Milk and Madness

 hello, friends. Welcome back to the Milk and Madness podcast with your hosts, Nhi and Dee.

I'm Nhi. Trigger warning. Today, we're having a real chat about mental load. What our experience of it has been, what we've been learning along the way, and what we're feeling about it right now, how mental load manifests for you might be different to me, but we can, I think all agree that mental load is invisible and unquantifiable and it's often one partner that bears most of the weight.

For me, it's a never ending to do list. It's having to remember and to remind. It's planning. It's thinking five steps ahead. It's thinking about planning and planning to plan. It's delegations. It's Being the one who manages the entire project,

for me, it's also about self care and boundaries and continuously learning about myself and partnering with my husband so that I don't always have to hold the mental load and that it could be shared more equally.

It is such a big topic and personally, it really does trigger me.

So strap in for some passionate venting on my part, probably on your part as well. I've spoken in a previous episode around how we just assume responsibility and how for me I feel like it's a personal trait that I seem to have. But in all honesty, it's not just me. I know so many female friends and especially mum friends they seem to have the same trait.

And there's times when, I reprimand myself and I'm, berating myself saying, why am I doing this to myself? And I put it all on me. But there are so many factors that play into this personality trait. That I feel like I have from the perspective of being a mom, you automatically become the primary care giver because you are the one that goes to the appointments.

Dads can obviously come along, but by default, you're carrying the child and you need to go. It's not an option for you, whereas it is an option for the dad.

And then zooming out from there, creates this blurriness, which for me, it comes from my upbringing where gender roles that were more traditional and that were more rigid.

And that were defined by outdated expectations and maybe. it's a byproduct of our own doing where us as women took over the workforce by force and we didn't equip the next generation of both boys and girls to adapt. And throughout this discussion, I'm going to use Calvin as my test subject because I don't have any brothers or close male relatives to reference.

I will be calling out Calvin even though he is As Matthew is as well, one of the better dads, like we have definitely seen that they do a lot. I still think that there's a long way for him to go. And as a society, there's a really long way that we have yet to go in terms of mental load and the mental load on women.

What does it mean to you, Mental Load, in a nutshell? I feel like we can't, I feel like you

can't even put words on it. It's literally everything. It's like you said, if we're going to start using the analogy of work, cause I really do enjoy that sort of work analogies, cause it just, it helps define and put language to it in a way that I can understand it anyway.

You're trying to balance being the project manager as well as doing the project. So you're doing all the work and try to define it and manage it and track it and everything that comes with that. The thing that frustrates me the most about it, it is invisible. You can't show anything for it. Things just get done and there's nothing there. There's no praise. It's thankless. Yes. And it's just absolutely everything. What about for you? How do you define mental load?

Yes. It is definitely a silent, weight, thankless part of my life. It's, it is really hard to describe because It just creeped up on me too. When you're single, there was no mental load really, because you're just looking after yourself and everything was really easy. Yeah. And then you get serious with the partner and yeah, I think there's probably a bit of an increased mental load then because, you have things that involve someone else and you start planning trips together and everything and that involves, and there's other things to think about, There's, coordinating someone else's social schedule.

Yeah. With yours, right? So there's other, yes, when you become serious with a partner, that mental load does slowly increase and then you have kids and the second you get pregnant, there's other mental load. And yes, if you're the one pregnant, then you most likely are the one organizing your appointments and stuff because you have to physically go

so that makes perfect sense. Then you have kids and those kids are mini people that you and your partner are responsible for, equally responsible for. You both made them, they are ours. But then I think the way that society is set up with us, most women going on mat leave, for example, it just so naturally happens.

And I don't think it's right, this is what happens. And this is my experience is that when you go on mat leave, you're the one not working, you're the one at home. So therefore automatically make sense for you to organize all the medical appointments, what food, play dates, literally everything involved with bringing them up.

So then I think the problem is when you go back to work, the mental load. Doesn't shift from you. To your partner or there's no division or maybe there's some division, but not enough division. So then you just keep rolling with what was set up when you were in mat leave. Yeah, I think that's a big issue.

When I think of mental load, I think about the last five years and the journey that my husband, Matthew and I have been on mental load is something that I think evokes really strong emotions. I think lots of men feel that they might be getting attacked. I think lots of men think that they do heaps.

