Everything You Think You Know About the Mental Load is Wrong with Leah Ruppanner

Leah Ruppanner, a sociologist and the author of Drained, joins Anita and Zara to discUss the complexities of mental load.

In this conversation, Leah debunks common misconceptions and explains how emotional thinking work impacts burnout and gender norms. This conversation offers research-backed insights and practical advice for understanding and managing mental load in everyday life.

In this episode we cover:

• Mental load as emotional thinking work
• The eight types of mental load
• Gender differences in mental load
• Impact of social norms on mental load
• Strategies to manage and reduce mental load

Chapters

00:00
Understanding the Mental Load

04:44
The Emotional Aspect of Mental Load

09:13
Gender Dynamics in Mental Load

13:43
The Importance of Acknowledgment

18:36
Navigating Modern Challenges

23:14
The Future of Mental Load Awareness

26:10
Navigating the Mental Load of Modern Motherhood

29:49
The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health

33:38
Understanding and Managing Mental Energy

36:54
Intergenerational Perspectives on Mental Load

43:08
Finding Balance and Permission to Rest

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Welcome to the Millennial Sandwich, a space for real conversations about millennials in the middle, not just of our own minds, but also of a caregiving sandwich. I'm Dr. Anitha Chandra, a geriatrician and expert in ElderCare.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

And I'm Zara Hannewald, a parenting journalist and expert in American motherhood. And even we don't have all the answers. Join us as we figure out life in the middle. Hello, everybody. Welcome back. Today we are joined by Leah Rupanner, a sociologist, an author, and a mental load expert. Leah, can you introduce yourself and give a few more details to our audience?

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Hi, everyone. I am Leah Rupaner. I'm a professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia, but you can tell by my accent, I am US born and bred. And I'm currently in a visiting position at Vanderbilt University, and I am an expert on the mental load. And I'm going to tell you, you don't know what the mental load is, or you think you know, but it's a much more complicated than what you think it is. And I have a book coming out called Trained, Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More, and a podcast called Misperceived, where we take research-based ideas and help debunk them, show you what's going on in the world from a research perspective. So very delighted to be here. Thank you for having me. And hello, audience.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

We're super excited to talk about this. Yes, we are. We are. Say that we are getting what we think the mental load is wrong. What do people get wrong about the mental load?

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yeah. So there's kind of two things that you're getting wrong. Well, I feel like I'm really confrontational when I say this. So I'll I'll try to tame my approach. May I suggest that there is an alternative way to see this? So there's kind of two things that we're not don't quite have right or that I'm trying to help people understand. The first is that the mental load is emotional thinking work. So much of the stuff that you've been reading or thinking about or consuming often frames the mental load as this like cognitive labor, this like list making or this remembering task that's tied to the work that mothers do. This is true. I'm not saying this isn't true, but what we're showing is that the mental load, so we have an article we wrote in 2019, an academic article, because everything I do is research backed because I'm a professor. We're actually the key argument we're making is like the mental load is actually emotional thinking work. And that is why it gets so heavy. That's why it's so clearly tied to burnout. So let me give you an example, right? So what does that mean in practice? For example, if you ever have to keep a list of like, okay, what do we need to buy at the store? That sometimes is just straight cognitive thinking. You're just like, what do we need to buy? Okay, the milk is low. You know, we need more bread, the eggs, et cetera. And you might just put them on a list and tick them off. Sometimes our mental loads work that way, but most often our mental loads are emotional thinking work. So you might go, okay, do we have enough milk in the fridge? If we don't have milk in the fridge, my two-year-old will be screaming at in the middle of the night at 2 a.m. If they're screaming at 2 a.m. in the middle of the night because they're hungry, then who will have to get up? I will have to get up. Why doesn't he ever get up? Why am I always the one that gets up? What's going on? Is there something wrong with my relationship? Am I angry with him? Is our marriage on the rocks? Wait, maybe we should go to therapy. Oh, I don't know. I have a friend who went to therapy one time, but do we have the time? It's when you start to do this stuff that becomes highly emotional and it kind of starts to spiral into a range of different thoughts. That's where your mental load becomes the mental load. That's where cognitive work becomes emotional because all of a sudden it's like your kid's health is on the line. Your marriage is on the rocks. You're worried about, like, oh, if she doesn't get enough calcium, then is she even gonna get when she's 80 years old? Is she gonna have osteoporosis if I don't actually all of a sudden you're worried about it? Are you in my brain? Maybe. Perhaps. And so this is the mental load. It's and we don't quite have that, that emotional piece. Like we have pieces of it, but once I say it to you, you're like, are you in my brain? Like, what is going on? That's the first piece. The second piece, which I'm sure we'll talk about more. So I will stop blah blah blahing at you, is this idea that the mental load is one type. The mental load is just kind of like this list making that mothers do. No, I actually, through the research, have identified eight different types. This is kind of the premise of the book, right? That you're actually holding eight different types of mental load. You're doing it in seven different stages. So if you feel burnt out and you don't know why, but you just know you're exhausted. One of the things I found is when I start saying to people, actually, you're carrying eight different types of mental load, and let me tell you what they are, it starts to have this moment of like, that's what it is. That's what I'm what's going on as I'm carrying these different pieces. With this kind of framing, because I'm here to educate, right? This is my job as a professor, is to do research and then translate and help people see, is I want you to think about the fact that everyone is carrying a mental load. Every single person is doing some emotional thinking work. It's just that the composition of what that looks like changes. The composition changes when you have a baby, the composition changes when you get a new job, when you buy a new house, when you move house, et cetera, et cetera. When your parents start to age, it's all changing. It's just how you have the mental load you have in the morning, may not be the mental load you have at lunch, may not be the mental load at night. And so one of the things I'm trying to do is help people get a handle on that, not just parents, not just caregivers. That's important and the mental load is heavier. But everyone start to think about their mental loads. What does it look like? And how do we help?

