In the words of our lord and saviour, Erykah Badu… “I am getting tired of your shit” 1:1.
I am sure I speak for many women in heterosexual relationships when I say, we felt the mental load before we ever knew it had a label.
I remember feeling that girls got the raw end of the deal from a very young age; at a guess I may have been around 10. It became apparently clear that boys got away with bad behaviour and sometimes being downright bullies … because they are boys… I at one point said to my mother, I wish I was just born with a dick (probably not in those words, but I have zero filter so, who knows!) …
Again, sorry mum, I know you pull me up on my swearing every phone conversation we have, but as I get older it is only going to get worse.
Actually, I am not sorry.
During my teens is when I really started getting vocal about this, I started to get a good understanding of the punishments that come with speaking up and calling out institutionalised sexism, and I have had actual physical altercations with boys at that time, for refusing to back down… it does not help when your own school, while citing the reason for our lecture on uniform policies stated that “low cut tops and short skirts, means that you are distracting the boys”…
Sorry, we fucking what now?
How about the boys lean some self-control, this sentiment was echoed by a few other girls I knew at the time, and we were treated as though we were in the wrong for even bringing that point up! I say this a lot, but I love how things have shifted, and it gives me hope for my children. I had a meeting recently with a young couple regarding a creative project we are collaborating on, they are only nineteen and twenty, but listening to them speak about equality, and injustice, made me feel a wash of relief, that these “precious” “entitled” “whinging socialist” kids, are going to be the ones to change the word, fucking power to them!
Before the boys, and women with unresolved internalised misogyny, get their feathers in a ruffle about my use of “equality” and what will seem like a lot of man bashing, it is not sexism when we are just wanting to be… equal…which we are not, and don’t you dare bring up the argument of women now “working” and “wanting it all”. We have no choice, and newsflash, our wages are lower, and we have way less super. We also still do everything, and the family workload, is still primarily on women.
We are not trying “to be men” grow up and do some research.
I am also going to give a shout out to my daughter and her friends, because for kids getting deeply concerned about the current state of the world, from and environmental, political, and social standpoint… at only twelve, is both important, but also deeply concerning.
Hey, you old codgers… wake the hell up… it seems we have a problem here.
My oldest daughter is now fifteen, and an incredibly strong woman, who like Erykah Badu, takes no shit. Which must be the genetics of incredibly resilient women she has descended from, because I, as a deeply wounded fawning young mother, in perpetual survival mode, was not the role model for her I wish that I were, when she was much younger.
That is my single deepest regret in life.
So, this buzz phrase we have all been hearing a lot.
The mental load.
If you are a man reading this and getting the sticky uppy cat hairs fizzing already, stop reading now. If you are not receptive, I am not responsible for arguing my point or explaining further, ask your mother to clarify.
This imaginary burden became blaringly obvious to me after I had my first baby, the number of expectations placed on me after an extremely traumatic birth, and long recovery, left me exhausted. I remember saying to myself, when can I catch a breath?… er…the answer is never.
Western culture, all being about individualism, also means that most mothers don’t have that village of support, it is all on us.
Everything.
I felt constantly overwhelmed by my endless to do list, cleaning, washing, cooking, money, earning more money, bills, recovering from birth and the trauma that resulted, after losing three litres of blood in three minutes, because my doctor, in the words of a very remorseful, guilty feeling nurse said “ripped out the placenta, because he was called in on his day off and didn’t want to wait, because he has cycling today” was not even something I could entertain. I think many women will nod when I say that we are told to “just be happy you had a healthy baby”. Every time I spoke about the trauma I felt from that event, and how I’d like to act on admitted negligence, I was told to “get over it”. So, yeh…I was introduced to the mental load…I was introduced to it hard.
I started to wonder, why the hell was I the one to be finding new ways to bring in more income? doing henna tattoos, working underpaid shifts at the local shop, and calling to extend our utility bills. Things felt really impossible at times and I cried… a lot!, out of pure frustration with overwhelming pressure, and very little I could do about it with a new baby (which even in 2008, pales in comparison to the financial hellscape we are all trying to claw our way through now) I felt like the burden to make ends meet, was always on me, to come up with new inventive ways to pull in more cash… on top of being a full time mother.
