Do you ever wash the sheets?
It was the question that started it all. One day while making the bed my husband casually and unassumingly asked me, “do you ever wash the sheets?”. You see, my husband doesn’t see me wash the sheets. He leaves early in the morning and comes back late at night.
I work from home and take care of our young children, so I do the laundry during the day. When it’s time to wash the sheets, I strip the bed, wash them, then put them back into place.
It’s almost like it never happened.
Kind of magic, really.
My brain has become adept at running our home and family like a well-oiled machine. This machine often works the magic of making it all look like it never happened. Planning it all, remembering it all, knowing it all, and worrying about it all–all within the confines of one tired, overworked brain.
Thus is the invisible mental load of motherhood.
There are many days when I feel as if my brain may explode. I must keep a constant supply of clean underwear in the drawers, a stash of emergency snacks in my purse, and ensure flu shots are administered before the peak of the season is upon us.
I do all this while trying to sustain some semblance of a career, sanity, and toned arms.
The Plan: How to Reduce the Mental Load
The mental load of it all consumed me. So I made a plan.
I knew I needed to wrangle my exploding brain and get a handle on this motherhood journey (of which I have only skimmed the surface). I am going to keep this simple, because if you are still reading I am going to take a wild guess that you are also blessed with a very capable, yet nearly-exploding brain. So here’s how I reduced the mental load in four steps.
DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS TOGETHER?
Step 1: Visualize
The vast majority of the mental load is invisible. It’s the planning, worrying, researching, and anticipating that consumes our minds. Therefore, the first step is to make it visible. That means, take everything out of your head and put it onto paper. I took the mental load out of my head and turned it into a pile of note cards. Each card earned a separate piece of the mental load.
- Anticipate when we will run out of toothpaste.
- Ensure that children use the toothpaste.
- Make sure that Crest doesn’t cause cancer.
You get the drift. Every notecard holds a piece of the larger mental load. When executing this massive brain dump, I was stunned at how much of the mental load was invisible even to me. The sheer amount of material that a parent considers, processes, and executes each day is astounding.
It’s no wonder that we feel stressed out, right?
Step 2: Understand
Once the brain dump is complete, I worked to develop a better understanding of it all. I sorted and divided my mental load into three categories: planning, worrying, executing. This helped me to better understand where I was putting most of my energy and time.
- Be sure everyone has an extra blanket in case the night gets cold
- Remember to bring extra shirt for the baby when we eat Italian food.
- Make sure the big kid pees before we leave the house.
Step 3. Reduce
Reduction was also a three-part sorting process: keep it, delegate it, or eliminate it. There were many no-brainers that I had to “keep” in my mental load, like packing lunches. The kids have to eat, right?
I’ve always struggled with asking for help and delegating. My husband is very helpful with the kids and our family, but he thrives when he knows exactly what he needs to be doing. So by handing off a physical piece of my mental load to him (i.e. a handful of cards) he appreciated having it all in written down.
The best part of this process was elimination–which was the biggest way I reduced my mental load. I became aware of plans, worries, and actions that weren’t necessary and weren’t serving me. Tossing those into the trash–once and for all–felt great.
Step 4. Maintain
Whenever we make big changes, it’s important that we stick with them. Reducing the mental load is vital, but also replacing many of those thoughts and worries with healthy alternatives is also necessary. I am on the journey to find a consistent mindfulness practice–dabbling in yoga, meditation, and generally just being completely present with my family.
Motherhood is a gift and I want to enjoy it as much as possible. That means reducing my mental load so that I can focus on being exactly the woman, wife, and mama that I want to be.
Hear more about this in the podcast episode!
Starting this week, I will be guiding a like-minded group of mothers through this process. Join me and let’s reduce the mental load together.
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Dr. Denaye Barahona is a loving wife and mama of two. She is a Motherhood Coach who partners with women to tackle the challenges of raising children. Denaye is a minimalist who claims to be a decluttering expert (don't let her near your closet). She loves to travel, talk health-and-wellness, and give unsolicited advice. She is a top contributor for the Today Show Parenting Team. Denaye holds a Ph.D. in Child Development and is a Clinical Social Worker with a specialty in child and family practice.
Oh I was just telling my husband how overwhelmed I am. I just can’t figure out how to keep everything straight. He looks at me funny because he is so type A and organized. I’m the total opposite and I’m a miss haha. Will this be helpful for someone like me?
I mean mess…. See what I mean? Lol
What is type A?