I think a lot of men have no idea. They have absolutely no idea the mental load that we bear because they, they don't. We look, we are programmed differently. I do think that, and yes, there are men out there who are primary parents, primary caregivers who would definitely have a lot of mental load, but I would say generalization, but from my experience and from my family and friends and what I've seen that the majority of women bear that mental load.

Men often think that they do heaps. They do more than, their friends or whatever. And so when we say, Hey, I'm super stressed or. What actually will happen is that we get to the point where we explode. And then it becomes like an attack and they feel like they're being attacked.

So the defenses are up. So I just feel mental load is something that, yeah, the journey was still going on. It's definitely improved. I've become better at holding onto my boundaries and sticking to them and voicing any issues earlier. And I think that's really helped. But, do we still have a way to go with mental load?

Yes. And do I have moments where I really feel, where I really feel it and it affects my mental health and, just my energy yes, absolutely. Yeah, that was a very long response.

But a good one. And you hit the spot where you mentioned that, , it creeps up on you and that you end up.

Exploding. And that's so true because it's so invisible, even to yourself, sometimes you don't realize how much you're actually doing because you just do it because it has to get done or, there's lots happening a particular time in your life.

It will get to the stage where I'm like, just overload overload, overload, and manageable. And then it will get to the point where it's like the simplest task that somebody either hasn't done or I can't do. And I will just explode and it goes from zero to a thousand in the Blink of an eye, and it's not until I've calmed down, Calvin's probably calmed down, everyone's calmed down, that you can look at it rationally, because you're not rational in those moments, when you look at it rationally, and I remember it's so funny, there's like a comedian, and I'll try and find the clip, but they talk about, how men, like how they think, and how women think, and how they put things in boxes and women tie everything back to, all different experiences they've had. It's Oh, you've left your socks on the floor and they tie it back to you not being a good dad somehow because the kids won't pick up good lessons or whatever it is.

And the male is just I left my socks on the floor at the end kind of thing. And I have to take responsibility for my mental load, of course. It's my own mental load, and I have to take responsibility for that. And there are things in society that I definitely attribute to where I've gotten to currently. But it is funny that, yeah, you're right. Like you do go from zero to a thousand in the blink of an eye. And your partner probably thinks you're being irrational and have no idea what you're actually talking about. Cause they're like, what's her problem? Like they're just socks, but really in your mind, it's the list of all the different things that led up to the socks being on the floor.

And honestly, I've tried to explain it and I just don't think it registers. Maybe I'm not explaining it properly. I'm not sure, but I just, I don't think they really, truly understand what mental load means and what we go through. And so it does make it difficult. I think the more we talk about it, the more we vent, or the more I vent Calvin's slowly starting to understand humans.

where I'm coming from. So it is a positive thing. In terms of your day to day, is there anything specifically that you find really overwhelming?

It's really hard to articulate. You know what it is? It's the the stuff that really frustrates me about mental load. Is when they ask what they can do, which sounds so silly because they're asking to help, but no, actually, because if you're asking to help or you're helping me do something, or you're supporting me do something, then I am the one who is bearing the mental load.

Yeah. So if I'm cooking dinner and you come up and you say, Oh, what can I help you with? Nah, sorry. Why do I have to hold that list of everything else that's going on in the household? And I have to delegate to you. That's the stuff that really frustrates me. Like really frustrates me. It literally is a trigger

when someone is helping you, it means they don't have to think about what it is that you need to do, the outcome, the consequences of stuff not happening. They're not thinking about there's just literally so many things that I just wish I don't want any help with. I want you to take it completely. I want you to own it. End to end, I don't want a part of it. That's what I want. And so if you're going to cook dinner from start, have a look at the pantry. What do we have? What don't we have? What do we need? What are you cooking?

Just take that. Just take the whole thing. Take the whole thing. I don't want to be part of it because that's what I'm doing for them.

If I'm cooking dinner, there's not nothing, I don't need you any input at all in terms of it. And if I do, I'll ask, but I think for me, that's the trigger point in terms of mental load. I'm glad you

brought up dinner because that it's a big one for me, feeding the kids. I know the question was around daily tasks, but I feel like it is a daily task.