I will blow my own trumpet here, and say I am like a feral cat, you run me over and drown me in a hessian bag, jokes on you motherfucker! I have eight more lives!
I am very inventive when it comes to survival, I have been since I left home at sixteen. I will have multiple side hustles on the go, that have been a mix of everything from art to performance and labour work… I will find a way.
But guess what, I am sick of finding a way, I have always been the one…finding a way, and I am tired.
We are all tired, especially women.
So, how are we supposed to be the amazing mothers that society tells us we have to be, which is getting more and more complicated (I swear to Goddess, schools, stop sending out twenty emails a damn day, just stop!), while also trying to work full time jobs (as the working poor for most of us might I add) and then still have time to clean the house, do the washing, sort out the bills, schedule the kids activities and appointments, shower ( I mean I don’t always anymore, why shower when I could find five minutes alone to stress over more inventive ways to just survive) and for the men still reading this, service your sexual needs… because I tell ya Bucko… we couldn’t care fucking less.
Do some yoga, you can gain some clarity while you get flexible enough to sort yourself out, like we have to.
Shots fired… again, I am not sorry.
I have been saying sorry my whole life, I still occasionally say sorry to men who walk right into me in the street, why? Social conditioning I’ll bet.
I have now more often taken to glaring from under my outrageously feather filled hat (kids, more feathers, keep them coming) and running over feet with my pram… It is a super chonky pram too, with big 4WD wheels.
I laugh when I see government adds plastered on different platforms, with tips on how to “de-stress” and “look after your mental health” yeh ok, sweet. I will breathe slower while I wade through the endless amount of unavoidable stress on my shoulders, that should sort it right out, thanks!
Not like they could have maybe used that money on advertising to help the people it is targeted at.
As I write this I am sitting in my pyjamas (AKA my metalsmithing clothes, because I cannot afford pyjamas right now, and it is easier to already be dressed for work), and trying to entertain my toddler, make my twelve-year-old son, who is just incredible by the way, feel heard, and drink my coffee before it gets cold.
Forget getting up at five in the morning to get fifteen minutes alone! My toddler does not sleep, she still gets up every few hours, so my mind never stops.
The mental load… really let those words marinate…
I will create a visual.
My house is a mess, I only cleaned it yesterday, I am wondering if I should get onto the mountain of washing, I have, but it has been raining, and my house has no undercover area for a washing line. I have a migraine from being up all night, stressing over a massive rent increase that I have to agree to, in order to stay in my house, a house that is literally falling apart, where the owner was happy for us to do big repairs ourselves, with our own money, something we agreed to in order to avoid this increase, a house with mould growing all over the ceiling.
I have a desk filled with commissions to finish, and I am thinking about how the hell I can get through those, with only two free days a week, for not only metalsmithing, but to deep clean our home, make phone calls, micro-manage everyone in this damn overpriced house which I am certain has ghosts in the ceiling.
Oh wait, that is probably just someone else who cannot afford rent living up there, all good mate! I get the struggle, want some cold coffee?
I am debating over whether to get a suspicious mole cut out of my back or a pap smear (all our usual bulk billing practices have stopped bulk billing) because I can’t afford both right now.
I need to call the school, tend to my garden, run some errands, look for a new job because of said rent increase, and all while doing everything that I am already doing, and I do not stop! Somehow, I have to find extra hours in the day, when I already get up at Five in the morning and go to sleep at about ten or eleven at night, because I am still doing dishes, and washing.
Oh yeh, add in guilt…overwhelming guilt.
Because while all of this in spiralling in my mind, I am not giving my kids the best version of myself, and speaking of kids, I have my toddler with her cold hands up my shirt as I write this, asking me for something every two seconds.
All mothers will understand how over-stimulated we feel 24/7.
