How To Audit Your Mental Load with Prof. Leah Ruppanner

It’s time we talked about the mental load. Again. 💌 To join our journaling club, with 9,900+ others, subscribe to my imperfect email - https://www.theimperfects.com.au/sign-up-to-our-newsletter/ Consider this a companion episode to our infamous, most shared episode of 2023, The Elephant in the Relationship where Hugh and Penny introduced us to their mental load, and how they were trying to make it more equal in their relationship. Today we’re sprinkling in some expertise and scientific data, as we’re joined by Professor Leah Ruppanner who explains to Hugh, Ryan and Josh that there’s actually 8 different types of mental load, and not all of them are draining. Bringing examples from their own lives, Hugh, Ryan and Josh discuss with Leah why the mental load can seem like an insurmountable amount of emotional thinking, and how partners can better communicate to reduce anxiety-like symptoms and burnout. We chat to Leah about the exacerbation of the mental load when chronic illness becomes part of the equation, and how to manage the mental load when there is no one to share it with. Chapters 00:00:00 – TRAILER 00:02:02 – The Mental Load is life changing for relationships 00:03:11 – Mental Load definition: emotional thinking work 00:05:41 – 3 characteristics of the mental load 00:08:00 – Mental Load vs Burnout: Treat Your Energy Like a Budget 00:14:19 – The Elephant in Hugh & Penny’s Relationship 00:16:50 – Type 1: Life Organisation 00:17:20 – Type 2: Emotional Support 00:18:00 – Type 3: Relationship Hygiene 00:19:03 – Type 4: Dream Building 00:20:26 – Type 5: Magic Making 00:25:00 – Type 6: Individual Upkeep 00:27:30 – Type 7: Safety 00:28:00 – Type 8: Meta Care (Doom Scrolling and the Mental Load) 00:29:56 – How to do a mental load audit with your partner 00:34:09 – Align your energy with your goals 00:36:25 – Delegating tasks vs sharing the mental load 00:38:24 – Shift work vs running the business 00:40:30 – Birthday presents and the perfect mother myth 00:41:30 – Mess: do men really not see it? 00:44:50 – Why women feel judged 00:48:41 – “Good enough is good enough” 00:54:13 – Mental load in same sex couples 00:57:07 – Why perspective + empathy matters 00:58:13 – Mental load when you’re single, or your partner won’t engage 00:59:02 – What a cancer diagnosis does for priorities 01:05:45 – A Little More Imperfects: Mental Load at Work 🫖Imperfects episodes mentioned in this episode Hugh & Penny - The Elephant in the Relationship - https://bit.ly/4zNi0C4 📚Things to read Drained, by Leah Ruppanner (this one has the audit in it) - https://bit.ly/47RUyI5 Motherlands, by Lead Ruppanner - https://bit.ly/3WjSCW0 Men do see the mess, study by Leah Ruppanner et al. - https://bit.ly/4dTCaSq Cognitive + Emotional Labour, research by Leah Ruppanner et al. - https://bit.ly/4eN3HFo 📺 Things to watch Inside Out - https://bit.ly/4yx5mG4 🂱 Things to do Fair Play Cards - https://bit.ly/3UFeWZK 💝 Breast Cancer Support Breast Cancer Network Australia - https://bit.ly/4igX8fj McGrath Foundation - 1800 183 338 Think Pink Foundation - https://www.thinkpink.org.au 🩷To host your own Vulnerabilitea House, purchase here - theimperfects.com.au/shop 🩵To purchase our journal (or your novel) My Imperfect Life, click here - theimperfects.com.au/shop 🩵To join our subscriber community, A Little More Imperfects, follow this link - patreon.com/theimperfects 🩷 AND you can subscribe to A Little More Imperfects through Apple Podcasts http://apple.co/theimperfects The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you’re struggling, please see a healthcare professional, or call lifeline on 13 11 14.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Maybe you've heard of the mental load.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  The mental load. The mental load. The mental load. The mental load. The mental load.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, we've actually talked about it a lot. Well done.