You have to eat every day and that, oh my gosh, it consumes me having to think about what to make, having to make sure that what they make, they'll eat, having to go out and buy the groceries, have them to prep the food, having to clean up afterwards. It's like it, that in itself is a task. full time job. If I had disposable income, I would hire a chef.

The cleaning, I'm okay with, the laundry, no issues. It's the cooking and the cleaning up. I haven't done the statistics, but it would have to be the number one reason that people argue, surely.

Cause it's, it has to be done and it has to be done every day and it's just a massive undertaking. So it's a massive project in itself every single day to

do. Like I've and this is from you, but we've started trying out different Food delivery, grocery delivery, nice meal delivery companies.

And I'm like yes, absolutely. And we weren't sure cause Matthew and I were like, let's give it a go. We would, on the same page with this, he does all the grocery shopping anyways, most of the time. But yeah, we thought let's try these meal delivery, food delivery. Places and yeah, we've tried HelloFresh and we're on Dinnerly, like we're literally trying all of them to get the discounts, but it's been really great.

And this is something that we've recently talked about and we've changed and it's helped me a lot with my mental load. There's meals as a family, then there's also my meals during lunch every day once I work from home. And so what we're doing, and if you're stressed about food and you're listening, maybe give this a go, but we get these deliveries once a week and they cover all of Matthew and my lunches for Monday to Friday.

And Matt cooks all of it. I don't touch it. So I get the kids down to bed because. They're attached to me and all that stuff. And whilst I'm doing that, Matt is cooking our lunches for the next day. And so I know lunch is done. The groceries are delivered. We've paid for it. And that's been really great.

And then every night we're like, Oh, that's what did you think about this meal? What did you think about that? It's been really great actually. So that's helped a lot

I think something that women often don't talk enough about when it comes to mental load is how do we fix this problem?

I feel like a lot of it is us, venting. Yes, absolutely. We need to vent. We need to let it out because that's therapeutic. It helps. It's cathartic, but I think let's, maybe let's talk about what you have done to try to improve this mental load for yourself and we know it's a, we know it's a journey.

It's not going to be one conversation, fixes it, how has it been for you in terms of. Trying to improve it for yourself.

A hundred percent. It's a work in progress as everything else is. For me. Like I said earlier, we end up being conditioned this way because of our upbringings because of how we saw our parents operate. And so I took ownership quite early on When Calvin and I got together yes, to your point about like scheduling and planning holidays and whatnot yes, I took that on. I enjoy doing that. So I was quite happy to do that. I was okay to do that. In hindsight though, I probably should have let go a little bit more and Let Calvin contribute more, when I reflect back, some of the positive things that I put in place was I really separated out ownership over family outings and family commitments, birthday parties, presents, et cetera, between Calvin's family and my family.

And so I didn't take that ownership on. I know a lot of people do. They'll take ownership and have to buy presents for father in law, mother in law, sister in law, brother in law, whoever, make sure that they organize, to bring something to plate for something. And I still do that. Like whenever we go to Calvin's family, I will still make something for the family bring something along, bring a plate et cetera.

But I very early on said. You know your family a lot better than I do. That is your responsibility. That is your task. You need to make sure you get the card. You need to make sure you buy the present. You need to make sure you know what time and date we're supposed to be, where we're supposed to be. And you need to make sure that you tell me that I'm not taking all of that on.

I have my own family. I'm managing them. I'm going to keep using these analogies. But I know them better. I don't expect you to take that on. So why would I take that on with your family? And so that was one of the things that I did and definitely outsourcing. So things like your dinner things like cleaners, I have cleaner that comes once a fortnight just to give me some breathing space.

so that I can spend more time with the kids. And so we're not arguing over cleaning because it's such a trivial thing. If you really look at it for what it is, it's such a trivial thing to argue about is cleaning. Outsource that and still maintain and do other bits and pieces. I think assessing what you actually do is probably a good place to start cause it's, and even now there's certainly more things that I take on, especially with the kids that Calvin doesn't think about for Amelia's checkups, I made the appointment for her, but for whatever reason, I couldn't take her, but Calvin was free, so he took her, but he didn't make the next appointment. So she ended up missing her two year old checkup. And when she got to two and a half I was looking through the book or something. I'm like, Oh, why didn't she have this checkup? Didn't you take her to the last round?

