Can we reduce parental stress by lightening the mental load?
Part three in our three part discussion about mental load and motherhood
Is mental load stressful?
Maybe you think that is a silly question with a simple answer:
“Yes, yes it is,” you might say (we would respond similarly!)
And if that is indeed the answer, does that mean we can reduce parental stress by decreasing the mental load of parenting?
Not quite as simple.
So far, we have explored the origins of mental load and how it hides in plain sight underlying key gender equity issues:
And we discussed how it shows up in modern society, especially in America where our social safety net is pretty crappy and overly reliant on the unpaid labor of women, along with expectations for mothers (and their children) that are way way too high:
Now, can we tackle what to do about the impacts of mental load?
Let’s try!
Haley:
Let me ask you some questions I’ve been curious about:
Is it possible to think about a world in which we had mental loads, but we weren't stressed?
When does stress happen? Is it when I'm feeling unsupported with my mental load? Is it when there's just too many items on it? Is it all of these things?
How are you thinking about the relationship between stress and mental load?
Molly:
Such a good questions! And it all relates to what I'm wrestling with:
Humans, especially parents, will always carry some degree of mental load so if we can get to a point where we carry a mental load but we’re not stressed by it…. That’s really interesting to me.
To start answering the first question, though, I’m going to go back to my definitions of stress.
I like to break ‘stress’ into two parts: stressor and stress response. A stressor is an external challenge or threat that initiates a physical and behavioral stress response (physical and behavioral). It’s aspects of the stress response — e.g. when over-activated in chronic stress situations — that can get us into trouble, health wise.
For this project, especially as it aligns with mental load, I focus on psychological stressors – potential stressors; challenges that are external to us. These are scenarios we encounter (or continually face) in our lives that get filtered through our brain and categorized in a way that determines whether and how we react.
Our brain has to perceive this moment, this threat, this challenge as a stressor before our body physically responds to it.
“Humans, especially parents, will always carry some degree of mental load so if we can get to a point where we carry a mental load but we’re not stressed by it…. That’s really interesting to me.” — Molly
There's a lot of things that affect that perception, especially in the human brain. And the stress response is not all-or-nothing1, it’s not a simple on/off button, it is a graded response with nuance to how it starts / how it ends, how big / how small, etc.
I’ll attempt to simplify in analogy (because I love a good analogy). Let’s say there is a moment in time where the brain says, “okay, that's a stressor, send out the brigade!” Which soldiers do you send? How many do you send? When do you call them back? The brain adds extra bits of information to alter the degree of response.
The context — all the things bouncing around in your complex human brain — change the message.
Essentially, your brain is filtering any potential stressors through all these other things kicking around in your head. It's comparing it to memories. It's contextualizing the present and what else is happening in this moment, it’s considering what happened yesterday and how this challenge might affect something else coming up tomorrow.
And that's one reason the stressor map shows all the connections between different stressors – a connection filter that adds this context. I am starting to think that mental load adds different weights to these connections.
“In the mental load literature, I see the word ‘worry’ a lot. When I see the word ‘worry’, to me, that represents ‘anticipatory stress’ — a potential future challenge that has not happened yet but that you still react to in the present.”
Back to child care – think about all the possible considerations, logistics, emotions bouncing around your head if a single day of child care falls through: Do you have to rearrange a precisely scheduled day? Will you miss an important meeting or appointment? Will you lose a day of wages and need to re-budget your week? Will your career or education go off track? Will it impact your financial stability? Does it affect the safety of your child?
Now let’s soften those connections. Imagine a scenario where more support is in place for a day of child care falling through. If backup care2 is already mapped out and there are no personal or professional repercussions related to child care falling through for the day, is it still a stressor? Is it less of a stressor? It's all about the context.
Another key element to what makes a stressor a stressor, comes down to the basics around perception: lack of control, unpredictability, and novelty are all hallmarks of how the brain classifies potential threats. Each element can be anticipatory – it's not always something in front of you, it can relate to something that could be in front of you.
