The mental load of motherhood
When it comes to household responsibilities and parenting, women perform far more ‘mental labour’ then men. This hidden work has left a majority of mothers feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. How do we lighten the load of modern motherhood?
Motherhood can be a real mother…
You’re lying in bed, eyes closed, and exhausted from the day. You’re looking forward to (and really need) a good night’s sleep. Then suddenly, everything that needs to be done comes rushing to your mind…
“ I’m going to have to leave work early to make sure we get to soccer practice in time… that means I’m going to have to finish that report tomorrow night after I get the kids to bed. Did I put the uniform in the dryer? I got to call someone to fix the washing machine… Did I turn the dishwasher on? Did I pay the water bill? Can’t forget to remind hubby about his Mom’s birthday party next week… what the heck am I going to buy her? I ‘ve got to call her… she’s been so forgetful lately. I worry about her being in that big house by herself… “
Sound familiar?
Even though many partners aim to split their responsibilities 50:50, the reality is the bulk of housework, parenting tasks, and the more hidden forms of ‘emotional’ care generally end up falling to the woman. On their own, these may all seem like small tasks – but day after day - a seemingly endless amount of these hidden ‘tasks’ start to build until the weight of all these responsibilities becomes too heavy for a mother to carry alone without consequences.
Why is this, and is there anything we can do about it?
What is the mental load?
So, while women are still performing the bulk of the shopping, cooking, and cleaning, at least these activities can be measured and recognized. The mental work of managing a home doesn’t only revolve around the physical work that has to be done.
Experts say that the ‘hidden’ work of motherhood comes in three overlapping categories:
1.Cognitive labour – which is thinking about all the practical elements of household responsibilities, including organizing playdates, shopping and planning activities.
2.Emotional labour - which is maintaining the family’s emotions; calming things down if the kids are acting up or worrying about how they are managing at school.
3. Mental labour - the intersection of the two: preparing, organizing and anticipating everything, emotional and practical, that needs to get done to make life flow.
The mental load is the hidden work related to managing a family - all of the thinking, planning, organizing, and emotional labour to make sure the family is thriving emotionally, physically, and financially today and into the future.
Why is modern motherhood so hard?
Through the generations, every mother has worked hard, no one is arguing that. But today things are different, and moms are living a different life than our mothers and grandmothers did. There’s just no doubt about it. But is motherhood tougher now than back in the day?
We’re still struggling with ‘traditional’ gender roles.
Many women of our mother’s generation had their first baby in their early 20s and essentially went from living with their parents, to living with a husband and having a baby. Many didn’t establish a career, or travel the world to ‘find themselves.’ They went from being a teenager, to a wife, to a stay-at-home mom, while the man went to work.
Today, most women are having babies later in life, after they have time to focus on building a career and establishing their independence. As far as raising a family, the majority of couples must rely on two incomes due to higher living and childcare costs. So a woman (who is usually the primary care-giver) is expected to perform her job to the same standard she did before she became a mother, all while juggling the responsibilities of maintaining a home.
The fact is there’s a huge ‘grey area’ in regards to gender specific roles and female equality - and though things are shifting - we’re still parenting right on the heels of generation upon generation that expected certain things of mothers and other things of fathers. Even though we see these expectations as antiquated, most of us did not have what we’re now wanting modeled for us growing up, which means we’re having to figure out healthier and more equitable versions of family and relationships for ourselves.
We lack a community of support.
“No woman has ever had to do as much, on her own, as the modern mother. We don’t have the same family structure or the same neighborhood structure anymore…It’s really hard, and every woman needs to give herself a break.”
DR. HARVEY KARP
You’ve heard the saying… “it takes a village to raise a child”, but our culture has shifted farther and farther away from collaborative child rearing - think grandparents, aunts, cousins, sisters or neighbours - who helped with the caregiving load. Which means mothers today either go it alone, or attempt to create a tribe during the times of in their life when they have the time and energy to do so.
