Fresh Take: Leah Ruppanner on "DRAINED" and What the 'Mental Load' Really Means

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1:22This is Amy. I am so excited today to be talking to Leah Rupanar, PhD. Leah is a professor of sociology at the University of Melbourne, one of the founding directors of the Future of Work Lab, and the host of, seriously, one of my very favorite podcasts, The Misperceived Podcast. Leah has a PhD in sociology from UC Irvine and has spent the last decade researching gender, work, and family. Today, we're going to be talking about Leah's new book, Drained, Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More. Welcome, Leah. Thank you so much for having me. I really have been a fan of your work for so long.

2:02I wrote a book that came out last year called Happy to Help that came at women's lives from a very personal, humorous, and personal lens. And I talked about your research in an essay that I wrote about multitasking, because I really did go through a lot of my early parenting years thinking, well, it's just how it is. Women are just better at multitasking. And so, oh, well, and found your research, which indicated that that was a complete myth. So tell us a little bit about that before we get started. Okay. So one of the biggest myths or traps, like one of the things I'm very much interested in, and I'll tell you that one, then I'll tell you another one that seems to be resonating quite seriously with the world.

2:44One of my purposes in this world, I think, as a researcher is to think about the things that are not true, misperceptions, hence the name of my podcast, and bring research so that as you're working through your lives, you have the best tools, information, research, and empirics. And then you can make good decisions, right? You may make the same decision, but at least you make informed decisions. And so one of the things that was so clearly holding many of us back, women, mothers specifically, was this idea that we can multitask, this idea that we are inherently better at doing multiple things at the same time, that our brains are just somehow wired to be simultaneously juggling swim lessons, your email inbox, what's for dinner, and fill in the blank, whether the dog is up to date on it's flea medication.

3:35The research just doesn't show this. The research shows that actually no one, I'll say this again for those of you who need to hear it. In the back. Forcibly. No one is good at multitasking. Our brains are terrible at multitasking. We cannot simultaneously do two things at once. Now, some of the audience members are going to be like, okay, but can't you walk and chew gum? Yes, fine. I understand. Thank you very much. Yes. Some things that are really rote, you can do simultaneously, like if you're driving and you're listening to music. But actually, when you try to concentrate on two things, or if you've ever been driving and you're like blah, blah, blahing to your friend, and then you miss your exit, it shows you that your brain is focused on something else at that moment in time.

4:19What we are good at, what we're very, very good at is task switching. We're able to move between tasks really quickly. And that makes us feel like we're multitasking. Now, here's the thing I want the mothers and the women in the audience to hear, and also the dads and the men in the audience to hear, is that we've been sold this big fat lie that women are just inherently better at multitasking, right? And when I would do my interviews, a lot of mothers would say like, no, but I'm really good at this. I'm good at doing everything at once. And the answer is you are, but you're not doing it because you're inherently a better multitasker.

4:52You're doing it because you're doing the work. And there's a consequence for that. There's a consequence in terms of your cognitive functioning, right? Like imagine if you're splitting your brain across 85 different things all at once, that is overwhelming. That is sucking up some of your cognitive energy. And this is at the expense of your mental load. I know we'll talk about the mental load in a minute, but this is at the expense of your mental load. So this myth of multitasking is really, really problematic. It's just not true. And I think once we banish that myth, if we say, wait, that's actually a lie, we can start to say everyone's terrible while multitasking.

5:28And then we can start to see the work as the work and the rest, recovery, time for relaxation as so critical for someone who is burning through multiple things in their brain. We've talked a lot on this podcast about the mental load and have had other guests talking about it. And in your new book, Drained, you talk about the mental load. That's what it's about. But you argue it's one of these terms that has quickly gone from, I've never heard that before, Yeah, yeah, I know what that is. It's when you have to remember everything. But you argue in the book that we're actually only seeing part of the elephant.

6:00So explain that to us. Okay, absolutely. So there's a couple key points I make in the book. The first is based on a research article that we wrote in 2022, I think. I made that up. Don't fact-tell me. With myself, Liz Dean, and Brendan Churchill at the University of Melbourne. And one of the things we talked about is like, what we got wrong about the mental illness, we think about it as the thinking work we do to keep our family and life functioning. That's one piece of it, but it is actually the emotional thinking work we do. It is not just thinking work, but it is emotional. And that is what makes it the mental load.

