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Episode 1

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Published on:

4th May 2023

It's a Real F***ing Thing

What is the mental load?

How does the mental load affect women?

Is the mental load a real thing? And if it is, what is its impact on women?

The mental load is all the “invisible work” that needs to be done to keep daily life going

This includes cognitive and emotional needs as well.

Cognitive labor involves thinking of all the practical needs and logistics and emotional labor involves managing and regulating everyone’s emotions to create the most successful outcome for everyone. 

Four components of the mental load:

  • Anticipating needs
  • Finding solutions to meet them
  • Making decisions
  • Monitoring progress

What is the effect on women?

Health:

  • Anxiety disorders
  • Burnout
  • Depression

At work:

  • Stalled careers
  • Judgement: that we’re distracted 

Economically:

The wage gap literally exists because of the mental load. Women are paid less than men and women of color are paid less than white women.

Relationships:

Kids - we teach our boys that women carry the mental load for them and we teach our girls that they're responsible for doing invisible labor. We're less present with our families, simply going through the motions of managing a family rather than participating in the family.

Husbands - when they don't help shoulder the mental load, they miss out on opportunities to bond with their children. Their partners/wives become resentful and everyone's happiness takes a nose dive. At the end of the day, women are less intimate and less likely to want to have sex with their husbands because they resent them for not carrying more of the load.

Friendships - we lose the closeness of our friendships when we're too busy to coordinate regular meet-ups with our friends.

Why are any of these things a problem?

We're teaching our kids the same generational cycle we resent and women end up feeling unfulfilled in their own lives. They get lost in motherhood.


Mentioned in this episode:

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Our House Children's Learning Center

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About the Podcast

The Mental Load
Breaking a generational cycle to create equal households
Two millennial moms explore the mental load. Here’s the deal, we’re the first generation of women who saw both of our parents work outside the home. And, because kids are oblivious to how much work it takes to actually raise them, we naturally assumed that our parents split everything else it took to run our households. Then we grew up, got married and were like what the f***? You know this conversation. You probably have it with your mom friends all the time. It’s your never ending to-do list. The perception that you’re the household manager and keeper of all the stuff and the things. The mental load is so much more complex than delegating out chores and duties or telling women to practice “self care” or “take a day off”. We don’t want a day off, we want husbands who are more “switched on” throughout the day. How do we have this conversation in our household? What systems keep the mental load in place? Why does the mental load even exist? We’re here to explore all of these topics and really dig into the small and large changes that need to happen in order to better support women and therefore, families in America.
And we’re here to bring this conversation to the forefront and help break a generational cycle so that as we raise girls AND boys, they know what it means to truly have an equal household.

About your host

Profile picture for Katlynn Pyatt

Katlynn Pyatt

Hi! I'm Katlynn. I'm a mom of three kids: Hudson, Nora and Willa. I might be biased, but they're pretty amazing kids. I'm super proud of myself for making them! I also have a very loving and supportive husband, Eric.

I'm a marketer from 9-5 but a creative soul all day every day. I love painting with watercolor, sitting on the porch watching the sunrise and meditating. I've always loved to talk, so podcasting is a natural fit for me and over the past year, I've spent a lot of time diving in to mindset and manifestation work. It's changed my outlook on life and made me a lot less high strung.

When I'm not wearing my mom, marketing or spouse hat, I enjoy exercising. Sometimes I'm motivated enough to look like a snack. Other times, I just like eating snacks.