They’re more organized, self starters, task oriented, don’t procrastinate etc. I’m B, which I’d more laid back and “go with the flow” type of person. Type A people are also more stressed. So he’s stressed that I can’t figure it out. And I’m stressed because he’s stressed and always wants to be on a schedule….which I hate lol.
Yes! Whether Type A or Type B…we all function better when our minds are quiet and calm 🙂
Hi Denaye, Thanks for your website, blog, and podcast! I am an avid listener to your podcast. I am still in the process of implementing the Toy Detox, and I really like your course and site and recommendations. I am interested in signing up for your new course, but would like to know how this new 30 day course will work for a mom who also works outside the home. I really don’t have time to log in daily – maybe once per week on a weekend is more realistic. Would I be able to access things later and proceed at my own pace, or not?
Thanks,
Gwen
I think this would be perfect for you Gwen. The program is developed into 3 larger parts (10 days each). As long as you log in once or twice during each 10 day period, I think you will be fine.
I cut out a lot to keep myself from feeling overwhelmed. I buy school lunch for all of my kids because I was going crazy trying to make three kids lunch and keep the containers clean (and free of plastic and make the food healthy and yummy and colorful and and and). I pay someone to clean my house periodically because I work outside the home and so does my husband, and I wanted our weekends to include more than just chores. I’m also teaching the kids to do their own laundry, and I supervise. They do one load together most weekends. I do “mind dumps,” too. But I really like the idea of breaking down the items and sharing them with your partner. Thanks for that. I think I will try this with my husband. Something we did this weekend was we made a list of things that we were planning to do over the weekend, including chores and fun stuff. We made it with the kids. And we checked off stuff as we went. We were happy to see that we managed to get everything checked off by Sunday evening, and we even got some more things done, too, including fun stuff. Writing things down really helps. We should do it more often.
I love these ideas Tania! The lunch making is such big thing for me too. It seems like it would be a small task–yet it is SO involved.
Lunch is very involved! For a while, my oldest was making his own lunch. I told him to include 1) a protein, 2) a whole grain, 3) a vegetable, and 4) a fruit, and then he could add 5) a treat. We counted off on our fingers. And he did it for about a couple years–from 2nd through most of 4th grade. Then he got tired of it and asked me to buy him school lunch. My younger two have always preferred school lunch, which made me feel bad at first, but it really has made life simpler! And since they now can snack on all the fruit that is in the fridge at any time, I don’t have to “protect” the school lunch assembly items, so grocery shopping is simpler and can happen less often. And when I shop less often, I buy less and spend less. So the cost of school lunch actually didn’t change our monthly food budget much at all.
I love this–I tend to let everything build up until it all comes flying out onto a sheet of paper and then I try to do all. the. things. In one day. My husband is crazy efficient and crushes his to-do list every day, and I’m trying to take a page out of his book. He never procrastinates on anything, which can be frustrating to live with, but definitely nice when I can depend on him to get things done. Its definitely not always practical for moms to drop everything and do the task right now, but I know I’ve spent many a nap time working on something I’m excited about while side-eyeing the dishes, and I have a basket of laundry in my bedroom that I’ve been meaning to fold for two days. I’m interested to know how you manage task completion once the mind-dump occurs!
I highly recommend all moms to have their partners read this little comic until the very end.
https://www.workingmother.com/this-comic-perfectly-explains-mental-load-working-mothers-bear#page-16
One day, I asked my husband to hang the washing, in the evening, he was proudly telling whoever wanted to listen that in our household, chores were shared “equally”, yes, he did say that he was doing 50% (!!) of what had to be done .
Then I explained to him that in order for him to hang the washing, I had to pick up all dirty clothes from the bathroom, rooms, etc, sort out the laundry, put it in the washing machine and then remember to start the machine before going to bed (not to mention someone (me) previously had to remember buying the washing powder, actually buy it, etc Well, you get the story…. and I asked him to read that comic.
It did help a lot and helped him realize what was this mental load.
I think the most important thing here is really to delegate and have your partners understand what it means and actually do their share. As parents, we are role models for our children, so unless your children actually see their dad on his knees picking up toys or changing a diaper, it is most likely that our daughters will think it is their job to do it or our sons will never think it is part of their jobs as a future father….
I just looked at that comic, and it’s so true!
I really like the idea of the mind dump because you are taking your own personal tasks and responsibilities and putting them on paper rather than using someone elses to do list and trying to fit it to your life. It makes sense!