6:33And so let me give you an example. Let's say you are there in your house and you're thinking about whether there are enough diapers for your baby. A simple cognitive thinking would be there's not enough diapers. We need to make sure we get diapers. And then you put them on the list and whoever buys the diapers, it's done. That is straightforward thinking. Often for us, the mental load, because it's tied to the people we love the most. It's emotional thinking work tied to our core people, including ourselves and our dreams and ambitions. The mental load goes something like this. Are there enough diapers?

7:07I don't think I have enough. God, how come I couldn't remember to do that? Am I overwhelmed? I'm a terrible mother, but actually I'm a terrible, terrible mother. Who would forget diapers? That's so critical. Now, what if the baby wakes up in the middle of the night and there isn't enough diapers and then she's crying, but she's been crying a lot lately. Does she have colic or am I not stimulating her brain enough during the day. And if I don't stimulate her brain enough during the day, will she be actually prepared for college? What if she goes to university and she can't get into Harvard? But if she can't get into Harvard, she won't make enough money.

7:37I will stop right now because I know you can understand exactly where my brain is going. This is because it's emotional thinking work. It's tied to the biggest dreams, ambitions, goals of the people we love. So that's what I want people to think about. Yes, sometimes our mental load is thinking work that moves linearly, but often it is emotional thinking work that is tied to this bigger questions about who am I, what am I, what am I doing? To the same argument, there are eight different types of mental load. Now, I know you're like, wait, what? Yes, there are eight. This came through the research.

8:12So one of the things we often think about is the mental load as being this list-making work. And that is part of it, but it's not the whole thing. So my book, Drained, identifies eight different types that include things like life organization. That's kind of the more traditional way we think of the mental load, but it is staying on top of the planning and tasks. But really, that's just one type, right? One type. That's one thing you're carrying. That's a one. And it's kind of, I think, if you're doing more work than your male partner, if you're married to a man or you're with a man, and they say like, but I buy the dog food.

8:47They are taking part in maybe that one part of mental load, right? It's not that they're not participating. It's that everybody thinks that there's only one sort of it to be doing. But get ready. There's seven more types. Because that's really interesting. That is actually so interesting you're saying that because I think we've trained people to think of the mental load as just being this like tracking, right? Like that's what you like tracking of who needs to be aware and what needs to be done. And yes, it is. That's one part. And you're right that often the men are thinking about like, well, I'm remembering to pick them up for school or I've bought the dog food.

9:18And Alison Damager in her book talks about like the men are doing more of the executing work. Like they're much more likely to do the executing piece of the mental load, but there's a whole other cycle around it. You know, there's seven different stages. So if men are only doing like a couple of the stages and a couple of the types, it leaves the rest to mothers. That's right. And I mean, better that than nothing. But what is then left to mothers is this idea that the rest of it is just extra. The rest of it is just stuff you're choosing to make more complicated. Who cares what she wears for Halloween, right?

9:53Who cares what we serve my mother-in-law when she comes over for dinner? Who cares that you're making too big a deal out of it and all of this extra stress is optional? We have a sociologist here to tell us that those are lies, that those are lies. This is 100 % a reverse gaslight. Get ready. There's two things that are happening. One is that yes, your partner is probably telling you you're holding your standards too high. And the answer in my book will help you unpack it. Sometimes they're right. Sometimes you are. Sometimes you're doing things that don't matter. Sometimes store-bought cookies are good enough.

10:27Good is good enough. But often you are doing eight different types across seven different stages. And then, wait for it, because you live in a social world that tells you you are responsible for it, if things go wrong, it's your fault. And so this is the second study that people love that we've done. So we did another study where we looked at what would happen if someone dropped in on your house unexpectedly, and it was a little bit messy. And so we manipulated the gender. So we had a room and we said it's either John's or Jennifer's. And we asked people like if Jennifer's boss dropped in unexpectedly, if John's boss dropped in, if their coworker, if their relative, how would they view that person based on the room?

11:10And the answer was, not only would they see the room as messy, but they would also see that person as less competent, capable, likable, agreeable, less human. And so when women say to men or to the world, yes, but if I drop this and it doesn't look the way I'm expected it to look, my parenting, my home, my children, all of it, my physical body, yes, people are going to judge me. Yes, people are going to not just judge me as less, they're going to see me as less human, less competent and less capable. And so my goal with this book is to say to you all, you're not making it up. You are not fabricating all of this, right?

