the mental load we learn learn to carry

april 9, 2021

i've heard many stories about women who are fed up having to parent the father of their children. i use that phrase intentionally, because how can you call someone a partner who does not contribute equally to the demands of parenthood and a committed LTR? 

as i read yet another story of a fed up mother, i realized i was having responses that i wanted to explore. not judgments, but observations that compelled me to do some of my own breaking down of assumptions.

in this case, a woman was talking about feeling angry because she asked her husband to complete a chore before she left the house, and came home to find it was not completed, and that her kids were also not actively being engaged with, but were sitting in front of the TV (similar to what the husband was doing).

there is a lot going on just in that small description. and i want to take time to look at just that example, to expand upon the idea of the mental load that women carry being conditioned so differently from how many men learn how to operate. 

let's start with the vacuuming. so, i assume that this is a chore that the woman keeps track of. let's set aside for a moment the assumption that women keep score of the housework that needs to be done. the woman feels in this scenario it is something that needs to be done, and because she is busy with other errands, asks her husband to take care of it. she should not have to ask--the husband should be equally involved in the maintenance of the home. so why isn't he?

when i first moved in with my ex-boyfriend, i realized quickly that we had different ideas about what it meant to live in a space. he was fine with living in a mess, letting dust bunnies grow to dust tumbleweeds, letting crumbs and splatters of food accumulate on surfaces in the kitchen, letting tiny messes he left behind sit indefinitely. the only reason i knew he had made an effort to tidy his last apartment is because we had started dating, and i spent weekends there. looking back, i realize that the reason he even brushed his teeth nightly was because i was, and he wanted me to like him and think that he was an adult who took at least a minimal amount of care for himself and his space. 

so there is something in that which tells me he was aware that it was more attractive to me if he were doing certain things. or at least that he recognized if i was doing certain things, he probably should be too (as they were basic standards of self-care--and i want to clarify that i am by no means the perfect example of self-care). 

so let's go back to my first example--the woman asks the man to do something that she feels needs to be done. the man hasn't done it--why? because he doesn't care. he doesn't prioritize tasks in the same way that the woman does. and this is a significant piece of the puzzle. because aside from parenting requiring a degree of commitment, being an adult who is relatively healthy also requires a degree of commitment to oneself. and if a person has not reached a point in their lives when they recognize and perform the basic duties associated with caring for oneself and one's space, then they are not compatible for the purpose of a LTR, at least not a domestic partnership. 

we have to stop placing such an emphasis on coupling that people end up in relationships that are not partnerships, but caregiving situations where one person who has never learned how to properly care for themselves relies on the other person's efforts to maintain. that is what makes relationships so draining. that is what makes women resentful. 

we can't ignore the financial aspect of adulthood, because sometimes we hear that if the man is working and earning most of the money that keeps things afloat, then the woman should be doing more of the work keeping the home together. while i disagree with that idea on principle, i also don't deny that if two people discuss the terms of their relationship, and agree to specific roles that support the overall sustenance of the relationship and daily functioning, then that is fine, so long as neither party ends up neglecting their individual needs and desires for the sake of what the other person wants. that's part of the equal partnership--two people who still take care of themselves as individuals, while also joining in tasks that foster the health of the relationship.

but the point i was trying to get to there is that a man working at a job more hours than his partner does not exempt him from completing work at home. unless a woman is sitting around doing nothing all day, she is also working. not in the same way--it's unpaid work--but the point is that days are draining for both people, no matter how they have to spend their energy. and so it cannot be one person's task alone to maintain the home space.

i think of it this way too--if a man were living alone, without a woman to take care of him, would he let his homespace deteriorate into a hovel of dirt and mess? would he only eat pre-made meals? would he live unhealthily, or would he take care of his shit and himself? that's a significant question, and i've certainly learned that how a person keeps their home does reflect something of how they take care of their shit in general. and i'm not talking about self-grooming. i'm talking about keeping up with the tasks of adulthood.