SPEAKER_01 5:17

That's really interesting because I think a lot of the conversations that we're having publicly about the mental load kind of frame it as it's exclusive to moms. But what you're saying is really interesting and I think it's worth thinking about that we all carry the mental load. And then when I think back to myself before I had kids, I'm like, oh yeah, my brain did always work like this, actually. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

And this is this is like if I can say one thing to you all, is like, so I have this website called light and lab.com. And you can take a free assessment and see where your mental load is right now at this moment. My goal is that you start to think about your mental load as being precious energy. You start to think about you only have a limited capacity, right? You don't, you don't get more. It's like your money. Start thinking about it like a bank account and start to understand what's draining it. Sometimes we have to draw our accounts down, sometimes we don't, but we have to replenish. And I want everyone in the world to start thinking about what's my mental load at right now, and what does my mental load account look like right now? Those two pieces. And then the third piece is is am I investing my mental load towards my dreams, my goals, my ambitions, where I want to be, or am I burning it through with nonsense? And that's not exclusive to parents, right? Like the composition of that will look different. But when you say, I look back into my, you know, early year teens, my teen years, my early 20s, and yeah, I my brain always was processing in this way. Yeah, absolutely, right. And you're carrying a mental load then too, and you're carrying it probably to these eight different types. It just looked different than when you transitioned into a caregiver role. And so how do we map that so people can start to see it? Because lives are long and demands are high and the world is crazy right now, right? All that's a mental load drain.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

Have you found that men and women perceive the fairness of household labor differently?