11:53It is social norms and social pressure for you to do it a certain way. And yes, you are going to feel that. And that is going to drain your mental load in a different way. That's going to impact how you move through the world. And that's going to impact the pressure. Now, before you get crazy depressed about this, once we see it, we can decide whether we participate in it. Once I say to you, men of the world, she's not lying to your husbands or your male partners, right? She's not lying when she says that if the kids show up in mismatched socks, there's going to be a judgment she'll get that you won't get.

12:27That's true. But we also get to decide whether we care. And we also get to decide whether we're going to hold each other to account. And that's the power. Holding other women to account like you shouldn't feel bad that your kid doesn't have their permission slip signed. Exactly. Less judgment, more community. I'll just give you one little example. I was at a conference last week with all these wonderful people talking about the mental load. And one woman said, I have a messy house party. Do you love it? Like, tell me more. So a party where you invite people over into your house when it's messy.

12:59Great. Like a dinner party. How much of a gift would that be? Right. If you didn't have to like make everything spotless. So can we have more messy house parties more like messy kid parties? That's the sociologist lens, I think, because we all think nobody everybody else's house would be neat if I just showed up. But being a sociologist allows you to see systems and also beliefs around those systems. Is that getting it right? Without a doubt. And the research. So I'll say to you something is that like, yes, we all think everyone's going to have cleaner houses, but actually the data shows that over time we're spending less time cleaning our homes.

13:32So actually we are messier, but we all think we're not. We think we're not. We're all messier because we're all busier. We're spending more time primary care of our children. We're spending more time in employment. Everyone's house is a mess, y 'all. Just not when you're invited over. You heard it here first. I'm talking to Leah Rupaner. Her new book is called Drained. When we come back, we'll talk about the other categories of mental load work. Hellions, it's time for some spring cleaning. And I don't just mean the coat closets. Doing your financial spring cleaning can actually be super easy when you let Monarch do your financial spring cleaning for you.

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16:58Get a spring worthy glow with clean clinically tested skincare from Osea. And right now we have a special discount just for our listeners. Get 10 % off your first order site wide with code fresh at oseamalibu.com. That's 10 % off your first order with code fresh at oseamalibu.com. So Leah, we started talking about this in the first segment, but I wanted to go through and understand each of these different eight categories of mental load work. So the first is life organization, which, as you said, is how many of us understand the mental load to be lists and lists, nothing but lists. And then the understanding kind of stops there.

17:41Just help me with some of the stuff on the list. And that's the mental load. But there's a lot more to it. So let's go through the other categories. This next one is emotional support, which, as you point out, is very hard work, and it is often impossible for moms to delegate. Tell us about that. So emotional support is that kind of emotional thinking work where you're checking in on your friends, your family, your coworkers. This was one of the categories that really actually women held a larger percentage of that men often would say, oh, you know, she's just inherently better at emotional support.

18:12Right. Right. And let's be honest, like she might be, but that's because she's doing the work, right? And has practice and all of the things. That is not just by luck. That is by hard work. And so this is kind of that work when you're thinking about, you know, is my friend okay? I saw her the other day and she didn't look happy. Or you might do it even at work, right? Where you're looking at a Zoom screen or you're with colleagues and you're trying to figure out like, is that person mad at me or is that person doing okay? And this was work that mothers held the bulk of. Some of them would describe it as a spidey sense, like I'm kind of looking for subtle shifts in my kids' faces.

18:48And for those of us with teenagers, because I know you have - I have two teenagers, yeah. This is the emotional support work that might become heavier. Let me rephrase that. Emotional support work is always heavy, but parents with teenagers would talk about the stakes are higher, that actually the emotional support work is more critical because the things that our children are facing and their teen years. Bullying at school, social media, sexuality, all of that becomes higher stakes, mental health issues. And they would talk a lot about that shift. So I'm just a little curious. Does that resonate?

