You know that feeling? You've thought of everything: doctor's appointments, a change of clothes, meal prep, a birthday present for your daycare friend—and yet your head is still full. 🤯
Mental load sometimes feels like having 100 tabs open in your head.
This post offers a quick reality check on unpaid care work and a step-by-step guide and tools to distribute to-dos more fairly within your family and thereby reduce your mental load . For relaxed parenting.
Unpaid care work is the greatest risk factor for mental load. According to a study by the German Institute for Economic Research, working women between the ages of 35 and 40 spend an average of seven hours per day on care work, while working men spend only 3.5 hours. Worldwide, women perform a total of more than 12 billion hours of care work every day. If we received the minimum wage for our work, we would be richer than Apple, Google, and Facebook combined.
The German Equal Care Day Association has been addressing the issue of mental load for years and advocates for a fairer distribution of unpaid care work. For more information, please browse their website , which is full of facts and interesting studies.
Some families have fixed routines and responsibilities—the respective parent automatically takes care of certain things without much questioning. In others, conflicts arise repeatedly because responsibilities are unclear and have to be renegotiated repeatedly.
How is it with you? Who bears the greater burden?
Equal Care Day offers a test to help you get an overview of your responsibilities. You can take it online or download and print it for free. All adults in the household must check the box to indicate which tasks they will take on. There is also the option to " I do ." "I'll remember." The tasks are divided into daily, weekly, monthly, and annual categories. At the end, each person receives an overview and a total score. You'll be surprised at how much you accomplish each day!
The goal here is to first start a conversation with each other and become aware of the division between you.
Perhaps care work is also distributed rather traditionally in your family. Important : This is not an individual result, but rather a structural inequality that is shaped by society. So please don't doubt yourself or your values, but simply use these findings as an opportunity to take a closer look and ask yourself what you want for yourself and as role models for your children.
You can use the tasks from the test as a guide for the next step.
Many tasks are considerably more extensive than they appear at first glance. Mental load describes precisely these invisible to-do lists in our heads.
All these to-dos are invisible—but they make up the majority of the work! The visible work during a birthday party might only take 2-3 hours. Anyone who hasn't taken care of it all on their own, from start to finish, simply doesn't realize how much organization and planning goes into it. Often, the partner doesn't appreciate it, and that can lead to conflict. Does this sound familiar?
To get an overview of who's doing what and how often, we've created a handy spreadsheet that you can download and print for free. Use it to jot down all the tasks that come up every day, and especially the invisible thinking and planning work.
The second step involves redistributing care work within your family. Important: The ratio doesn't have to be 50:50. The distribution of paid work can also be considered. However, keep in mind that, unlike a 9-to-5 job, care work requires 24-hour availability. "Free time" should therefore be divided equally, and everyone should be allowed to take mental breaks.
The advantage of documenting the allocation of responsibilities in writing is that you have something tangible, which often carries more weight than a quick, casual agreement like "I'll take care of it." It also means that every time a child's birthday party invitation arrives, there's no need to debate who will think about the gift, buy it, wrap it, etc. Instead, it's clear, for example, that one parent is responsible for the daycare child and the other for the school-age child. This is just an example, and the implementation may, of course, look completely different in your family. The main thing is that responsibilities are clearly assigned—including the invisible mental work.
Tip: Once you adults have clarified your responsibilities, feel free to include the kids in your new distribution and think together about which tasks they could take on around the house.
A shared Google Calendar or a weekly planner on the fridge are a good start for a fairer distribution of mental load. If you're looking for more specific tools or want to delve deeper into the topic, we have more tools and three book recommendations for you here.
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