How to Reduce the Mental Load of Motherhood
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Have you ever heard of the term mental load? It’s something that’s always there. It’s all the things that you need to plan and think about that make it necessary to live. I guess we always have to deal with some capacity of mental loads once we become adults, but I’m probably not alone in feeling that it got exponentially heavier after becoming a mother. I’m a wife and stay-at-home mom of two, so I definitely feel the weight of every decision I have to make in order to keep everyone fed and happy. The good news is I’ve had a few years to figure out how to reduce the mental load of motherhood by creating routines and appropriately sharing the mental load with my husband. By using communication and planning, I was able to reduce my chances of mom burnout and here’s how!
Communication is Key
Unfortunately, as a society, women tend to take it upon themselves to silently assign themselves responsibility for a lot of the household chores and daily decision making. Even though that tends to happen, it does not have to be that way! If you are feeling overwhelmed by the weight of everyday decision making, talk with your partner about it! Odds are, they do not want you to feel that way, but may be unaware that you have taken on so many tasks. If you let them know about all of the decisions that need to be made and ask them to take on some tasks that make sense for their schedule, you will effectively lighten your mental load. The next step is to let go of the task that was handed off to your partner and trust that they’ve got it under control.
Have a Shared Calendar
The more your family grows, the more packed your family schedule becomes. Instead of being the gatekeeper of all of the important dates and appointments, make the family schedule visible to everyone! There are several ways to go about doing this and none of them are wrong as long as the method you choose is effective for your family. My favorite way to allow everyone to see our family schedule, so that anyone can schedule appointments without having to ask me when we are free, is to simply share your calendar with each other if you happen to all have iPhones. That way, all of our schedules are available and synced at our fingertips! We even went further and bought a Skylight Calendar. It displays all of our schedules that we share on our iPhones in one spot that is visible to everyone near our kitchen. The great thing about the Skylight Calendar is that it updates whenever either my husband or I adds anything to our phone calendars, so we don’t have to worry about dates being missed on our communal family calendar. If you prefer not to use tech, you can always use a paper calendar, posted in a communal area, that is used for anyone to write down important dates and appointments as they are scheduled. It is important that you communicate that everyone is responsible for writing down any scheduled appointments so that scheduling becomes a shared responsibility.
Meal Plan Together
Sometimes deciding what the entire family is going to eat everyday is the worst! For something that appears to be a simple task, the responsibility of making this daily decision actually requires so much thought. However, if you have a partner, you don’t need to take on this responsibility by yourself. There are a few steps to meal planning that I do routinely that I talk more about in one of my past blogs, “How to Meal Plan in 5 Easy Steps,” then I usually take time to brainstorm a few more meal ideas with my husband. If your partner or your children seem to always push the responsibility back to you by saying, ”I don’t know…” don’t let them! When I’m going about my day and randomly think of food that sounds good, I jot it down somewhere, or make a note on my phone. Having a random list of food ideas is helpful in the beginning because it can help give your family a visual aid to make a choice. When they get the hang of making a choice from a list that you’ve made, encourage them to do the same and make a running list of their own food ideas. Once meal planning feels more like a collaboration rather than a chore meant just for you, you’ll feel more weight lifted from your shoulders!
Share Grocery List Responsibilities
Much like meal planning, creating a grocery list does not have to be all on you. In most cases, I actually don’t mind making a grocery list out of the ingredients that are needed to make the food listed in our meal plan, but the random items that we run out of, like certain fruit, condiments or even milk… that can be a shared responsibility. Our family likes to get grocery deliveries from Safeway, so we use the Safeway app. Both my husband and I have access to our family’s one Safeway app account, so he is able to add items as easily as I am able to add items to the next grocery list. Again, if you have an iPhone, you can make an ongoing grocery list, using the Notes App, for other stores and share that list with your partner, so that both of you are able to collaborate and change the list. You must note that if you have a shared grocery note on your iPhone, you have to have enough space on you iCloud to do this. Otherwise, this is still possible by posting a piece of paper in a communal area, like your fridge, that is open for anyone to add to any future grocery lists.
After Work Hours, There are 2 Homemakers
Sometimes stay-at-home parents feel that they are responsible for all household duties because of the need to feel that you are pulling your weight while your partner is earning money for the family. However, the thing that my husband and I quickly learned about household duties is it’s a lot more than one person can do in a day. So, if you have a partner at home, whether either of you are full-time workers or stay-at-home parents, after traditional work hours, both of you are the homemakers and should share the remaining home responsibilities 50/50. My husband and I found that acknowledging that homemaking responsibilities are easier when tackled by both of us, I felt seen, respected, and most importantly, we were able to divide and conquer! I also felt that my mental load lightened when I gave up some of my self inflicted guilt. I realized that much like my husband needs rest after a hard day's work, I need and deserve rest as well.
Make Daily Routines
The last thing that helped me reduce the mental load of motherhood is to create daily routines. For the most part, we have a routine for almost everything. We follow a routine when getting ready in the morning, before and after meals, a bedtime routine, and for some daily cleaning. Maintaining daily routines helps to ensure that all the important daily tasks get done without having to think about it. In the beginning, adding something to your family routine feels like one more thing to get done in the day, but give it time for a habit to form. You might find that a chore that you had to figure out how to fit into your life becomes something that is a normal part of the day and it almost feels weird not to do it.
The mental load of motherhood is heavy and most of the time exhausting. Unfortunately, it’s something that comes with the territory of being responsible for people that you love very much. The list of decisions and demands will never really go away, so instead of letting it make you feel overwhelmed and small, finding ways to prevent burnout by implementing routines and sharing the mental load with others in your family will save your sanity. Hopefully some of these tips help to reduce your mental load, so that you can save space in your brain for happier times spent with your family!