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Okay, so one is we've done interviews, so everything I'm doing is coming from empirics. So we've done interviews across the US and Australia to look at what parents are doing. And we've collected a range of surveys. We've talked to this is coming from thousands and thousands of data points, right? The short answer is that women are carrying a different and heavier mental load than our dads. Part of that, I'll do two things. So one is I have a paper with Anna Catalano Weeks in which we're looking at the domestic labor, that's stuff that you might think of as kind of the traditional mental load. Like I would call this in my book the life organization work. Keeping track of your kids, whether their toenails need to be clipped, making sure that they're signed up for school activities, tracking, you know, whether you need a car repair, all this kind of stuff. When we measure 21 items of the mental load, and if you're interested in seeing the 21 items that we measure at home, two things. A one, Anna has a has a survey up free open that you can go and take and actually see where you land. So Anna Catalano Weeks at University of Bath, she has a survey up and you can actually take our measures. And you also can see them in the article. So in both directions, the article is open access. But when we measure it that way, what we find is that mothers are carrying 70% of the mental load and they're much more likely to carry the kind of core tasks. These are the things that can't be delayed. This is true when we look at housework too. The mothers are much more likely to carry the tasks like washing dishes, cleaning, wiping down counters, grocery shopping, things that like you have to do or else people will die, right? Like for household functioning. And fathers are much more likely to carry what's the episode called the episodic housework tasks. It's remembering to do the repairs, paying the bills. We find that the mental load maps the same way, that mothers are much more likely to take this kind of core mental load tasks that can't be delayed. And they're taking 70% of those. So check, right? Like check. If this is happening in your life, we have the data to show it. One of the things about the mental load that's unique to say housework is you can both be carrying it. You can be carrying the remembering or the strategizing about whether the kids have after school activities or someone's picking them up, and he can too, or you she can too. Your partner can be carrying that as well. It's very unlikely that you're both going to go and pick them up from school. One person is actually gonna be doing the doing, but many of you could be thinking about the thinking. And this is unique about the mental load. And this is one of the things in my mental load audit and my book, I ask people to do is start to think about where you're duplicating. You can duplicate the mental load. And you might not want to. Sometimes you might want to, it might end up with better outcomes, but sometimes not. You're actually just carrying the same thing your partner's carrying at your detriment. So knock it off. No, I should stop it. Get clear on it and then figure out what you can reduce. The other thing is in my book, I talk about these eight different types, right? So life organization, dream building, safety, the mental load to Medicare, metacare, not in the US like healthcare, but Medicare relationship, hygiene, emotional support. And one of the things that came through the interviews was that mothers were much more likely to carry these categories alone. They would carry, for example, they would carry the magic making. So magic making is carrying on traditions and creating special life moments. And this would be a category where mothers were much more likely to say, yes, I'm doing all of this magic making mental load to make sure the holidays feel special, to make sure we're carrying on the traditions, to connecting into my family, to making sure that the kids have a wonderful childhood. And the dads were kind of like, yeah, no, it's either not valuable work, it's not worth my energy, or she's got it. Or why are we doing all of this? When sometimes we could do something much simpler, right? And all three of those can be true at the same time. Like it can be there are traditions that you do want to carry on, traditions that you don't, that you're doing just because you feel like you have to. And so this was one that was really imbalanced. And in fact, we're there were whole cat, this is one where I would say to the dads after the interviews, like, okay, here's the eight different types. And they would say, Oh, I didn't even know that was happening. Like, uh, yeah, I don't, I'm not even thinking about that as a mental load. It was kind of like a discovery moment. The second one is emotional support. Mothers were much more likely, women were much more likely to do the mental load of checking in on family, friends, and coworkers, doing that kind of and relationship hygiene, which is helping to maintain networks. So thinking about is your mother okay? It's her birthday, let's check in. What are you gonna do? So, both like checking in emotionally, thinking about people's emotions, whether they're doing okay and scanning the room to see who's doing what, when, and how, like how are people doing. And then also the work of thinking about how do you connect people to people to make sure that they feel loved. Those were two things that that women did much more of the mental load of in the home and men didn't. Fathers did less. The only thing I'll say to you about that is that we ask men to do like this is really valuable work, right? Actually, keeping the harmony and the emotional balance within a family is really valuable work and relationship hygiene is really valuable. Men do this often at work, but they will be checking in on their teams at work, right? Thinking about is everyone okay? They will be thinking about how to network to create the next career opportunity. So it's not that this is work that men don't have skill in. It's not that this is work that men don't see as valuable, but it's work that hasn't trans moved across into the home and that women have been carrying at the expense of their burnout. And so I think this is the type of work, if we were going to ask men to do more or an opportunity to step in, I think they'll find this is really valuable work and enriching work to be better connected to your kids emotionally, to be better connected to your partner emotionally, to be taking some of that relationship hygiene work. This is where I would say, let's try to do more.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

Do you think it's do you think it's about actually splitting the tasks where the resentment comes in? Is it about splitting the tasks or acknowledgement of all of this extra? Because you kind of mentioned when you said all these things and the men were like, oh, I didn't know that was a thing. And then what happens? How does it because in every in a lot of families, it doesn't make sense to physically split the tasks. It's not even just about the tasks, it's more about feeling like my partner understands the 15 things that it takes to do that one task.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