going back to the vacuum story. it comes down to a fundamental difference in perspective about what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and why it needs to be done. we take these things for granted, and many people maintain a home the way they do because it's how they were taught. 

when i was younger, my parents did try to condition us to do chores. they were required to be able to do the things we wanted to for fun, and at times that was also how we earned an allowance. i hated chores. i don't know many kids who don't. i often recall how i turned laundry time into a game with my younger sister, because that was the best way to get through it, and to convince her to help me. from the time we were probably 10 and 8, my mom had us participate in the laundry. we were responsible for bringing our dirty clothes down to the laundry room. it still wasn't safe to let us operate the machines, and we were still known to sneak into the dryer (with the door left open), and try to spin ourselves in the empty machine while it was off. but i turned the collection of our dirty clothes into a game i called camel, and my sister and i managed to get the clothes down to where my mother needed them. 

there were other chores i was more loathe to complete. and i'm sure there were plenty of arguments as i got older about completing said chores, because again, it wasn't something as a kid i cared about. 

i saw both of my parents make an effort around the house. my dad did dishes, fixed things, repainted things, tidied up. my mom cooked most of our food, and did the other basic housework. they both contributed. i remember my mom feeling upset times when she came home and the house was a mess. but both of my parents worked full-time, and had different views of when things needed to be done. sometimes, the fights that broke out likely had to do with my dad not completing something according to the timeline that my mother felt was appropriate. 

that could have been resolved through a conversation. about both of their expectations, and how they wanted to handle things. 

while it does make sense, especially with children, that one wants to keep a relatively clean home, there are a lot of assumptions we each make based upon how we were raised about what is an appropriate or necessary level of clean. 

women tend to fall into the position of caretaker because they extend the things they already do for themselves to the other person, who happens to be there. here's what i mean: if i were living alone, i would be doing laundry, cleaning the house, tidying up, doing the dishes, doing chores, and that would be according to whatever schedule worked for me, and according to necessity (if there is a spill, i clean it up--though that was not always the case, and is another example of a learned behavior that happened over time and as i took on more responsibility and learned how i wanted to live by myself). so when i moved in with someone, when i did my own laundry it was simple enough to do some of his. when i cooked meals, i cooked for both of us. when i tidied up, i cleaned up after him as well. and that's why i started to get resentful. where was the partnership? where was the equal contribution? 

after a while i started to feel very angry with his mother. why hadn't she taught him these things? why had she let him do whatever he pleased? was it because of how strict her own upbringing was? was it because she wanted him to only worry about being a kid as long as he did? do we need to totally reframe our attitudes toward childhood, and what that means? or is there something sexist still happening in the way boys are raised versus how girls are raised that women still end up adults who take better care of themselves and their environments? 

then there is what i think of as the calendar aspect. from early on in my adolescence, i was trained to be mindful of people's schedules. my mother was insistent that we plan in advance, because she had things she was juggling, and hated to be asked to do something at the last minute, especially if she had other obligations that made it difficult to squeeze yet another errand into. i always had a strange relationship with numbers, and as i got older, this translated to keeping track of birthdates and anniversaries, and later appointments and events that i wanted to attend. there is a running calendar in my head, but i also have learned that if i write things down, i can keep track of everything better. so i have a calendar by my desk, a calendar on the fridge, google calendar on my phone, and a notebook calendar i keep at my desk as well. i write things in different places, and it helps me remember all the things. i still forget sometimes, but i am better about cutting myself some slack when it comes to that, because i AM keeping track of a lot. most of us are. 

so to use my ex as an example again, he is the type of person who does not know off the top of his head when his mom's birthday is. he is just now, at 42, learning how to keep better track of things. so this is a skill i developed from a young age. i don't think that is necessarily because i'm a woman, but i think that because i'm a woman, the chances of me developing this trait are greater, because socially there is still a stronger expectation for women to juggle more, to care about more. 