All of that, and it is only 7am!
What triggered this sudden snap over the mental load?
My partner, that’s what.
I already had a long day, and it started early like every other, we were in the shopping centre and I was replying to a work message on my phone (even if I was watching cute mouse videos, I can do what ever the hell I want), my toddler is epically loosing her cool, enough that people are openly showing how irritated they are by her… lucky I can’t deal with the added mental load of assault right now.
I was thinking about my reply to this message, actively dealing with my toddler, and thinking about what we needed and what was for dinner, while also doing the math in my head of what I had in my account and what bills were coming out.
My lovely partner pipes up with… “can you just get off your phone and focus”.
Um, sorry… are you feeling overwhelmed by the screaming toddler and trip to the supermarket where you don’t have to do anything but push the trolley? Welcome to my life, every day all day, but amp up the stress by 1000, like in the movie “The Crow” when he puts his hands on the bad guy’s face, and he dies from feeling all at once, all the pain he has ever inflicted…
Just.Shut.Up.
I looked up from my phone made some excuse about a work message, you know, what pays for this food we are buying, but sure, I will hold back for now.
Then after getting asked in every isle, “do we have any XYZ left?” I snapped back…” you know that YOU can check those things before we leave right? why is it up to me to know every corner of our kitchen?” That was totally lost on him, and the words came right out “It is called the mental fucking load, educate yourself and look it up” I know the old ladies at the back cheered me on, they know what I am on about.
How did that go?
Not great…
After all had settled, we get to the fresh produce section, and I asked if we had apples, the rare time I don’t know if we have something… I got “Oh, it is not up to me to know if we have everything, YOU could have checked” …. Yeh, no, not how that works… read the room, that petty remark was a dick move.
He better get to those yoga classes; I will say that much.
I will throw in a “not all men” for the salty boys still reading.
When my toddler was at the height of screaming and booting me in the vagina with her light up shoes, I had decided to give up.
I put her down, let her block the whole isle, while people got extra dramatic in their show of distain, and just let her scream, I could not even physically get her out if I wanted to. I just sat and waited for her to calm down, the next person who said something to me, can show me how its done, be my guest… may even give them a pat on the back for their efforts.
An older man, in his fifties left his spot on the que, and charged over, I thought… “Oh fuck, here we go” I was immediately waiting to get ripped to shreds, and I said “ oh no, we are in trouble now” to which he put his hand in his shirt pocket, and said “ No, no, I actually have something that might help you” …
Is it horse tranquilizers I wondered, because yes please.
He pulled out a chocolate, and handed it to my daughter, she immediately lit up and stopped her epic tantrum from the depths of hell. He said to her “Now! Be nice to your mother” I asked if he had kids, to which he did not, he just saw I was really struggling and wanted to try and help me. I almost cried, for real, and told him how much that made my day… take note people, if you see a mother having a hard time, your comments don’t help, it just makes you a dickhead, that is aimed at women too.
I felt like asking him if he were married and if not, did he want a wife, but yeh no, I am 80% sure I am gay.
So, how can men help with the mental load?
At the very LEAST… do not add more to it, your comments and minimising also do not make anything better, and do not ask your partner, “how can I help” for starters, you are grown-ups, you aren’t “helping” by watching your own kids and cleaning up after yourselves, are we “helping” you when we also go to work and bring in the moolah? No, you call that contributing to finances.
Here is another one, don’t you dare ask us to delegate tasks, that is still a mental strain on your partner, are you a child? Would you like to be spoken to like a four-year-old?
“Now this is how you open the cupboard, now also open your eyes so you can actually see what is in the cupboard, and this is a pen, and now you write down what is missing”
Learn how to find the clitoris while you are at it…
Next, we can cover, “How to meal plan and find all the ingredients for that” but that is very advanced, so maybe we can implement a star chart as an incentive, so you can also highlight every little thing you have done, and then get disappointed when you don’t get a medal.
I will do you one better; I will stick that gold star on your forehead.
Triggered?
Good.