It's yeah. Oh, but I didn't make the appointment.

Is it the end of the world that she missed her two year old checkup? No, it's not, but it is annoying. And it's annoying because it would not have happened if you did it. Correct.

Unless it's. super urgent. Yes, I might micromanage that, but everything else, I just think sink or swim. If you make a mistake, you're going to make a mistake and you're going to learn from it. And if I keep bailing you out or looking over your shoulder, it's not helpful for him.

And it's not helpful for me and my mental load. So that's some of the things that I have done. What about you? What's going on in your space? Yeah. What advice have you got? Just,

yeah, just quickly, I think, cause you touched on a few things that I think I will add to, I think one of the biggest things with mental load is that mentality of, you know what?

It's already in my head. I'm just going to do it because I'm going to do it the way that I want it done. And also it's going to happen, right? And if you use the work analogy. That's why sometimes you just, you don't delegate because you're like, it's just easier if I just do it. And then I know it's done and don't have to ask.

So there's that component. The other component is a feeling of unfairness, a feeling of it not being equal is massive, I think when it comes to mental load, because. If I had this mental load and I knew that Matthew also had this mental load, then I think I'd be like, okay, cool. We're both dealing with this thing.

We're both juggling with so much. That's fine. That's fair. That's equal. As a person, I'm really big for things being fair. It's like a visceral thing. I just feel it very deeply. And so when it comes to mental load and when I, get to the point where I might explode, it's because. I feel like it's unfair.

And then the other thing, sorry, that came to mind was the sharing of mental load. I don't think we'll ever get to the point where it's going to be 50, 50. It's similar to our discussion the other week in terms of work life balance, it's going to ebb and flow. It's going to shift depending on what's going on, but.

I think, if I felt that it was a bit more fair, then yes, that would help a lot, but there are things that I'm better at than Matthew, for sure. And then there are things that he would be better at than me. So in terms of working out the split of responsibilities and the mental load, something that we've tried to do, and again, learning, it's taken years to get to where we are now, heaps of like honest, serious discussions about our relationship and all that stuff. But where we are now is pretty good because I think we've leaned, I think we've leaned on our skills and what we like to do a bit more. So I think that's a big learning that I have from this from my experience and it's definitely helped because there are some things that I just naturally think about more than he does.

For example, there are some components of cleaning and running the household. That is really great with it. I'm absolutely terrible with, so my husband does a hundred percent, 99. 8 percent of the laundry. I don't touch it because I'm so terrible. I put the clothes in the washing machine and 99.

9 percent of the time I forget that it's there. He'll come home from work and open it and be like, Oh, how long have these been in there? I'm like, maybe 12 hours. I don't know. I don't, I can't tell you. So he'll have to rewash it. He does all of it. Then there's other things that I do. That's part of cleaning.

So it's not like just saying you do all the cleaning and I do all of this. It's literally, it's so much more complicated than that. It's cleaning as a umbrella and then underneath cleaning. What. What aspects of cleaning will you take on and will I take on? So I'd do the bathroom. So he doesn't know when they're, I don't know, he doesn't see when they're getting, when they're getting gross.

But yeah, that's just some things that came to mind when you were talking., So I think that's probably the key things. So communication is massive. Communication is massive with everything, like everything in life, communication, massive. But what happens with mental load is often when we chat or in the past, and I know with, friends and family and what I've seen and that kind of stuff, that when it gets to the point where you're trying to communicate, you can't communicate because emotions are going everywhere.

And your feeling of, anger, frustration, unfairness, it clouds communication. And then one person, one party feels like they're being attacked, but that's not the intention. The intention is I'm feeling super stressed. I'm feeling like I run this house. I feel like I, ABCD and I need you to step up.

And I think men, from what I've seen and experienced. They just, they don't really respond to being attacked, like I would say most people. So I think in terms of communication, it's yes, you're frustrated, but however you can to just regulate that and try to have those conversations. Maybe it's don't talk when you're feeling so like a bomb ticking away and try to talk to your partner

as someone who is your partner in life that you have decided to be with and have kids with, and that you love, I assume. That would be my biggest, yeah, I suppose my biggest strategy to help manage mental load. Again, work in progress taking forever. We're in a good spot now, but, in two months we probably need to have another conversation.