...how does mental health fit into this?

for me, the space i am in can be (not IS, but CAN BE) a reflection of my mental and emotional state. there are times in my life when i definitely did not prioritize cleaning regularly, and that was why i liked living alone, because i only had my own mess to contend with, and also didn't have to worry about making things gross for another human being. 

the older i've gotten, my need for tidiness has not exponentially grown. i clean regularly, but i do it in these microbursts, focusing on different tasks and rotating through the things that need to be done. and there are plenty of things i let go until they REALLY need to be done. but i've gotten better about keeping up with things, and maintaining in a way that makes it so that when i have company, i don't have to scrub the entire home from top to bottom to feel okay about people being in the space (because i would want to be in a clean/tidy space--it does give me some anxiety to be in an area that has a level of disarray, particularly for certain kinds of messes, but this also relates to my own quirks about aestheticism). the point is that by the time i was 38 years old, i had a way of doing things that involved a level of care. my boyfriend at the time did not, and this was ultimately why we were not compatible as partners. for what i wanted in a partnership, then, the relationship would not work, because my boyfriend stated that he was not going to change, and knew this about himself. and i knew i could not continue to feel like his caretaker. i lost my attraction to him. i lost my interest in doing things with him that he enjoyed, because it felt like i was the one making the most effort in the relationship, including the emotional labor i did that he was unaware of. 

there is also the aspect of control. as human beings, we really have very little control over anything beyond our own behaviors. so my methods of doing chores, maintaining my space, keeping track of events--those are all ways i exert some control over my life for a sense of stability. i have definitely noticed that the friends who have a harder time with control (which often shows up as anxiety or an anxiety-related disorder), are more strict about cleanliness. 

so we need to teach our kids that if they are interested in a relationship (because we should not assume anyone is), that there are things to discuss with someone. that there are levels. that there is a huge difference between casually dating someone with whom you have no interest in living with, versus sizing someone up to determine if their LTR material, or a potential spouse. or coparent! if you cannot cohabitate with someone in a manner that looks like both of you contributing equally to the environment and responsibilities, then you should not consider having a child with someone. i really wish we would start teaching kids to talk about these things, and to recognize their expectations. so many times young people get into relationships with a set of assumptions that turn out to be very wrong, but because people are so scared of being alone, or have this idea that a relationship not working out is a failure they should be ashamed of, then they stay in those unhappy, unhealthy unions, and it's just awful. in those cases even the person being cared for doesn't really benefit, because they're not getting to be with someone who is functioning at their best and happiest, even if they don't recognize that. 

i hope for future generations we stop focusing solely on domestic partnership in the form of romantic relationships. i want to see more friends living together as adults. more marriages between friends who share the same values and perspective surrounding child-rearing. more long-term platonic partnerships. fewer people trying to make their spouses be their everything. fewer instances of forcing a conflation between romantic, sexual, and social love. 

and i hope women stop carrying the unequal weight in relationships. i am interested to see more examples of same-sex couples and non-binary coupled folks, to know more about what a domestic partnership looks like in those situations. i think it's the reason i assume that if i do ever end up living with someone again, it will likely not be a white, cis, hetero, male. 

in the article, the woman claims, "It’s not that hard and it’s not too much to ask to roll up your sleeves and do your part in running a home and taking care of the kids." but i am arguing that it is that hard when someone has not developed these skills over a lifetime. i am arguing that a lot of times these behaviors go unrecognized, undiscussed, unacknowledged, and to expect someone to suddenly change when there has been no accountability prior to having children is unrealistic and a tad absurd. 

so we need to do a better job teaching young people to be mindful of their own habits and to consider what they want in a partnership. relationships start commonly because two people want to have sex with each other, if we're being blunt. but a partnership is about something much different from sexual compatibility, and again, i want us to stop conflating the two, and assuming that the people we "fall in love with" or want to fuck are the same people we should share our domestic lives with.