19:22For sure. And it's unpredictable. It isn't like, you know, I can say to my teenagers like Tuesday night, let's have a real sit down with a mug of tea because they might not be in any mood to talk to me. Right. But then Wednesday morning, I'm planning running out the door and they they're crying about something it can be you're needed and it's you that's needed and it's important and it's unpredictable absolutely one of the um women who's featured in the book talks about like i come home from work and i've had a whole day of work and my kid is waiting there to tell me about everything that's happened in my day and it's a gift it's a gift it is and it's a mental loan it's absolutely true all right the next one is relationship hygiene, which is, I guess, a sort of more standard maintenance version of the above, right?

20:12Making sure everybody's good with everybody. Yeah. So this can be work. And at work, we would call this networking, right? Like we say, have you networked in order to make sure everything's going well? But in our home lives, it can be things like, did you remember to reach out to a mother of a school friend, right? Your child is trying to make friends with someone and you reach out. We wrote a little op-ed article about like, what happens when you don't like that parent? Like what happens when you're doing all of this work and you're stuck with these people? I feel like anyone listening can have this moment, right?

20:44Like where you're doing the relationship. The kids are perfect, right? The kids are so perfect for each other, right? And then you're stuck with the relationship hygiene of some sort of parent that you're like, I do not like you. And so this is work that mothers also carry. And often it can be emotional work. So these things can cross over. So this is the relationship hygiene work. It could also be that kind of work of making sure if an aunt is included or checking it, reminding a partner to contact their mother or father based on birthdays. But this is the work to make sure we have strong social bonds.

21:20You use an example in the book. I forget all the details, but it was the male in the relationship said, well, I'm dealing, I have a lot going on right now because my dad has a heart issue and that's very stressful for him and for my mother. And so I've been putting a lot of time in on that. But then when you like scratch the surface, it was the female partner who had been saying for six months, something's up with your dad, he's short of breath. And she had been writing it, organizing, and then getting him to do it because it's his parents. But there was still the mental load and the work for the woman that isn't that she had a problem doing it.

21:53It's that it's not visible always to the other partner. And there's one of the things I talk about I'm asking you do in the book is to start thinking about like, when is your mental load spent in small little drips? And when is it spent in big, large costs? And this example you give was one of those ones where she was talking about like, I was doing the little bit, the little bit of checking in, the little bit of calling, the little bit of reminding, the little bit of pinging. And then all of a sudden the big thing happened, right? Which was he was very unwell and had, you know, had to go in and have a surgery and serious medical condition.

22:23And so this work can be tiny. It can be little, right? It can be two seconds in your brain and it can then be something that takes you to your knees. So thinking about the mental load is this very unique thing where you can be doing something that's small, but it can be weighty. Or you can be doing something that's big and it can be weighty. Or it can be big and it can be not weighty. So trying to think about the cost of it is one of the things I also want you to start thinking about when you think about your mental load. Or it can be weighty and you have to keep that window open, that tab open on your browser because the person that you're trying to get to sign up for the internship or to tell their dad they really should go to the doctor, right?

23:05That drip of the action needs to be taken, but you can't force it, but you need to keep an eye on it. I'm going to say one other thing too that maybe is controversial. One of the things I'm working on right now is a little company called Lighten Lab. So how do you come in and understand the mental load? How do you come in and take an assessment and see where it is? Start to measure your mental load. And we're talking a lot about the mental load of home and life, right? And family. But you're carrying a mental load to your work too. You're not just carrying the mental, right? And so when you said, how many tabs do I have open to my browser, right?

23:37It's like you are doing life organization work at work, making sure everything happens. Everyone is where they are. You're doing relationship hygiene, like making sure your team, Is your boss happy? Are you making networks and emotional support? So are you doing all that? And then you're coming home and doing all that again. So I want you to start thinking like, I am doing, I have a mental load capacity. I only have a limited amount. And it's going to all of these different things in my life, in my home, and in my work. And once we start to see the full picture, my goal, my dream, my hope, my ambition for you all is like, this thing is invisible and you're carrying it all around.

24:13So let's start to give it some visibility. some language, some understanding and some tools. And then let's see where the conversation could go, right? Because this is why you're so burnt out. Like, man. This is why. Yeah. The next type of mental load work, we've definitely talked about this on the podcast, magic making, that Christmas is perfect, that the cream white onions that nobody actually wants are on the table because they have to be on the table. You use that example in the book, and Margaret has also totally had that example in her life. Nobody likes cream white onions, but there have to be creamed white onions.