I love this question because the answer is yes and. Yes, and so in my book, I talk about some gender myths that you are kind of you might be holding that might be holding you back. One of them is this idea that you have an equal partnership. You probably don't. The data, having studied this for 25 years, I don't know if that's a lie, but multiple years. You don't. This is what men often say to me, like, yeah, but I'm 50-50. Like I'm splitting the tasks. You're either the unicorn in the data because it just shows that you're not. You might think you are. Yes, men are doing, they're doing more than their fathers ever have done. We have research showing that, right? Yes, you have stepped into more of the physical care of your children and the domestic load at home than previous generations. So, yes, you are. The problem is, and this came through an article with myself, Sabino Cornrich at NYU and Brendan Churchill at University of Melbourne. The problem is that mothers haven't dropped. So they're caring just as much as baby boomer mothers. They're still doing more. And so, yes, men, I think this is where the tension comes in heterosexual partnerships, right? Like, I don't understand. I am doing more than my dad did, I am contributing more. Why are you still mad at me? I think there's two things going on. One is that we haven't given people the language for the mental load. So, yes, you're stepping into the physical tasks. And yes, that's wonderful. And yes, you want to be more engaged. Yes, you want to be more emotionally connected. Yes, you want to be an equal sharer and an equal partner. Awesome. But the mental load, we haven't even had the language for it yet. So you can't have that conversation. If I say to you, but there's eight different types, and she's probably carrying seven of the eight, and maybe some of them she should, you know, we we have to have a conversation about this. There's seven different stages. You are probably only carrying two or three of the stages and setting things up. Some men might be carrying all, but we haven't even started this conversation. So of course there's resentment building, right? Because you don't know why, you just know it's too much, but I don't know why. Uh, I don't know and I don't know what, and what's the solution? I don't know because I just feel overwhelmed. Second, so that's a hundred percent right. Equal equal sharing, you're probably not, and you probably couldn't get there without the mental load being brought in. I have another paper where we talk about economies of gratitude, like that. Sometimes you're actually negotiating on economies of gratitude, like that that being grateful, actually just having the acknowledgement and being grateful for what the other person is doing can do a lot in a relationship. Sometimes it's not about sharing equally, but about understanding without judgment and dismissiveness. So a lot of the moms would talk to me about like, I get told I'm I'm worrying too much. I'm getting told I'm a micromanager, I'm getting told I'm a perfectionist, I'm type A, and actually no one else cares about this. That's wrong. There is research that we've done where we show no, women are gonna be, and this is your original other question, women are gonna be judged more harshly for having a messy house. Women are actually anticipating a penalty. And we show this through the research that someone's gonna come in and think they're less competent, capable, likable, less human for the state of their house. We're gonna do another research project where we look at whether you bring your kids the state of your children, right? Like what like kid, the state, right? If you show up with your kid disheveled and you're a woman versus if you show up with a kid disheveled and you're a man, what's the social penalty? The thing about social norms is even if you don't believe them, if you anticipate someone else is going to judge you for them, that's powerful. That's enough to make you feel shame, embarrassment, change your behavior. And so I think when you say, I don't know that I want equalities accessible, but I want at least acknowledgement. That was something that came through really clearly that in heterosexual couples, that was hard to get. And in part because they can't see the social world. So I have one chapter where I go through a couple who goes through the whole thing. They audit their mental load, they identify the eight steps, I give them money, I give them a little bit of money to see what happens in terms of lightening the mental load. And then for this one couple, you know, the woman partner said, I don't get it. There's something wrong with my marriage. After all this, there's still something wrong. And the thing that helped was both of them understanding the other's perspective. Her understanding the way in which gender norms made everything really difficult, made it feel overwhelming, made it feel high stakes, right? It is high stakes, I'm telling you, because the social norms tell you you better not mess this up. You better not mess up your children's lives. You as a mother are solely responsible for making sure your child ends up at Harvard, high degree, full-time job, married successful, can withstand a pandemic, global inflation, a war. It's insane. Like, why are we asking women to do that? And just you, right? Like just on your shoulders, like you, and then have a full-time job. And then also make sure you look really sexy because don't gain a pound. And then also try to get that promotion, right? But just you. And you can't do it alone. What's wrong with you? Okay, that's real. Like that's some real stuff. And we need to confront, like, how do we do less of that? That's real. And so when she says to you, I don't know, I just feel like if the house is a mess, then people are gonna think I'm a worse person, I'm not competent. Yeah, people, yes, we have re-research showing that. But for him, too, he's in a different moment where he's trying to provide financially for the family. He's trying to, he's facing different pressures or inflation, I need to provide, this is gonna be difficult. How do I do this? And when he says, it's like there's almost this conflict of I need this and I need, we can't see each other's worlds. So it's when this couple started to be able to see like each other's worlds, he feels the same pressure to provide for the family, and work has to come first. And we have research showing too that fathers who step out of their careers, even with the best CVs, this is with Sheila Najotto, Mark Chong, and Leah Furman, even with like they went, we gave them the most incredible CVs, they went to Harvard, they went to Stanford, they had the best of jobs. But if those men took a gap to caregiving, they weren't getting hired back in. The algorithm was biased against them, the recruiter was biased against it. So when men say, I'd feel worried that if I step out of this, I'm gonna get in trouble. They're right too. They are right too. And so I think what I'm not trying to depress everybody and this audience, but the point I think is you are living in these social worlds with outdated social norms that actually make everything feel hard. And how do we step in to do two things? Because I feel like now everyone's like, oh my God, this what next? How do we step in, A, to see them, to see when we're acting in ways that are actually not aligned with our soul, our purpose, our goals, our dreams, our ambitions, but are because we're being told, but because of social norms that tell us we're gonna get punished. And then B, how do we get clear on what are our dreams, goals, and ambitions? Because one of the things I heard a lot too was that mothers are so burnt out that they can't even take time to think about what they could need. They can't even take time to think about one of my mental oil categories is individual upkeep. They can't even think about getting that walk-in or whatever it looks like, extra rest, 25 minutes to yoga. It's like I can't because I'm so overwhelmed. One mother had to hide her list of things she wanted to do for herself because she felt so bad. So I'm asking women of the world, let's start to see yourself as valuable, worthy, and deserving. No guilt, no anxiety, no feeling terrible. Get clear on what are your dreams, your ambitions, can be small, can be big, one step towards them. Start to see your mental load as valuable and just start to engage in these conversations around it. And then men of the world understand that when she says, I'm gonna get in trouble for this, she's not anxious, a warrior, micromanaging, or a perfectionist. She really is anticipating a penalty. See what that looks like and figure out how do you support the dreams. Because I think sometimes we're missing that conversation. Understanding that there's whole categories of mental age you're not doing that she's caring, your life is better as a result of that. And that there are whole categories that you might be duplicating. And so having sorry. To have conversations around where do we want to go and how do we get there, both in terms of our time, our money, and our mental loads? I want us to start at that as opposed to this is unequal and unfair and what are we gonna do about it? Where are you trying to go? And how do you build the world around your everything around that? What do I what do you think? Have I convinced you?