In the mental load literature, especially Dr. Ruppaner’s work looking at emotional labor, I see the word “worry” a lot. When I see the word worry, to me, that represents anticipatory stress.
Haley:
So what do you think? Is it possible to think about a world in which we had mental loads, but we weren't stressed?
Or maybe better to word it – how do we decrease the stress related to mental load?
Molly:
This isn’t the best response but…
Maybe?3
I do think decreasing the stress related to mental load is do-able. But we still need to understand – what is it about mental load that is a stressor? Is it that lack of control? Is it anticipation? Is it future projection? Is it the lack of control or the feelings related to grabbing for control?
“For men, when they pick up more cognitive labor, they actually report lower stress and lower depressive symptoms. For women, it’s the opposite.” — Molly
One of the research threads that I really find fascinating (and maybe giving glimpses at the answer to that) is from Dr. Richard Petts and Dr. Daniel Carlson’s research. They had a study looking at men versus women and division of cognitive labor during COVID. For men, when they pick up more cognitive labor, they actually report lower stress and lower depressive symptoms4. For women, it’s the opposite.
So this research, suggesting that men who take on more cognitive labor tasks have lower stress, lower perceived stress, and reduced depressive symptoms, adds in that part where context matters. The researchers point that out too – the context of the tasks they quantified may affect how stress is internalized. And that goes right back to gendering because, the way women have been gendered by society also impacts how women perceive the tasks taken on. Gendering impacts the sense of control, the level of unpredictability, the anticipation, the worry about the future.
Haley:
The sense of emotional weight.
Molly:
Exactly.
To me, this suggests that it is the emotional labor wrapped around the cognitive labor tasks that impacts the degree of stress experienced. That may explain the differences in how ‘mental load = stress’ for men vs. women / fathers vs. mothers.
Exploring this angle might be the key to a gendered separation of the two components of mental load and the effective solutions to decrease the related stress.
“the emotional labor wrapped around the cognitive labor tasks might be what impacts the degree of stress experienced when it comes to mental load.” — Molly
This goes back to you, Haley – can you help me figure out what is the stress related to mental load?
Haley:
That’s super helpful.
I've done a couple of these workshops for Work Life Everything where we walk people through what the mental load is. We do an exercise where we ask people to write down everything in their mental load, without giving them much guidance on what to include and what not to. We just ask them to write freely for five minutes. People, and I should specify they’ve mostly been women, will list usually between ten and thirty things, a mix of personal, family, and work related.
It's a really interesting experiment because, having that time to do it, people will list things they didn't realize were contributing to their overall level of stress in that moment, until they stopped to think about it. To me, this is what it sounds like is “anticipatory stress,” as you described it.
Then, we have them go through their list and rate each one. We have them say, does this item feel light or does it feel heavy? And people instinctively know what we mean. They can quickly say, “heavy,” “light, “heavy,” as we go through their lists. It's a way of getting to “is this stressful for you or not?” If we have time to dig in and ask what about it feels stressful, people have a chance to put their finger on it. Then, they might start noticing patterns—”ah ha! This feels stressful because I have no control over the vision of this project!” Or something like that.
“Is it always *sharing the load* that will make it better or is it *reducing the load* that we really need to be focused on?
In most contexts, it's probably both.” — Haley
That’s where we encourage that person to begin to think about what kinds of solutions might work to lighten their loads. For some it comes down to handing off some of their list to their partner or someone else. But not always. Sometimes there’s another change they can make that may not get the task off their list, but can make it feel lighter.
For example, for me, handling my son’s medical appointments is not what feels heavy, per se, but handling appointments without a full understanding of my health benefits, (because my partner gets all those emails) makes it heavier. I can then say, “Ah, okay! There’s an information gap happening in my household we need to close.”
On the other hand, I've been really struck by how often, in those workshop conversations, women will mention how they do get pleasure from some of these tasks5. There are some items that not only feel light to them, but that they actually look forward to tackling — “I like to do XY and Z. I wouldn't want to hand that off.” That tells me it’s not the load itself that causes stress, but the context of the support you get and the stakes of it.