What I'm finding is that each time we have a conversation, it's more like we are on the same page.

That's so good. And you're so right. It's because your life is ever evolving. Your kids, one month they're going through some phase, the next month they're going through some other phase, and the responsibilities and the tasks and everything change.

And even just starting school, like that requires a new conversation to be like now we've got new responsibilities and new things to think about, new things to worry about. So you do, you have to have, I feel like you have to have these check ins constantly. Yeah. Daily muster. And also you touched on dividing up the tasks.

I'm going to take that away because that is really good where you're looking at cleaning as a whole, but then splitting it out by you do the laundry, you do the bins, you do the bathroom, you do the vacuum, whatever it might be. Because Yes, even though we have a cleaner, we still have to maintain the household and we still have to clean.

It's not like she comes every day. So tasks like that. When I set my boundaries about what responsibilities I would take on, Calvin's clothes, like that is his responsibility, 100%, like I do not wash his clothes.

I will do mine and I will do the kids, but I can't deal with clothes being inside out. I can't deal with clean clothes being mixed up with the dirty clothes. I can't deal with that. So I'm like, you know what, if you can't keep it together, do your own laundry and then we split the kids clothes, even though it generally falls on me because Calvin forgets and doesn't pre plan or pre think about these things.

Don't even get me started on the Sunday routine because I feel like we have an argument every single Sunday because every single Sunday without fail, he remembers that he needs to wash his clothes and therefore, because it's so late and doesn't have time to dry, he puts the dryer on. And we literally had this conversation on Sunday, which is why I remember it because I was like It's Sunday.

I think I told him last weekend, I'm like, stop using the dryer. Like you don't need to do it. Just pre plan, organize it earlier, get it done Friday night, whatever it needs to happen because it needs time to dry. We're coming into the colder months in Melbourne, in Australia. And so you need to put some thought into this. And his response was, cause it was quite sunny on Sunday. His response no, it's sunny today. I'll put it out and it'll dry. I'm like, okay, cool. Got to 3 PM in the afternoon and his clothes were still in the washing machine.

And I said, I don't think your clothes are drying today. He's like me. He forgets. I'm just like, I can't be bothered. It's your clothes. To do what you got to do with them. It doesn't affect me in any way, shape or form. The only annoying thing is obviously I can't use the washing machine or the clothes horse if he's not organized himself, but it's pick my battles.

They're small things. But definitely I think. dividing up the tasks in such a way that you are leveraging your strengths and your partner's strengths. Because I also feel that sometimes someone, not resentment, but sometimes a lack of action is because someone might not like to do something. And I'm not saying that you like to wash the bathroom.

I'm sure you don't. I don't either. But if it's comparing that to putting out the bins every week, like I would rather stay inside and not have to go outside and put the bins out, for example. So if you can have those conversations and decide, what are you capable of doing and what am I capable of doing and what do I enjoy doing and what do you enjoy doing and work it out from there.

I think that's a good, it's a good way to go about it. And I think it'll reduce some of the. People not doing what they were supposed to do because they might resent it less, potentially.

Yeah, it's, look, it's, this stuff is really not sexy in terms of relationships.

Oh.

But in order for the relationship to run smoothly and for the relationship to be intact and for you to Not feel like, you're not having all that weight only on you.

I think this stuff is so important. And I reckon, and Matt and I haven't done this, but we've done this throughout many conversations, is literally write a list of everything down. List everything down. The list is so long of everything that's in your head. And I thought about this the other day because, I work from home every day and I sat down to have lunch.

When I sat down to have lunch, I was eating lunch and just watching a bit of TV, but in my head, I was like, okay, the next council tax instalment is due by next Friday, so I need to pay that. Then I'm like, oh, where's the water bill? What's happened with that? Let's look into that. Then it was like, what's going on this weekend?