SPEAKER_03 22:23

I I have a question. Do you think that the experience of the mental load and feeling like things aren't equal or that we're overwhelmed is part of that because in the millennial generation, as you said, men are doing more and maybe in previous generations they didn't experience that because that was just sort of the norm and they didn't think about it. I mean, what's what is the difference with why are we talking about this so much?

SPEAKER_00 22:51

That's an interesting question. Like your question is kind of like if we had gender norms that specialize everyone, like you're responsible for the home, I'm responsible for work, and our roles are delineated. And so your mental load is here and my mental load is here, right? This is I that's your question, right? It doesn't cross over. I think yes, 100%. I think you are right about this. It's not that they didn't have a mental load, but everyone was clear. I think there's two things going on. One is that you're operating in an outdated system. So you are you are currently operating in a system that assumes that in a work system. Well, yeah, in a workplace, most likely, that operates with that assumption. One person is in charge of the home, one person is in charge of the of work. And so the person who's working doesn't have to think about the home because that and the person who's at home doesn't have to think about work, and that's you're like in your silos. But it's like the world has changed, right? Like, sorry, the world's totally changed. And women are much more likely to be working now, they're much more educated. They're the they're the key piece of keeping people in the middle class, families in the middle class, just women's incomes. It's not superfluous, it's not just like fun money, it is a core.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

The fun money thing drives me crazy. I have so many thoughts that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

It's not fun as paying the is paying the fucking mortgage, right? Like that is the mortgage money. So that's one. And then the second thing I think is going on, which I have been talking a lot on my podcast, is like no one's lived in this world. If you're like, what is going on? And you feel like, like, I'm telling you, your parents did not live through generative AI coming in and swooping the jobs. They like a pandemic, a pandemic. I mean, of course, there was the flu. I'm not saying that there weren't pandemics or endemics, right? Global warming, eroding democracies, decline, declining trust in institutions. So I run a future work lab, and one of the things that I can see so clearly is this is draining people's mental o too, right? So I have this category that's called Medicare. And it's like, what kind of world do I want to live in? What's what's the how do I create the world? This is such a mental low drain. And if I talk about now, right? Like, what a mental low drain. Am I gonna have a job? Are we gonna be in a World War III? Are my kids gonna have healthcare? This is a mental low drain too. No, okay, and then I can add in like the demographic transition. You know, you people are aging and you're caring for your little kids. And yeah, and so no one has lived in this world. No one has. You know, older people might say to you, oh, yeah, but we had World War II, you know. I'm not saying that the world was easy before. I'm not saying that to you. Previous generations, this is not a generational warfare statement. This is not the moment where you tell me why you had it worse because you had the Great Depression and World War II. No one's diminishing that. I'm saying to you, yes, I understand, and that would be hard. That would be a mental drain. We can't understand that experience because we didn't live through it. But you have never tried to parent or build a career in a moment where you have economic insecurity, declining returns, uprising housing, declining returns to your college education, people who are getting degrees that they were told were future work-proof, and now generative AI is coming in and removing entry-level positions, an aging population that's gonna, yeah, everyone's nodding.

SPEAKER_03 26:04

And also in taking care of their generation because, yeah, this is different. We're having kids later and they're living longer, and we are. I mean, that's why we started this whole conversation is because this is new. Our kids are still young and they're getting older, and we are I feel like our mental load is going in both directions.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

So in a hundred directions, right? Because it's like, and I think so many millennial women have these multi-hyphenated professional identities too, where all three of us on this call, right? We have multiple things that we're doing professionally, and then we're also mothers and we're also daughters, and we're also wives. And it's just this constant toggling between different responsibilities that demand different skill sets, and it's it's exhausting.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

A hundred percent. And it's and I'm saying to you, there are factors that are so beyond your control, so beyond that you have no control over that are gonna actually shift the way you have to move through the world. The way one of our core skills, we run this um parenting is a future work skill training. One of the core things you need to be is adaptable. And the reason is because there's so much stuff that you can't control that then you have to pivot. That's a mental load train too, right? Like you have to be now like, oh, okay, how am I gonna monitor my child's screen time while also training them to be ready for generative AI so that they actually are competitive? Like, did you think that two years ago? Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