• 0:08Speaker 02

  That's one type.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 0:10Speaker 02

  But I'm here to tell you there are eight different mental load types.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  Professor Leah Rapana is on a mission to help women gain control over their time.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  I want you to start thinking about your mental load like you do your sleep score. Because what your mental load looks like in the morning is not what it's going to look like at night. It's going to look different in January versus June, when you're 20 versus when you're 60. And so when you think about your mental load energy as being precious and finite, you have only a certain amount, it's being allocated out to these eight different categories. And am I getting close to burnout?

• 0:40Speaker 00

  Professor Leah also talks us through a mental load audit for our relationships.

• 0:45Speaker 03

  Because Penny's a wife, I couldn't do this with her, but so I did it for her.

• 0:49Speaker 00

  You filled in Penny's mental load.

• 0:53Speaker 02

  I thought the same thing.

• 0:55Speaker 03

  I did very well.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  Everything's half out.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  Wow, what a hack.

• 1:08Speaker 00

  Well, it's been, it's been, I don't even remember how long it's been since we first were introduced to the mental load. It has, it has been life changing for many people, I think, since we first talked about it and we had Hugh, we had Penny, your wife.

• 1:25Speaker 03

  Yes, the great Penelope Moody.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  The great Penelope Moody. How I assume she'd like to be referenced as your wife. Yes, now the great man, Penelope Moody.

• 1:38Speaker 03

  I was thinking how great she was as we were doing the introduction. She, she had been.

• 1:44Speaker 00

  This could be, this could be considered, because we have Leah Rapana here to talk and Hugh will give Leah a proper introduction with bio. But this, I think, could be considered a companion episode to The Elephant in the Relationship, which was the episode with Penny, yeah, which we'll link to below.

• 2:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, the whole concept of the mental load has been very life changing for us and our relationship. And I feel like it was, I mean, the mental load episode was the most shared episode. The year we did it was the most shared episode in Australia, which makes sense. I think a lot of women send it to their partners. I'm not sure it was the other way around.

• 2:18Speaker 03

  And so, yeah, we're very lucky to have, well, I'll do the bio and I think people understand why we are so lucky to be having this conversation today. So Leah has dedicated her life to making the invisible visible. A professor of sociology, Leah has spent decades researching how women's unpaid work, including housework, childcare and the mental load, has impacted their ability to engage in employment, find meaningful rest and participate in society. With over 70 peer reviewed articles published, Leah has authored Motherlands, How States Push Mothers Out of Employment and most recently Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  So qualified to, I feel very lucky to have you here because you're so qualified to, to talk more about a topic that is, it's a really difficult thing to get right. And so, yeah, this is, I'm excited to have this chat today.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  Oh, me too.

• 3:12Speaker 00

  Hi Leah.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 3:15Speaker 00

  How are you?

• 3:15Speaker 02

  No pressure.

• 3:17Speaker 00

  Just get it right.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Save the world.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  I'm here, don't worry.

• 3:23Speaker 00

  No, this is, this is so cool and it's so, it's such a good, it's so good to dip back into mental load again. I know, like, I mean, the three of us, knowing that you were coming, we, we did a mental load audit.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  Good, I wanted to know, but I wanted to know, I can't wait.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  So in your book, there is an audit that, that couples can do together where they go through and actually give a percentage of how much devotion goes towards the different types of mental load. So we will be talking about that as well today, there's, we've done the audits. I think maybe the best place to start is just, how would you describe the mental load?

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Okay, so the mental load, we wrote an article from UniMel with Liz Dean and Brendan Churchill in 2022. And one of the things we talked about is the mental load is emotional thinking work that you do to keep your work, life and family running. So I'll give you an example. Emotional thinking work, not just thinking work, if it was just simply thinking work, it would look something like this, like, okay, the milk's running low. We need to put milk on the list. It goes on the list, you check it off and it's done. But it's emotional thinking work. And when I say that, it goes something like this. Okay, the milk's running low, we need to make sure we have milk on the list. Because if we don't, then my children will wake up tomorrow and they won't have enough nutrients. If they don't have enough nutrients, then they're going to go to school and they're not going to be able to concentrate. But if they go to school, are they even going to be able to concentrate?

