like a philosopher sometimes, you know, but that's a very specific type of autistic person.

7:29So yeah, it has to exist before the age of 12. And these impairments have had to happen to all areas of your life, your work, your relationships, your studies.

7:42When I talk about the mental load, I talk about it, you have to address it in two domains. So there's within work that's required to addressing the mental load. And then there's the between work. So like the actual conversations you're having with your partner. And part of the within work is paying attention to how am I showing up when it comes to the mental load? What am I doing to shut down more participation from my partner? Because we do that and we don't mean to, but we do it. And so I have five behaviors that backfire that we often engage in. And one is micromanaging that you mentioned. Another is personalizing everything.

8:18So when your partner doesn't do something, are you as the meaning you're attaching to it? Well, gosh, they always think I'm their maid must be nice having your mother in the home, my third kid, you know, we sort of attach all this meaning to things which sours the tone in the relationship. We also keep score a lot of times, which thanks for helping, but it's just a drop in the bucket compared to what I do. We tend to get impatient. So we'll ask our partners to do something and then we're like, I'll just do it myself. You're not doing it right. Or we tend to criticize their efforts. And so it's hard to take a look at ourselves in this domain because we feel a lot of times like we are the one, we're the victims in this situation.

8:59We're the ones carrying everything, but it is important to look at how are we showing up? How are we supporting efforts of our partner to participate more and how are we shutting them down? I love that. I love that. I mean, I actually, that's my starting point for everything with Motherkind as well as we start with ourselves and then we go outwards. So if someone's thinking, oh shit, I definitely do some of those things. Where does someone start with that? Is it, I know in your book, there's some journaling prompts and things like that. Can people dive into that or can they just think to themselves, why am I doing this?

9:32Like, why am I micromanaging? What am I afraid of? Because I think normally under those micromanaging behaviors is fear. Where does someone go if they resonate with that? Yeah. So this content will be in my second book, which is out in April called A Better Share. But yes, I think part of it is understanding. I think a lot of change begins with insight. That's not a new revelation. So we have to reflect. We have to reflect on things. Why is it that I'm feeling this pull to kind of jump in to micromanage? What am I afraid is going to happen? You know, might be if we don't take a snack, I'm afraid my kid's going to melt down.

10:08And you can start to you know, there's lots of approaches. You can walk that out. Well, is that really a big deal? I won't be there for the meltdown. That's my partner's problem. Let's see how they manage it. So there's always sorts of ways to sort of challenge some of these reflections. And then we just need to revise them. We need to revise them with a new response. response. And so, for example, if I'm always micromanaging my partner while they're making kids lunches, I'm going to have to decide in advance what is the new response I'm going to have when I see something that I'm not really liking.

10:41And it might just be leaving the room. I mean, we don't need to overcomplicate this stuff. It might be leaving the room. It might be instead of stepping into gratitude or thanking them for what they're doing. you know, we, so we need this revision to our behavior and then we need to just practice it or reinforce it over time. So I tend to say you reflect, you revise, and then you reinforce. And so, yeah, the book will have some prompts to help people explore this stuff and really get to the bottom of it. But sometimes it's just choosing a new way to respond in the moment. Yeah. There's a couple of things I want to bring up.

11:14One is that you said about we get impatient and this is something that I definitely experienced. And I know many in our community will like say we're sharing the load really equally right so we're not even responsible anymore for let's say the laundry but the laundry hasn't been done for like a week and people don't have clean clothes or you know your partner says yeah i'm going to clean the garage out i know we need to do that or i'm going to get the christmas decorations done i know i need to do that and only i can because it's like top shelf and it or whatever but it's not happening what do we do then.

11:49I guess you've got two choices. You do it yourself and then you're like, okay, well, again, we're back to square one or you say something and then, and then that might be met with, okay, you're criticizing me again or more defensiveness. What do we do there? Yeah. You have different choices. And I think, you know, in my first book, and I'm, I'm certain you probably talk about this too. I mean, I think it's important for us to sort of check in with ourselves? What can we handle in these moments? And how much can we do with like a positive, like a decently positive and pleasant attitude? So, um, for example, if you're so impatient and it's very important to you and it's just not happening, you can do it.

12:32You might want to check in with yourself and say, can I do this in a way that I'm not going to harbor resentment? because sometimes our partners, I mean, we have our own pace. We have our own timeline inside our heads that our partners aren't always privy to and aren't always aware of. So if that's one of those moments and it's like, you know what? I really want this done. I've got stuff going on this weekend. If it doesn't get done now, we're not going to get it done later. We know we have this like timeline going on that our partner's not aware of and we want to do it ourselves, do it and do it in a way that you're going to be okay.

13:05You're not going to build resentment. You have another choice, which is to not do it. So if you're like, this has been going on too long. My partner delays, delays, delays until I take care of it. I know this pattern has been going on years and I am sick of it. If it's something like laundry, if it's something like taking the garbage out, I know this is gross and I understand the reality of what I'm asking people to potentially do, but don't do it. There are consequences to not taking care of things. And if we continually rescue our partners or fire them from the jobs that they are assigned to, and they said they would take care of, they're not going to ever do it.

13:43And so sometimes it's a matter of just kind of digging your heels in a little bit and waiting for that consequence to occur and then to run out of clean underwear or something. And so, well, I'm, oh, I thought, you know, I thought you were going to do the laundry. I believed you. I believe, and I'm not being condescending. I'm being genuine. Like you said you do the laundry, but I believed that you would get it done. So another approach is that you just talk to them. Hey, the laundry is not getting done. We're starting to get low on stuff. Do you need help or what's going on that it's, are you real busy this week?

