Mental Load - What you can do against it
Mental load, i.e. the overload of mothers and families, often reaches its peak during the holidays. What should be a time of peace and contemplation, becomes a time of hecticness, stress and overload in the pre-Christmas period. Because time is limited, we also suggest you calculate and keep trayck of time spent to play live casino. How can mothers and families avoid Mental Load and what you can do against it?
"What are you actually doing at Christmas?" or "What are we giving XYZ for Christmas?" are questions that are often asked in the run-up to Christmas - and mostly to the female members of a household. After all, they are still the "family managers:inside", in addition to their professional duties, of course. Traditionally, women very often organize all the family's appointments and the household, keep wishes, likes and dislikes in mind, remind their partner or children of everything that is important, and are responsible for ensuring that life together runs smoothly.
Sounds exhausting and complicated? It is. The phenomenon is called "mental load" and can lead women secretly and quietly to burnout. To make sure this doesn't happen, we offer tips on how to better organize the distribution of tasks in the family so that mental load can be avoided or at least reduced.
Even if both parts of a couple do the housework, it's still almost always women who send their husbands shopping or "assign" them to chores.
WHAT IS MENTAL LOAD
Mental load refers to the invisible, "mental" tasks that are usually imposed on women in a partnership or family. For example, keeping an eye on which groceries are already running low, preparing the shopping list. Or making sure that the bathroom is cleaned regularly, that the garbage cans are on the street on time, and much more. Making sure the kids are in bed at the appropriate time, signed up for sports class, or getting new jackets when the old ones get too small also falls into this area. Simply keeping everything in mind, or at least in the back of your mind, so that chaos doesn't break out.
Mental Load is less about the activity itself and more about "taking care of it", thinking about it and making sure it gets done. Even when both parts of a couple do the household together, it is still almost always women who send their husbands shopping or "assign" them to vacuum and clean up. In the Christmas season the load reaches its high point. Because, for a beautiful celebration simply too much must be considered, organized, planned and worried. Together with the responsibility, the organization and the stress in professional life, the pressure to always have everything in view at home can quickly become too great, especially for women, and in the worst case end in burnout.
CAUSES FOR IT
In order to find ways and solutions to better deal with Mental Load, it is important to understand how the problem arises. We are all to blame as a society. The patriarchal model with the man as the main breadwinner and the woman doing the housework at home is still deeply embedded in society and also in our minds. Unconsciously, the small, invisible organizational tasks are usually shoved onto women, who are "better at it".
Family life stress increases dramatically during Christmas time.
At this time of year there is especially much to organize, for a stress-free Christmas season it is important to make tasks visible and distribute them fairly.
WAYS OUT OF IT
If it is clear that both partners can organize family life equally well, then you are open to a fair distribution of the mental load, so that no one is overburdened. But first of all you have to find out which tasks have to be done. The best way to do this is with a list that is divided into daily, weekly, monthly and annual tasks. The list can range from very mundane things like laundry and meal planning to a cleaning list and the weekly shopping list to Christmas presents, tire changes and tax returns.
With the list, sit down together and discuss who is currently doing which tasks, both thinking about them and actively doing them. Things that may only take five minutes but occur every day, such as putting the children to bed, should be weighted more heavily than those that take half a day but only occur once or twice a year, such as the inspections for the family car.