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Because what's going to happen to them for the future? Is AI going to come and take out their job? Is AI going to come and take out my job?

• 4:49Speaker 00

  Oh my God.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  I'm sorry, I'm sorry if I'm triggering you right now. And then what about that, like, I don't know, they need to have that milk because, you know, you have to get your calcium from zero to whatever, and then they're going to have osteoporosis. Do I have osteoporosis? I haven't been to the doctor forever. So this is where it's like this ping pong between eight different mental load types. I'm giving you the eight.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  It sounds like it's almost verging into anxiety, like the amount of things buzzing around, like the voice going off in your head.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  I think sometimes this is the precursor into, so people have said to me, what is, isn't this just rumination? Isn't this just anxiety? And I think sometimes, yes, but sometimes it's that thought process that then comes right before you go into that physiological response and that rumination.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  Gotcha.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  So I like what you're saying about that because I think it's, it's absolutely connected.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay. So if we are keeping score, I've got one point. That's what I said.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  A plus. I'll give you an American grading.

• 5:44Speaker 03

  Thank you very much.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  The other thing about the mental load is it has three different distinct characteristics. So this is something we wrote in that book. It's invisible and what that means is you can do it totally internal in your body. You might right now be thinking about your own mental load as we're here and I'll have no idea. It's also boundaryless. And what we meant by that was like, you can take your mental load with you anywhere. You can take it on a walk, you can take it to work, you can take it into a bath, you can take it when you're in, when you're sleeping, right? Like it will interrupt you anywhere you go. You very rarely are like, oh, I didn't finish my dishes. Let me pack them up, throw them in the car, put them in the dishwasher at work and take them home, right?

• 6:29Speaker 02

  You're not like, oh, my laundry, let me just bring that in and fold it at the office. But you are bringing your mental load from work to home and home to work and you're carrying it everywhere. And then the third characteristic is that it's enduring. And what we mean by that is like, it's never ending. It's never ending because it's tied to the people we love the most, including ourselves. So when do you stop caring about someone you love? When you're dead, right? Like, like when you're dead. And it's why maybe your mother still is asking you if you, you know, brought a coat, but you, it's tied to this. And so those kind of three characteristics, I want you to let go. It's enduring, it's boundaryless and it's invisible.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  And then one of the things I'm trying to do too with lightandlab.com is to start to think about you're carrying a mental load to work too, right? Like you're trying to track your emails and make sure you haven't upset anybody. And you're trying to make the right relationships and you're thinking about your dreams and your ambitions. And you're doing all the eight different mental load types at work and you're doing them at home and you're doing them in life. I want you to start thinking about your mental load like you do your sleep score. I want you to start thinking about it like your steps. Because what your mental load looks like in the morning is not what it's going to look like at night. It's going to look different in January versus June, when you're 20 versus when you're 60. And so I want you to start going, okay, where is it going right now? Where is my mental load being spent?

• 7:51Speaker 02

  And when you think about your mental load energy as being precious and finite, you have only a certain amount, it's being allocated out to these eight different categories and am I getting close to burnout?

• 8:00Speaker 00

  One of the things I think that perhaps I heard in there that feels implicit and one of the reasons why I think people might struggle to lighten their mental load is the way that you said it's linked to care. So if I, if I care about my family or my partner or, or my work or whatever it is, for you to ask me to stop carrying this mental load means I have to care less about those people. Or that's kind of linked.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. This is where women tend to get a little bit stuck too, in part because they'll say to me like, you're asking me to drop something, but I can drop my, my work, I can drop my partner, you know, like things in my marriage can, or partnership can kind of deteriorate, but I can't disappoint the kids. Like I can't drop this mental load. And we've also said to people like, you're solely responsible for this. Like you need to make sure everything's going well. We've eroded community, we've eroded connection, like we've kind of pulled all the safety net out and then said, yeah, now you're, you, some mom in Geelong or some dad in Geelong, you have to prepare your children and yourself and your workers and your workplace for generative AI, global warming.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  You need to make sure your aging parents are okay. So there's a huge amount of pressure on us as individuals. We did interviews with parents who had children with complex care, right? Severe food allergies or they were neurodiverse or, you know, if I drop this, someone could be seriously hurt or someone could die. And so there's two things that kind of come out of that. It's like, it makes the mental load process more challenging, right? Because you have to really monitor and make sure everything's going well. It also makes that contact with institutions was really draining for them. And then they would say to me like, you want me to drop some of this, but I can't. And then I would say, well, what about rest? What are you doing for rest and recovery to bring more into your bank account to, you know, replenish you? I can't do that. I mean, I feel so guilty or I can't take money from the family. I feel too guilty.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  And I can't watch Bridgerton because that's a waste of time. And if this is a moment where you're like, I can't drop because to drop would to be not to care and caring is too important right now, then you need the other things coming in to support you so that you are rested and replenished and all of this.