Another thing I'm thinking – is it always sharing the load that will make it better, or is it reducing the load that we really need to be focused on?
In most contexts, it's probably both.
“When we understand the mental load not as a to-do list, but as this interplay of cognitive and emotional work, we see there are multiple pathways to making it lighter.” — Haley
I do wonder, especially about that emotional valence that so much of the mental load has, how much of our mental load and its stress relates to how connected we see ourselves to other people. That's when the emotional stakes feel really high. Like a new child care center for my son – I'm so emotionally connected to him in a way that how he spends every hour of his day affects me. While part of me recognizes these thoughts as a “take it to your therapist” thing, the other part of me wonders: do we want men to feel the same way? (I don't have a male partner so it doesn't apply to me, specifically, because my wife and I both feel this very deeply.)
I think this is one of the key considerations – do we want to reach a point where everybody is feeling that level of connectedness and responsibility to each other so deeply? Or do we need to build up a sense of feeling comforted in some way that we don't need to worry so much about everybody else?
When we understand the mental load, not as a to-do list, as Leah Ruppanner has said, but as this interplay of cognitive and emotional work, we see there are multiple pathways to making it lighter.
Molly:
Taking it back to the child care + safety, it's a great example of a big emotional load related to connectedness and responsibility and plays into your point about relieving the mental load with “a sense of feeling comforted in some way” and not needing to worry.
At a societal level, we also have to factor in the effects of mom guilt. We have to recognize and redirect the perspective that: *if something happens to your child when they are in the care of someone else, that is on you; you are the one who chose this because you are the mother and you should know better*6.
“The emotional labor related to mom guilt cannot be ignored.” — Molly
Going back to the stressor map, mental load is its own stressor but it's also hiding in all of the connections – there is a reason social narrative connects to child care. A reason that identity connects to it too. There are a range of other aspects of life that connect and feed into how we internalize the emotional labor related to one source of stress. The emotional labor related to mom guilt cannot be ignored.
And because all of these relatively invisible elements feed in, we have opportunities for bring-to-light solutions. For example, I think we do need a general narrative shift around the “who’s responsible for…” element. We need a better, more equal partnership, in how we approach all of the steps AND how we relate to responsibility.
And I think we need to see general mental load as not an individual thing. Not even a couple thing. Mental load is a broader societal issue because one of the reasons parents carry a larger mental load these days relates back to the fact that the system we currently live in is broken and overly reliant on the labor of parents. Now, add in the fact that, with this huge mental load on parents, most of it is going to fall onto mothers because it is gendered. Especially the emotional labor component.
When I think about opportunities to decrease parental stress, especially maternal stress, mental load is appealing as a target because it exists in these small spaces where any type of change can have a big impact.
“Mental load is a broader societal issue — one of the reasons parents carry a larger mental load these days relates back to the fact that the system we currently live in is broken and overly reliant on the labor of parents.
Now, add in the fact that, with this huge mental load on parents, most of it is going to fall onto mothers because it is gendered.
Especially the emotional labor component.” — Molly
I also feel like there are some stressors on the map that are absolutely inevitable when it comes to life as a parent, a caregiver, a woman in America. But even some of the inevitable stressors can be lightened if mental load shifts. Think about cognitive labor – logistics, extra steps, unnecessary actions — can we consider burden on parents in a way where anyone, (everyone!), can see their own impact on other people’s lives? Asking themselves: what am I doing or putting into the world and how does that add to a parent’s mental load? Then, ask: how do I decrease that load?
We can all do this for each other!7
Haley:
One thing that is super important about what you're saying is the need to humanize motherhood.
Taking stress as a framework for humanizing something might come across as negative – why do we have to think about the stress of motherhood instead of all these other, nice things?
Culturally, we already have all those other things – we know that motherhood can be wonderful and that it's beautiful and that it's challenging and it's rewarding. But thinking about it as a point of stress (and that doesn't even really capture it), takes the notch down a little bit on motherhood.