Are we going to have a play date for Kenzo? Are we going to the Toy Library on Sunday? Okay, that means we need to find all the Toy Library bits, because that is such a, oh my god, every fortnight, I'm like, we need as a house, everybody, we need to go find all the Toy Library bits right now, otherwise, we can't go to the Toy Library, we can't return it's, I love the toy library and I highly recommend it to everybody, but I really do find it stressful because Toy library toys often have lots of bits.

My kids do not care about those bits. And we even lose the bags that they come in. And then I have to come, on Sunday with like my tail between my legs, I'm so sorry, I think we've lost another bit. It's just, it's so terrible, but yeah. Okay. So are we going to the toy library? Oh, okay. If we go to the toy library, should we go to the market?

Okay. Then I'm like, okay, what groceries should I get when we're at the market? And then it's just like ongoing list of stuff. So I think. If your partner doesn't understand, like genuinely does not understand, and let's not doubt that let's believe it when they say, I don't know what you're talking about, show them, like literally write it all down.

And I think that would have definitely sped up, the journey that Matthew and I've been on. I think if I've done that right at the start. So I think that would really help write it all down and you'll be surprised about the stuff you'll be like, Oh my God. Okay. Wow.

It's impressive the amount of stuff that's in our brains. But if they can't see it, or understand it, then I think help them as much as we can to see it. Yeah.

And I think it does work both ways. There might be some things that your partner might be doing that you don't have the oversight of.

And, doing this exercise, going back to your point about unfairness, you might be surprised. You might be like, Oh, hang on a minute. Oh, I didn't consider that. Or I didn't think of that because Of course like we said, when you're in that moment and you feel overwhelmed, you can only really see it from your own perspective.

And so you're not thinking rationally. And if you do have a list to refer back to, or you have done that exercise where you've done that list, you might be surprised about what the things are that your partner does. And It'll help you to split out those tasks a little bit more.

So if you are finding that you do take on a lot more of the life admin where you are doing appointments then say, okay I need time to do all these things. So I'm going to need you to put in more effort around the house. So the bathroom, that's now yours. That will ultimately, like you said, it's not sexy, but it will ultimately help your relationship and it will reduce the stress on you, might put a little bit more stress on your partner.

to begin with, but you get used to these things. It's not like you're giving them everything, it's just splitting it up a bit more, and it'll give both of you more time together. And so ultimately, I think that it is a positive thing. And especially

if you approach it in a non attacking, aggressive way when you are clear headed, then of course there'll be a lot less resistance from your partner and it will be more of a communication and , you two are problem solving together and the problem is the mental load. So the mental load is the evil thing, the problem and you two come in and tackle it together as a team as opposed to the other way around.

So I do like that.

Thanks. So growing up, I'm just reflecting cause you mentioned this earlier is my mum was a single mum. So she did everything. She was Wonder Woman, still is. And I have these visions of her mowing the lawn in her like sleeping nighty gown. Because she's like, why I'm mowing the lawn and I'm in my pajamas or nightgown whenever I'm doing it and I'm like, yeah, mom, respect.

And Matthew and I are quite non traditional, I think, in terms of the tasks that we own because it's taken some time, but there are things he enjoys. He enjoys laundry, I think. I do not. I actually, I really love gardening. He hates mowing the lawn, that kind of stuff. So I mow our front lawn. I enjoy it.

I'm quite meticulous. I like it to be beautiful. I stand in, I'm looking at after yes, looks great. Good job with the whippersnapping you. Yes. And he hates it. But it's something that we've split because we live on a bit of a slope and the backyard is too slopey for me. Like physically, I am like dying if I try to mow the the backyard.

So he has to do it physically, but I enjoy doing the front yard. So I do that and I try to do the nature strips, so growing up, my mom did everything. She'd get the hammer, she'd just nail stuff and fix things and, change lights, whatever, all that stuff. She would do all of it. So I was brought up with that.

But at the same time, I was also brought up in a big family where everyone else, super traditional, Very patriarchal in terms of my grand, my s grandpa was the head of the house and he, whatever he said went and everyone, respected his point of view

so I was brought up with that. And we have family gatherings all the time. Weekly kind of, sessions of lots of food. And , everyone rocks up. All the women have cooked. Set everything up, all the women would tidy up they would then set up like, fruits and desserts and all the men would just be sitting around enjoying all this stuff.