What's the learning style? Yeah, we're being fed so much about like if you're feeling that I mean, you open your phone and someone's telling you, oh, if you're feeling this, take this course or do this thing, and then you'll be you'll be fixed, except for that's not how society and the world works. So even yeah, not being able to fix it adds to your mental load.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

And it changes so quick, right? What you supposed to do yesterday is like you wake up and all of a sudden you're at war with Iran, right? Like, I don't know, you're like you go to bed and then the world changes overnight. We're in a much more I agree with you. So okay, talk to me about, talk to me about what are you thinking, like what is your mental load drain? What do you, what comes for you when you think about the most draining things? Is it like a single thing or is it kind of the combination of factors?

SPEAKER_03 28:22

I think for my husband and I talk about the mental load a lot. We have been. And I like you said, I think he acknowledges that there are pieces that I think about that he would never think about. And it goes back to him saying, Well, you just don't have to think about those things. Like, well, no. I think and it's just going back to this conversation. I we actually just yesterday we posted on our socials about how, you know, we've we use the fair play cards and we split up tasks and all of these things. But some tasks have a higher cognitive load than other tasks. So we were talking about the example of piano class. That's one of my tasks for my for my family. But within that one card is communicating with the teacher about when the classes are, making sure that my son, who, you know, the teacher knows that he's gonna be picked up and not taking the bus. And who's gonna take him to piano class? How do how are we paying the teacher? Does he have his music? How does he feel about going to piano class? Because he's been saying he doesn't really want to do it. Am I pushing him to do piano? Because I did piano for too long and I hated it because my parents pushed me to. So all of these steps. And when I say this to my husband, he's like, why don't we just do something else? I'm like, that is not the point. That is not fixing this. So yeah, that's where I am in my brain.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Sarah, where are you? I want I want to talk about the audit, but I'll I I'm curious.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Sarah, where are you in it? I think the thing that I find the most draining is the state of the world. I think that for me has been like the heaviest piece of it. Also, and I'm a little ashamed to say this, but social media has been a big drain for me. And I think that that's also relatable, but I also want to own that I am a 38-year-old woman and I can just limit my social media, but also I can't. But you can't because your your work needs it too.

SPEAKER_03 30:20

I mean, it's like not as some, it's not just like a time suck anymore.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Yeah, and that's the hard thing, is like our careers, there's just no boundaries when you work. I work for myself, you know, so many millennial women do. And there's just that lack of boundaries around work and life, and social media plays into my work and it's it's just a lot.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Um, uh two things. You're not it, thank you very much for raising this. The last misperceived episode or maybe two ago. We talk about the doom scrolling, right? Like that a lot of energy goes into doom scrolling. And uh, the women I'm talking to are of, I think a slightly a little older on the millennial cusp, but are kind of in that transition into menopause too, right? Where their bodies are pinging them up in the middle of the night. And what do they do in that time? And one of the things that I do, and this is going to relate to both of actually both of your statements, which is like, should I just not how do I stop the the how do I stop it? Or do I need to stop it? Like, is this actually useful thinking or is this not useful thinking? Like, are these mental loads valuable? And this is exactly why I created the mental load audit. It's this idea that I want you to start first thinking about are you in mental load burnout? And I have this burnout scale. And for those of you who are listening who are like, girl, I'm not buying your book, you can go, you can go, you can go in again to lightandlab.com and do a free assessment and just see some of the kind of questions because we have the burnout scale in there too. We have the mental load burnout and we have the mental load uh measures, right? First is like, are you in mental load burnout? Are you actually waking up with enough energy to even start the day? Or are you in running your mental load credit cards down to negatives 300 million, right? And what I would hear when people do this, what they'll say is mothers are much more likely to say, I'm burning it down, but I'm keeping just enough energy in case an emergency comes. I can't respond to opportunities. I'm tired, I don't sleep well. But if something needs me, yes, I'll rally. The dads were much more likely to say, like, I can respond to an opportunity. I'm sleeping okay. Right. So burnout was high. The next thing is, where's it going? Where's your mental head energy going? So sorry, if you're saying, like, I am spending a lot of mental head energy on a state of the world and on, you know, a state of the world and social media. I'm gonna say to you, okay, is that crediting your account or debiting it? Is that bringing you replenishing energy or is that debiting your account and just draining you? That's that's a reflexive moment. And then, or even around, you know, the your child's musical talents, right? Is this replenishing or is it debiting? Is it is it good energy or is it not? And then how are you aligning that with your is it being made worse by social norms that tell you you have to do something or not? Is it made worse because you're giving too much energy to too many people? I talk about like who's on your field. Do you have too many people on the field? Do you care too much about everyone? Get your core and rotate them out. You can't have everyone playing at the same time. And then what are your goals? What are your goals? One year, two years, like in life, what dreams and goals? What would you want in a year, three years, five years? And then try to align your spending with that. So on some level, I'm gonna bet that if you were to do this around state of politics and the state of the world, only a fraction of that time would be actually crediting and a lot of it would be debiting. I think one, because I think a lot about this too, and this is why I did a podcast on it. I think one of the challenges is it feels like we have to be informed about everything to be good citizens. It is our responsibility to know it all. Because if we don't know it all, we should and we should know it all and we should care about it all.