“We need to humanize motherhood.” — Haley
We just have these completely pie-in-the-sky notions of what a mom should be doing. It's so easy to internalize that. I've been working on these issues since forever, but it wasn't until I became a mom that I was like, “Whoa, where did that come from?!” For example, I thought “Oh, I think I'll try to breastfeed. We'll see how it goes.” And then my son couldn't latch. And I was devastated. My wife was like “Honey, formula is good. It will be great. We know formula fed babies…” And I, I just couldn't let it go.
Molly:
And you had a supportive partner!
Haley:
Yes!
That's one of the reasons discussion of mental load needs to extend beyond load sharing. I want to help people share – that's what I've done for the Better Life Lab Experiments – and help partners come up with interventions to help share the load. I'm all there.
My partner and I feel like we're running a pretty well-oiled ship at this point. And we're still stressed! I still feel worry and I still internalize these messages about perfection and blame. So I love what you're doing in order to help people talk about motherhood and its perils. How much, culturally, we have put on moms so that we can find a way out of it.
“My partner and I feel like we're running a pretty well-oiled ship at this point. And we're still stressed! I still feel worry and I still internalize these messages about perfection and blame.” — Haley
Just to bring it full circle back to culture, and to the narratives we have, I think having more narratives about mothers as fully human people will help. When you have intergenerational conversations – unloading what I've got on my plate and how stressful it is my mom or grandma, or, just to some older couples at the park – it's often met with: “yeah, it's a really tough period. Get through it. It’ll get better.” I appreciate the sentiment, but I think we have to stop treating this as just the way that parenthood goes.
We should get to: “well, right now that’s how parenting is, but it doesn’t need to be.”
Molly:
It doesn’t need to be.
Haley:
It doesn’t need to be!
Molly:
One of the things you brought up that I want to grab onto for a second is that point about the conversations. And the need to have different conversations. I also want to tie this back to your comment that “thinking about [motherhood] as a point of stress takes the notch down a bit on motherhood.”
My goal in bringing stress to this topic more generally is not to highlight the negative side of motherhood. Quite the opposite. I am bringing in stress in order to elevate the potential solutions and their impacts. In the case of mental load – where are the opportunities for different conversation that will have real impact?
“Reassessing the load you carry and how it can change should be a collaborative effort with those who love you and want you to be healthy.” — Molly
If part of the mental load distribution/redistribution – a “pass this off” strategies or whatever personalized solution works for you – is put into the context of stress and health, it might open up different opportunities for conversation. Permission to say:“this is impacting my health. My health affects how I work. My health affects how I parent. My health affects how I interact with you, as a partner. My health is important.”
For those who love you and want to support you as a human, they should value your health, right? Reassessing the load you carry and how it can change should be a collaborative effort with those who love you and want you to be healthy.
I just worry that the current general discussion on mental load is a bit one-sided — it is getting recognition amongst women but not their male partners. I think that one-sidedness makes us go snarky, as women and wives and mothers. Case in point, the great Farideh take on this: “make a list! … I don't want to make a list!”
I love the humor. And I agree with all of it. But is it effective?
Haley:
“Why should it be my job to tell him what to do?!”
Molly:
Yes!
I think it also goes back to the classic 1950s bullshit of the nagging wife trope. No one wants to pick up extra labor if someone else will do it. But is the wife—>husband delegation working? Is it making it worse for her?
What if we can change the conversation and add in that feeling of “this is affecting my health. This could affect my health. This will affect my health. I need your help to stay healthy here.” It might not work for everyone but will that get more folks to shift how labor is distributed in their home? Maybe!
“When I think about opportunities to decrease parental stress, especially maternal stress, mental load is appealing as a target because it exists in these small spaces where any type of change can have a big impact.” — Molly
The pieces still need to connected in order to make that statement broadly and to provide the substantial evidence for a big systemic push towards recognizing and fixing the mental labor that falls to women. In the meantime, what if we started small?