And

yeah, it felt normal growing up with that, but I know that's not how we operate and. And I suppose I've had the opportunity where I can set my own norms, whereas my grandma and some of my aunties did not because that stuff is so ingrained in how they were brought up.

And their relationships. I can't imagine my aunties, some of my aunties sitting down and saying that to the husband, you need to do all the laundry and I'm not cooking dinner anymore. Oh my God. I can't imagine that conversation that probably won't go very well, I've been lucky to have that opportunity where I can set the norms.

And Matthew and I are both on the same page in terms of. My boys growing up seeing that there is no set tasks or there's no set way in terms of how relationships can delegate or assign household responsibility to one person because of their sex. I'm really big on that. They see Matt doing the dishes all the time.

They see Matt cooking all the time. They see Matt doing the laundry, only him doing the laundry. So that's really important to me because. When my boys, grow up and they have partners, I want to make sure that they are fully in these relationships where they are giving as much as they can in terms of The responsibilities, the mental load yes, as soon as I can, they'll be washing their clothes.

Absolutely. And, we've started cooking with them more I want them to love cooking. Hopefully, Ambrose has always got the broom. It's because he likes it, but yeah, so I think that's really important for me and for Matthew is that our boys grow up understanding that, you know what, there's no set things here.

Me and my partner are going to work out what we do and how we share this mental load. Like I can't stress that enough because I don't want their partner to feel some of the stuff that I've felt in the past that has taken us, quite some time to get to a point where I'm like, we can chat about it and.

We're not going to get divorced over it or something like that. Like it's taken time and we're in a good spot, but if I can help expedite that for my kids, then yes, absolutely. I'll try my very best to how about you?

Yes. So I have reflected a lot on. my upbringing and just society in general and for context. So I grew up in a very traditional way.

The task of cooking, cleaning, et cetera, was on the female. And the task of being the breadwinner, was on the males in my family. My parents, broke the mold in many ways.

First of all, they left Romania and came to Australia, which, you previously in our generation had never been done. My mom got a job, which actually she did have a job in Romania, but it wasn't really the norm back then either. But yeah, she got a job. And my parents also divorced. So there was a lot there that started to put us on this trajectory where I really am looking at things, I think, quite clearly and quite fairly. And also, I've got a boy and a girl. And I need to make sure that they both understand that regardless of their gender, they are a human being. They make mess.

They need to eat. They need to therefore clean, cook, et cetera. It is not on Amelia to cook for Aiden. It is not Aiden's partner to cook for Aiden. And it is not on Amelia to have to cook for her partner or clean after them. And why should there be? Maybe that's what it was like growing up for some people because that's what they decided was the norm in their family.

Maybe that's what they decided their tasks would be because the mom wanted to be a stay at home mom or because the father earned really good money, there was no reason for her to work, whatever the situation might be. And that's fine. But ultimately, first and foremost, they are people, they are humans, and they need to learn how to do these things for themselves. And one of the things that I really struggled with was the fact that Calvin wasn't given the tools to succeed in life in that way.

And he's never lived by himself. And neither have I. Bye. Default because he ended up moving into my house. Anyway, long story short he wasn't given the tools. And I remember quite vividly one time we're at his. parent's house and his sister brought up how different their upbringing was, so her upbringing versus Calvin's upbringing.

So Calvin's the oldest child and his sister's the middle child and then they have a younger brother and she pointed out how differently she was treated and how differently the expectation was on her as a female to learn all of these things, to learn how to cook, to learn how to clean, to, etc.

And it was never expected of Her brothers in my family, it's just me and my sister. So by default, we just learned how to do things because we were females. And, but it was expected, like in my household, it was expected by my dad that he never had to do anything. And that's why he had girls.

He's I've got girls. Why do I need to do anything? And I was just like, that doesn't seem right with me. I don't know. Why am I cleaning up after you? You're a grown ass man. Do it yourself. Kind of thing. Yeah. Maybe it was the way he approached it. It wasn't like a, you need to learn how to do this for yourself,

it was more of a, you're doing it. I've got daughters. You do it. And. I know that we're breaking the mold in the way that we parent and in the way that we operate because there are times when I have gone to extended families houses and they've asked, where's Calvin? I'm like, oh, he, he's at home.