As mothers, we try to connect with one another in the ways most readily available to us, but many of the more surface level, virtual connections feel inadequate. We hunger for deeper, more authentic, more soulful connections, but again, it’s hard to find them, and we’re too busy to create them ourselves. It’s decreasing our sense that we’re well supported and means that the pressure is felt by mothers the most.
A further complication? Mothers’ needs are often not honored within the workplace. Finding a full-time or part-time job that provides what so many mothers need in order to strike a healthy work/life balance–are nearly impossible to find. Though there are exceptions, many mothers are forced to act as if they are not mothers, or risk losing their jobs.
Parenting standards and expectations have risen.
We’re bombarded with unrealistic images and messages of what motherhood is supposed to look and feel like. Marketing, media, television, movies and social media has messed with our sense of self more than we even realize. We then impose these standards and expectations on ourselves in an attempt to be the perfect mother and ‘do it all’.
Today, in addition to being homemakers, we are expected to simultaneously build careers, be exceptional parents, stay fit, practice self-care, and hold the awareness of so many things that our mothers never even thought about, such as food sensitivities, school options, internet safety, emotional wellness, and sustainability, to name a few. Never before have we expected so many different things of mothers (or of ourselves). What we have created for ourselves a digital version of, ‘keeping up with the Joneses.’ Our mothers didn’t have to deal with ‘Instagram moms’ nailing life in every way. These days, we look at women who ‘appear’ to have it all and we stupidly compare ourselves. There’s so much extra, unnecessary pressure!
Even worse, our culture celebrates and rewards independence, rather than interdependence, which has led many mothers to believe that asking for help and needing support makes them weak. Because so many of us have been taught to numb, minimize, and deny uncomfortable emotions instead of seeing them as a natural, healthy part of being human, we tend to think we’re weak when we feel the many big emotions that motherhood brings up in us.
Motherhood is all-consuming.
The needs of mothers are often the last to be considered, especially by mothers. The idea that ‘good mothers’ are self-sacrificial and self-denying is one that has been modeled for many of us by our own mothers, which makes it that much more challenging to break free from. Combined with the fact that biologically we are wired to care about the needs of those around us, we’re often as emotionally exhausted by caring as we are physically exhausted by doing.
As a result, mothers are often in survival mode, unconsciously keeping themselves stuck tackling the day-to-day challenges of balancing all of their different roles while leaving no room for themselves. In fact, many moms just don’t have the time or energy to understand why they feel so awful. As a result, they push aside their feelings and do the best they can, day after day, after day.
While motherhood heavily engages some aspects of who we are, it can leave almost no room for the growth of other, equally essential parts. Unless we’re aware of the need to balance this outside of motherhood (and can manage to find the time and support to pull that off), wholeness and thriving can feel quite elusive.
We know more, but our instincts are being minimized.
Though the information age has clearly led to amazing advancements, it’s also overwhelming us with more information than we can possibly make sense of or put to good use. Prior to the internet, you took your mom’s advice, your aunt's, your sister's, your friend’s advice etc., on how to do all things baby. Now, all we have to do is Google a topic and we have hundreds of ‘experts’ telling us what we are doing… wrong.
The problem is that all sorts of conflicting and inaccurate information can be found at the drop of a hat. When you’re an anxious, sleep deprived mother…you’re not always thinking about how well-researched an article is, and the studies behind the theories. In desperation, you may very well take certain pieces as gospel and completely freak yourself out that you're creating 'bad habits' for your child.
Living in a culture that teaches us to look to experts and Google for answers, means that our intuition receives very little of the validation and engagement that it needs in order to be strengthened. Those of us who are able to hear the voice of wisdom within, often feel that we have to justify it to the many rule followers and skeptics around us (and within us).
Consequences of the ‘double shift’ burden
We already know that after decades of research, women do significantly more housework and childcare than men — so much so that women who are employed full-time are often said to be working a “double shift.”