SPEAKER_03 34:02

And show that we care about it.

unknown 34:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

And that's our act of social resistance or that's our active engagement. I'm gonna say controversially, maybe that's the wrong way. Maybe like the way is to figure out what do you specifically care about? Because what I worry about is we're just burning through all our mental load energy, knowing and caring and being outraged. But then where's the action, right? Like where's the next step of life?

SPEAKER_03 34:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

But you can't do action on everything. You just can't. You can't be like, but what do you care about? What specifically, if you're you like, actually, I really care about this. I feel a passion, I feel a drive towards this, because you can't be everything to everyone, right? But so get clear on that. And there's value in that, and you don't have to be everything to everyone. So that's the next thing. Like, where do you want to be? And then how do you use your mental owned energy to get there? And it can be things as small as, okay, I actually have no time to myself. I need 30 minutes a day. And it can be as big as, I actually think I want to run for president, which I would vote for both of you, just to be clear. But if you're burning through your mental owned energy in 18 million different directions, you're getting no closer to your goals. And we're actually worse off in the world because we have women who are burnt out. And I am telling you right now, what I need is as many women out there with full capacity, stepping into everything, right? The state of our communities, our families, communities, workplaces, governments. And I think this, I hope, my dream will be that we start to have a little more space to actually create and live the lives and the worlds we want, as opposed to responding to and adapting to the ones we're in.

SPEAKER_03 35:39

I find that it it's easier to explain my mental heaviness and burden to my peers of my own generation. But yeah, a lot of what we do here on our podcast is talk about the expectations we have as daughters for our aging parents. And I don't think I haven't tried to explain my mental load to my mom, for example, but I don't think she would understand it. Um because of what you said. I mean, she's she's also a doctor, just like I am. And but she also did all of the household stuff. I mean, I I don't think that conversation is there. That's some of my mental load is feeling like I need to be everything and not and her not understanding why this is hard. So I don't know if you have any thoughts or advice on on that piece of it, or if you've seen that upward connection between mental load rather than just with your partner and kids. And I think it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

I think also women of different generations are inclined to say, stop complaining about it, stop talking about it, and just do it if it's stressing you out. But sometimes it's cathartic to talk about it, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:54

Okay, I'm gonna be like, this is not academic, right? I'm just gonna be this is like girlfriend talk. This is like friend to friend. Do you sometimes I think like some one of the most powerful things that I've heard is like, why are you trying to explain yourself to someone who doesn't want to understand you? Which is hard, right? Because it's it's that intergenerational and it's parent-child and all the things, and all you want to do is be seen and be loved by your parents, right? And it's very painful. I must say it again, our our parents didn't weren't in this world. They weren't trying to parent, live. They had their own pressures, of course, but it was not these. And and so I always uh encourage people to remain curious before they get judgmental or keep the curiosity open because, like you said, there's such value in actually being able to just share. There's a release, like, here's what's going on for me. And then it goes out into the ether or something, and then you leave a little bit lighter. But it's hard to explain yourself to someone who's not doesn't want to hear your experience. That's really challenging. And then it makes you vulnerable to go into that circumstance again, right? To then share again. And it's hard because you probably want the help and you want the you want someone to say, like, I see you and I I get it, and I how can I help you? And if the response is like, suck it up, keep going. In a world that is so ever-changing and complicated, and I don't think that's fair to say that's not actually a fair that is not a helpful comment.

SPEAKER_03 38:27

It all goes back to feeling acknowledged.

SPEAKER_04 38:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:30

Yeah. Feeling seen.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

Which is important because of the thing I hear from women too a lot is to get to the the to get to the feeling can be tricky. And then to get to the solution, I want to push some women a little bit more to get to the like, I feel this way because of fill in the blank. What do you need to solve it? And this is actually not an intergenerational comment per se, but it could relate on it. What is it that you need help for to lighten that? It's good to get the conversation and the feelings connected in. I think until you have the I need fill in the blank, whatever it is. Again, and I keep saying like 30 minutes of free time. I don't know why that's a thing I'm saying in this podcast, but I don't know. It could be a night out with your girlfriends, a trip away, a weekend away. And so maybe it's so then getting clear on that's what I need, and then you can get clear on what you need to ask people for. You know the conversations where you're like, are you asking to hear you? Do you want me to just listen or do you want a solution? Yeah. Which which do you want right now? So I think sometimes getting clear on the what's I heard a lot of women talk about they put their needs to the bottom because they're so true, they're so socialized to give to others and put themselves last.