That's why a big part of the Maternal Stress Project focuses on creating a different narrative around stress and how we talk about our stress and how we talk about our health. And how we reassess how we add value to not taking on the bulk of everything.
Haley:
It reminds me of how, during the pandemic, in the fight for Build Back Better and all the policies that we've just been talking about, so much of it was “the economy needs this infrastructure” but I feel like that only gets us so far. When the businesses opened back up, and inflation was too high, people started saying workers have it too good right now, and it's bad for the economy. Then where's our bargaining chip? We can always come back to: what about our health? Our health is also related to the economy and we should think about them together.
Let’s get this health piece into the conversation. See what it does for how we relate to each other. The way we take each other seriously. You might still have those naysayers who say, “Well, you shouldn't have kids.” We will continue to respond to them. But I think we will open up conversations with other types of audiences here, who aren't part of this conversation yet or haven't made these connections, but, in good faith really want this to be better for people.
Molly:
So, did I answer the original question?
How about — I still think there is more work to be done!
How are you feeling mental load in your body as a source of stress? Does it relate to your current cognitive labor load? The emotional labor? A combination of the two?
Does passing off tasks relieve the weight?
What has worked for you in your life — your partnership or family or workplace or community?
RESOURCES:
If you’re thinking “ok, but how do I lighten my mental load”, a few resources for you…
For New America’s Better Life Lab, Haley and her colleague Brigid Schulte run Better Life Lab Experiments, a research initiative to find small interventions for individuals and families to use to better share the work of everyday life. Check out their forty original “experiments” and a host of additional resources on getting started.
If you’re interested in booking a Work Life Everything mental load workshop like the one Haley described above, for your friends, colleagues, or just yourself, reach out to Haley@worklifeeverything.com
Here are some of our favorite books on the subject:
Fair Play – Eve Rodsky
Equal Partners – Kate Mangino
Drop the Ball – Tiffany Dufu
Real Self-Care – Pooja Lakshmin
Releasing the Motherload – Erica Djossa
And you can learn about some of the AI assistants and other tools and apps innovators have launched to help lighten mental loads in a recent panel discussion Haley led on AI, Apps, and the Mental Load.
A few of those tools:
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For example, if you get up to speak publicly, you feel your heart racing, you feel your palms sweating, you had a fight-or-flight response.
Are you going to be doubled over with the flu the next day because that stress response compromised your immune system and let a virus take hold? No, you encountered a mild stress with a mild, acute stress response that probably turned off relatively quickly.
You’re going to be fine.
A research study showed that to backup care was a significant driver that decreases the stress and negative health outcomes related to child care precarity.
Sorry, the scientist in me will never give a definitive if the research is still incomplete.
I think of depressive symptoms as a downstream indication for how stress might affect health. You have stress, you have perceived stress, but is that stress actually affecting health downstream? A lot of times, researchers quantify mental health as the outcome because literature continues to link stress and negative mental health outcomes. Therefore, depressive symptoms could be this downstream reflection of stress internalization.
We've only had a few men take part in our workshops thus far, and have yet to hear them mention pleasurable mental load items.
Sample size of me (Molly) — I felt this deeply in my own experience. For my first daughter's infant care, we chose a lovely home daycare. When she was just over a year old, personal circumstances in the owner/lead care provider’s life led to the daycare going downhill really fast. But we kept her there for a bit too long and all along the way, I felt super guilty about the situation she was in and I sat in this guilt for far too long. All because I chose that daycare.
Reflecting back, why was ALL the feelings of responsibility on me? My husband equally dropped her off. We equally saw it going downhill, we equally interacted with the childcare provider, we were equally getting worried about what was happening, but the guilt seemed to be 100% on me.
For example, summer camp paperwork seems like a small thing to target but is definitely a part of parental mental load.
So maybe just simplify it? Or have one system? Can we have one form for all health physicals and then that step is done for every single summer camp.
Why do I have to do the same labor-intensive thing five times?
Summer camp paperwork!!! (Also signing up for summer camp) What is the solution to this?