“ In fact, mothers are 1.5 times more likely than fathers to spend an additional three or more hours per day on housework and childcare. And, while more than 70% of heterosexual fathers in dual-career couples think that they are splitting household labor equally with their partner, only 44% of heterosexual mothers in dual-career couples agree. As a result, nearly a quarter of mothers said they worried that their work performance was being judged negatively because of their caregiving responsibilities, compared with only 11% of fathers.”
Moms everywhere are lonely, exhausted, anxious, depressed, and being pushed to their limits.
It wasn’t that long ago that women were referred to as ‘crazy’ or ‘hysterical’ when doctors couldn’t identify the ‘issue’ that deviated from expected health ailments. And, unfortunately, it looks like we still have a long way to go.
Many times women are labelled by their ‘mood’ and defined by their symptoms rather than looking at the root cause of why so women continue to experience emotional crises as they navigate motherhood. And while ‘hormones’ are often blamed for the decrease in well-being in women, most of the mental health crises we hear about result from society’s gender expectations and responses to motherhood, and the overwhelming workload.
Common maternal mental health issues:
Mood disorders that affect how you feel, such as depression and bipolar disorder;
Anxiety disorders that cause intense and prolonged fear that is not based on an actual threat or danger;
Eating disorders, which influence eating behaviours and are accompanied by negative thoughts about body shape and weight, such as anorexia and bulimia;
Prenatal and Postpartum disorders, forms of clinical depression which occur during after childbirth;
Reproductive Grief, Loss, Trauma, which is a devastating experience for women who are trying to get pregnant and struggling with fertility, going through IVF or IUI; or those who experience a miscarriage, stillbirth or traumatic birth;
Hormonal Changes, which can be experienced in puberty, pregnancy, postpartum and menopause which may lead to mood changes that are more drastic that what is considered to be normal;
Low Self-Esteem / Low Self Worth, which typically takes root in childhood, an abusive relationship or through bullying and may lead to obsessive, negative thoughts;
Discrimination, which women have experienced throughout history and these sexist or discriminatory practices can take it’s toll mentally.
Coping tips to lighten the mental load
Communicate with your partner.
Open communication is key in every relationship. It’s important to have a conversation with your partner and let them know how you are feeling about the amount of responsibility you are taking on.
You may feel embarrassed to ask for help from your partner, or maybe you are angry because you ‘hope’ they would be able to help out without having to be asked. But now is not the time for mind-reading. It’s not fair to your partner and will just set you up to resent them when they don’t meet your unsaid expectations.
Instead, set aside some dedicated time away from the kids and explain to your partner why working together is better and beneficial for the whole family. It is a time to bond and talk about everyday struggles and life events and an opportunity for you to work out how you will move forward… together.
However, if you find that your partner is unresponsive or your having trouble communicating your feelings and needs, it may be time to seek some support. Couples counselling can be a great resource. It can be helpful to have an objective third party to help you with those issues that are hard for you to face on your own.
Share the load.
Not all couples have unequal divisions of care, and it is possible. Same-sex couples, for instance, have a much more equal distribution compared to heterosexual couples, as they are not beholden to expected gender roles. Awareness of it is a good first step. Most men want to get more involved in their children’s lives, so to ease this on an individual level, couples could explicitly talk about who does what, end to end. To foster new habits to help share the load, it’s imperative to make ‘hidden’ tasks and chores more visible, and constantly being clear about who is managing which task, including the planning.
Making an organized system of delegating within a routine that ‘everyone’ in the family can see and share is essential. However you decide to make that happen…whether it’s a shared Google Calendar, or an app, or an oversized calendar on the wall… it’s important that the family contribute to doing household chores to the best of their ability. Getting kids involved in age-appropriate chores—for example, laundry for you, dishes for your son, your daughter to take care of the dog, grocery shopping for your husband, etc., can lessen the mental work for a mother while the work still gets done.