He's cleaning. And , the response was just like shock and awe. And I was like what? He makes a mess too. He lives there too. Why would he not clean? To me, it just seems absurd. Why would he not contribute to the family when he also.

contributes to the mess. And yeah, it's very strange concept for me. And I know that we're still learning as a society. We're still learning what men and women are supposed to be doing because it is blurry. It's not clear cut. Men go to work, women stay home. Like now it's women also go to work and some men also stay home.

So it's really blurry and no one really knows the answer and no one really knows the correct formula for any of this. So it is all still a work in progress. And yeah, so I'm really trying to make sure that Amelia and Aiden really understand that they have to contribute and they already do in the household, like they already do age appropriate things.

Aiden loves. It's helping for dinner and setting up the table and he even like puts on like a little shirt and stuff when we have dinner and I'm like, we're not going anywhere fancy, we're just doing it at home. But it's really sweet that he cares about that stuff. And Amelia is just on a whole nother level.

She just wants to do everything herself independently, I love that because I'm not going to set them up for failure, whether they decide to have a partner or not, they still need to know how to sustain themselves. Yeah. And I'm not going to be around forever.

So if they don't know how to do laundry then I failed as far as I'm concerned. Yes, I know that a lot of the things that were done for Calvin were 100 percent done out of love. But he himself will say that it hasn't set him up for success because he doesn't know how to do some of the basic things that he should know how to do as a person which is quite sad.

Yeah, I think you touch on a really good point and that is the expectations outside of your relationship and what you've set up and what works for you and Calvin. Because my husband, Matthew hates this so much passionately. And I think he would love to come on as a guest to talk about it, but often he'll be out with the boys without me.

Because we have our dates and all that stuff with the kids and he takes them out to, playgrounds and whatever without me often too. But what happens is Matt will often get people commenting, Oh, you're such a great dad. Oh where's the mom? What's she doing?

Why are you out? Just you guys. And he'll have lunch and some old lady will come up and she'd be like, Oh my God, you're amazing. He's amazing. You're so great as a dad and Matthew always says I'm their dad, like I'm feeding them. You know what I mean? And so it's really interesting because they get that reinforced to them that when they do things, which I believe are absolutely expected, like you're not getting a thank you for feeding your kids, they get that kind of recognition.

From other people and generally, it's the older generation that's giving him accolades for looking after his kids. But I find it really interesting. And then that comes to something that I've thought about is when you say thank you for them doing something that is expected as well.

And it's, I've seen this in other relationships. And I'm always like, I'm just going to keep my mouth shut. It's not my place. I'm not going to say anything. When I'm out with friends or whatever, and I see stuff happen and the person who I know is bearing all the mental load says thank you to their partner for doing something that is And I know that I would agree minuscule in terms of the running of the household, but they say, thank you.

So then in a way we're enabling it, we're supporting it in terms of giving them recognition that we never get for doing something that is so tiny one step of the 20 step project. So that's something I think that I've become really mindful of too. Is I praise, but I think Matthew has started saying, thank you more.

This is progressive, obviously through our journey, but give me recognition for stuff. I'm happy to give you recognition for stuff, but it comes down to that fairness. It has to be mutual understanding. Where I appreciate you for doing this stuff. You appreciate me for doing this stuff.

It's a mutual appreciation and recognition of the stuff that we do to run this household. And I think that's so important. And regardless of whatever societal expectations are being thrust on us as a household, this is what we're doing and you appreciate me and I appreciate you and yeah.

So that's like where we're at the moment.

And that's great. And not a lot of people can say that they're in that place. So you guys are doing really well. We are probably going to have to do a part two to this because there is so much more to talk about.

And there is so much more to debunk and talk through, and we definitely can't solve anything here today, but hopefully discussing this openly it has shed some light on the complexity of it, and it hopefully empowers others to maybe reassess their own patterns first and then potentially do a life audit.

Like you said, write everything down, audit, okay. all of it, and it may really highlight how uneven the distribution of tasks are and potentially help you spread them evenly so you don't feel so overwhelmed. So on that note, join us next time for more conversations on parenting. Until then, please take care and remember you're not alone in navigating the madness of modern life.

See you then.

Bye.