SPEAKER_03 39:40

And it's like a badge of honor for some women to yeah. One of the mothers drives me crazy.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

One of my interviews said, like, if this is hard, I'm doing it right.

unknown 39:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:51

Oh. That came in the book too.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

So I think you're a I I'm sorry about that, because I know it's hard when you're carrying it all and you're actually asking just for a little bit of a pat on the bat, like you're doing a great job. So you're doing a great job.

SPEAKER_04 40:07

You are.

SPEAKER_03 40:10

Even conversations like that. I mean, this conversation has been, it makes us feel lighter. We always say this after we talk to guests like you, and it's like, oh, this is what we needed. This is what we're hoping that, you know, people will listen and be like, oh, yes. Other people are feeling this. It's not me, it's society, and I can't just fix it with you know buying some. Yeah, exactly. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

A hundred percent. I just sent Anita a TikTok that someone made about how self-care is making bread for her. And I sent it to her and I was like, I am begging people to learn what self-care actually is. And she actually said in the TikTok, just because it demands your effort, it doesn't mean it's not self-care. And I was like, Okay, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Maybe I don't know. This is one of the things that I do ask women to do, is because I think sometimes the way women talk to other women is like, there's only one way to do this.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Yeah, a hundred percent. Right?

SPEAKER_00 41:09

Like if you especially on social media. Yes. And so I would like to smash that too a little bit. Like I would like to say, okay, if you and this is where magic making, and I think your bread example, it's like that domesticity stuff, right? Comes in. If you love to bake bread, and that is so relaxing for you, and you don't care, you love the mess and the kid, all of the things, right? You love it, whatever. Please, please do it. We want that. I want that. I want you to have that. And if I hate to make bread, or if I hate to do Christmas magic making, or I hate to do, I want to be able to pay you to do it for me. Like I both want no judgment, but I also want an economy of moms. This is one of the solutions I have in my book. Yes. Where I can ask you, like, you love to make sourdough bread. I hate it, but could I have one? I'll give you $5 for it or whatever. Yeah. But there's such an expectation that we should either not burden other mothers because they're overwhelmed and we shouldn't ask for more, or we shouldn't show anybody that we can't hold it together because you know what? We're the linchpin and we are girl bosses, whatever. Give me any terrible acronym. We are it. Let's break both of those because there are people who are gonna say, I love doing the domestic stuff. And I have friends who love it. And they're so, so they're so talented at it, right? Like they're really good. I'm terrible, but I want you to help me to be good. Or I want to celebrate you, but I don't want to feel pressure to be you. I just want to celebrate you. So like I want to be like, good, but don't expect me to do that. And then you can celebrate me and my talents. And then maybe I could buy a little so that's where I want. Can we be a little more fluid? Because right now, what we're doing is like, I don't want anyone to know that I'm bad. I don't want to inconvenience anyone and everyone's burnt out. And you can't outsource anything without feeling guilty. Yeah. So what do you do you think is there anyone in your listening audience that could build us an online platform to do this? I'm sure.

SPEAKER_03 43:00

Like a barter system. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

But with money, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

What would you say is your millennial sandwich survival tip?

SPEAKER_00 43:08

Oh, lay on the couch and don't feel guilty. That is my millennial sandwich. I that is it. Love it. Uh, may I please give you permission to do whatever version of that is for you? Laying on the couch, eating Doritos, and watching trashy TV. If that is it, like whatever that is, no guilt, no mental load. One of the I'll I'll say in all seriousness that when I talk about these ideas with people, sometimes they say to me, You want me to drop stuff? It's too hard right now. People are unwell. Like the stakes are too high. You know, if I can't drop the safety of my family because I am a person of color in the US right now and my family will will die, right? Like I'm worried about the risks of all this. I can't drop that because I'm caring for my sister has passed, and I'm caring for her kids, and I need to be there for that. Some of you will be able to audit and drop. Some stuff. Some of you will audit and can't. For both of you, if you can't, the rest can't be with guilt. Whatever it is that's replenishing you cannot be then done feeling bad about doing it and/or ruminating through your mental load in it. You deserve it, you need it, it's replenishing for you. It's going to allow you to step into whatever you have to do right now with more kindness, compassion, and love for yourself and others. And so, whatever is your version of my laying on the couch eating Doritos and watching trashy TV, that is sacred. Treat that like it's sacred and allow that to be your time. No guilt, no anxiety, no worry.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

Love it. Thank you, Leah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Amazing. Thank you for taking time talking to us.

SPEAKER_04 44:51

I loved it. Thank you for having me.