14:16You know, stepping into a gracious sort of approach to your partner, assuming the best can also be another way. We have all of these choices for responding in these situations. And in my second book, I actually, and I think I can apply it. I'm thinking, can I apply it in this circumstance? I actually give a continuum of confrontation. And so it's about initiative taking, which is that a lot of times in our relationships, our partners kind of are on a continuum of initiation. So we have people in the middle who are passively willing, just tell me what to do. We have people on the end who take initiative.

14:50And we have people on the other end who are just like actively resistant. And so I think if you layer on top of that, another continuum of confrontation, the more resistant they are, the more confrontational you might have to get to kind of break through some of that and really get to the heart of what is this resistance about. But if they're passively willing, your confrontation level can be a little bit lower, can be a little bit more gracious, kind of step into that. And then if they're actively taking initiative, hopefully there's not really much confrontation around this topic at all. So I think it really depends where you are in your relationship and how long something's been going on.

15:30And now a quick word from our sponsors.

15:37You did something that actually a lot of women report to me are afraid to do. You sat down to have a conversation. So let's talk about communication for a second. Yes. I had a wonderful interview with someone who said to me that she did not want to have a conversation. Like you did tell me your husband's name again. Guy. With Guy. You know, her conversation with her guy over domestic labor, over the childcare in the home, because she was just concerned her husband was going to listen. It was going to cause a fight. The same woman in our interview later on tells me that when her husband forgets to put the clothes in the dryer, when he forgets to take them out of the washer, she puts them on his pillow.

16:23She takes the wet clothes and puts them on his pillow. Same woman who told me she doesn't want to talk about domestic life. So what I'll say to you, and there's other women that I've interviewed, and there's funny articles online to confirm this, who say the same thing to me, but then they have public Instagram accounts called things like the shit my husband doesn't pick up. And they take a picture and publicly shame their spouse for every piece of garbage or piece of clothing that's left on the floor. So what I'm gonna say is very important. You are already communicating. Every one of your listeners is already communicating, whether it's by public shaming, eye-rolling, withholding emotions, walking away, issuing those drill sergeant-like requests like I did, or that the wife of my glue stick man did, we are already communicating.

17:13So what I'm asking women is to communicate in a shift, communication shift, not a communication start. So you already told us that you were able to sit down with Guy, but I wanted to pause to say that a lot of women aren't even at that step yet where they feel like they can have a conversation about domestic life. So what I'm saying to them is, I promise you, you're already communicating. This is just a way to communicate in a way that's productive. And men love it. They are eating it up because it's a way to be unemotional. They use the word onboarding to a system. They know their role. I had one man say to me, if men don't believe in systems like you've set up, just have them watch football or have them watch a basketball game because coaches know about systems.

18:02You don't show up to a field and say, which position am I playing? You know your role. What I'm saying to women is men are receptive. And I give you the tools and fair play to start the conversation. I even give you a little paperless post invite to hand over to your partner if you're stuck. So tell us then about the game. We've got these hundred cards. Yeah. How do we play? Okay. So the 100 cards evolved from what was eventually unhelpful, which was a spreadsheet called the Should I Do? So the Should I Do? Spreadsheet was the most cathartic, amazing thing I could have ever done. And it went viral amongst groups of women across America, helping me source the Should I Do?

18:49Spreadsheets. And that is where the cards have come from. What I realized about the Should I Do? Is that lists alone don't work, but systems do. So when I started to gamify and use rules that I use in my day job, I'm a mediator, a lawyer, and an organizational management specialist. When I started to use the system language that I use with my clients, things started to change. So here's how it goes. There's 100 cards in the system. Those cards are divided up based on what I call mustard. All you have to do is understand mustard to understand how the game works. So of the 100 cards, when you take a card, you just have to think about mustard.

19:31And when you think about mustard, think about the fact that your second child only likes mustard. They don't like ketchup and they like the yellow kind, not Dijon. Then you have to have a place to write down that they like that yellow mustard. Some sort of list, grocery list, I don't know, email to yourself on your phone. That's step two. And then you actually go to get the mustard at the store. That's step three. So women are knowing all over the world that their second son likes mustard. That's what women hold. That's conception. Women are also planning for how to get that mustard. That's the planning part, the list, knowing when they're going to get to the store.

20:17Men come in on the execution side. And that's minimally helpful. That is a glue stick moment. When you can hand over to Guy or to all of our men, the full mustard situation where you're going to be thinking about it, to planning it, to executing it, it is transformative. And this is such an important point because you say in the book, this is mental load. If we are still thinking about the tasks that we need to quote unquote delegate, it is not playing fair real freedom. And I want to talk about unicorn time. Do not let's forget about that, but real freedom is about not having to think about, as you say, if I have to remind you, it is not helpful to me.

21:12It is not helpful to me. If I have to remind you, it is not helpful to me. A great study just came out of Harvard, which was perfect timing for fair play that showed that women, even highly educated women who are able to have conversations with their partners who have, obviously they're in the workplace. They'd have difficult conversations on a daily basis are still the ones holding the cognitive labor. That's cognitive labor is the term, the scientific term. I call it CPE conception, planning, and execution or mustard. However you want to think about it. But it is imperative that when you hand over full ownership of something, you include the conception and planning.

22:00What an incredible episode. I hope you loved it too. If you've got this far, then I am guessing that you did. So make sure that you share it with a friend and subscribe so you never miss an episode and I will see you next Monday and Thursday for more. See you next time.