If we explicitly state how much planning is involved in every aspect of childcare and housework, it will become clearer just how much hidden work mothers do. The load can clearly be shared when it is more openly talked about.
Set healthy boundaries with your child.
As a parent, you can think of a boundary as the line you draw around yourself to define where you end and where your child begins. This isn’t always easy. And let’s face it, kids push the boundaries every day, all the time. They are wired to see how far they can go; it’s in their nature. As mothers, we sometimes cross boundaries ourselves in our attempts to “fix” things for them.
This kind of emotional labour is the most difficult to manage because at the root of it all is anxiety. When we get anxious about our kids, we often over-function for them and that’s when boundaries can get blurred. This means that we do too much for them. We become nervous about our child’s success or ability to handle things in life - whether it’s in school, with friends, in sports, or with their ability to behave appropriately - and it feels less stressful to by jump in and take control instead of letting our child work things out for themselves.
It’s painful to see our kids struggle in life; we love them and feel responsible for them, so we naturally want to make things better for our kids but when we aren’t able to let our children work through obstacles on their own, we’re denying them an important experience—the experience of how to overcome disappointment, how to deal with an argument with a friend, or how to talk to her teacher about a grade.
That’s not to say that we should never help, guide, coach and teach our kids; of course we should—that’s a huge part of what it means to be a parent. However, we do need to let them try to fight their own battles when possible and appropriate, rather than taking on their battles for them. Letting your child work through things is a way to respect them by observing their boundaries—and your own.
Make time for yourself.
We know… you’ve heard it all before. We know it’s easier said then done, but it is imperative that you spare yourself a few minutes every single day in your schedule for yourself. You are taking care of everyone, but who is taking care of you?
If you can make time to help others, you can make time to help yourself. You can wake up earlier than everybody. Grab a hot coffee and have a warm shower because you don’t get to experience that when the kids are awake. Set regular appointments with your doctor for check-ups. Make monthly dates to catch up with friends. Never compromise your health and well-being. Who will take care of your family when you are sick? Think about it. You deserve to take care of yourself.
Let go of perfection.
You are not a terrible mom. You don’t have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Remember, work in the home is and will never be completely done. There will always be improvements and adjustments and changes. So what if the dishes aren’t put in the dishwasher the right way? So what if the house isn’t sparkling clean? So what if you bought store bought cookies for the school bake sale? Those are not the things that matter. Striving for perfection does nothing but set you up for failure…because nothing and no one is perfect. So as per the infamous song… “let it go.”
You’re not a bad mom if you need some support.
We all have emotional ups and downs - ‘rough patches’ as we usually call them - changes, events or situations that put stress and strain on our day-to-day life. These are normal challenges. In most cases, with work, commitment, and a willingness to adapt - you can usually figure things out.
But what happens if these ‘rough patches’ turn into rough weeks, months or even years? What happens if you can’t work through or get past what is holding you back?
The overwhelming feeling of motherhood should not hinder you from seeking help and support.
We’re here if you need help.
Therapy is a valuable tool that can help you to solve problems, set and achieve goals, or teach you new ways to track your emotions and keep your self in check. It can help you to build the life, career, and relationship that you want. Does everybody need it? No. But if you are curious about working with a therapist, that curiosity is worth pursuing.
We know it takes a great amount of courage to examine your life and to decide that there are things you would like to change. And, it takes more courage to do something about it. We can help. We offer free consultations for anyone in Ontario considering individual or couples counselling, online at The Dot. We will go through any of your questions and concerns to help you decide whether online counselling is the right choice for you.
SOURCES
Talkspace Why Mental Health Is A Feminist Issue
Statistics Canada Maternal Mental Health in Canada
Women’s College Research Institute Maternal Mental Health
BBC The hidden load: How ‘thinking of everything’ holds mums back
CNN Moms are burned out: What can we do to ease the burden?
McKinsey For mothers in the workplace, a year (and counting) like no other
ScienceDirect Keeping inequality at home: The genesis of gender roles in housework