• 10:14Speaker 00

  This is so complex.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know. Tell me about it.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  Especially with the narrative, which I'm sure we'll get to, and maybe I'm jumping to it too early, but the different narratives and, and expectations placed on, say, in a heterosexual relationship with kids, the expectations placed on men versus women societally, the, their ability to do all the things that you've just said are so different, I think. Yeah, this is complicated stuff.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  So I think, I think it'd be good if we, in a second, we just play a grab from the last episode we did on this. And then after that, I think it might be good if you could talk us through the eight different types of mental load that you talk about, because that really helps categorizing it, I think. And then I think it would be good to sort of talk about our sort of audit results as well, as we went. I mean, because we, when you think about the, like Penny and I have been working very hard at this for a long time. We've come up against quite a few challenges. And we did originally have an idea that Penny, my wife, and Sophie, Josh's wife, would have a conversation about this, and we would take grabs from it to sort of present to her. But Penny was kind of feeling a little bit like she didn't really have anything new to say on the mental load. And also, we are finding it quite hard at

• 11:25Speaker 03

  the moment, and we are struggling a lot with it. Absolutely no question, it improved our relationship so much when we initially did the cards and we sort of delegated tasks to be more even. But we still find it, we're still finding it very difficult to find out what even actually is. I, I think reflecting even just now as I'm talking, but one of the issues, we're trying to marry up a, literally marry up an ADHD brain and an OCD brain. And I think that has got the complications in it there. But there are so many other things that we, we have worked so hard on this, and we have spent so much time on it, talked about it so much, done everything. I think we've done all the right things, but we still have these issues where both of us at different points feel like this is just not fair towards

• 12:10Speaker 03

  me, or this is too much for me. One of them being that, so Penny's gone away, she's away for five days. And I was quite, I felt quite proud when we were sort of doing a bit of a chat about how I'd do things, that I kind of knew how everything works, because I've done a lot of it. And there wasn't anything overly new to me. I was like, I think we've, this proves we're doing better than we probably think, because there's nothing, she's not explaining much to me at all here. I know how, I do a lot of the stuff.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  Well done, man.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  No, no, no.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  But then I realized, I realized on the first morning she was gone, there are things that she's doing that we don't have listed on the, so for example.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  It's held in her head.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. So for example, I get the kids ready to go, and we're all about to come, they can't go to school. Nothing has popped up that I can't handle. Everything's familiar to me. And then Elsie said, my daughter, six year old daughter said to me, oh, you haven't done my hair. And I went, oh, okay.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  It's not on the list.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  What, what do you, I say, okay, cool. How do I, how do I do your hair? And she said, what? I don't know. And I said, well, what, what do you get done? She goes, well, you know, like I get a ponytail done. I went, okay, yeah, I can do that. And then I got her, I got her a hairband and I tried and she, that's not it. And I thought I'd done it. She said, that's not it. And I said, well, that, that's, it'll have to do today. And she had, she goes, no, that's not okay. That's not how you do it. And I said, I'm not messaging your mum two hours into it to say how do I do that.

• 13:34Speaker 00

  Your mum.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  And so, and so I tried to YouTube it in front of her. And I'm like, no, this is, I'm, where do I even start here? And in the end, but this is something that Penny does every single morning, which I just never thought about. She does Elsie's hair. I mean, it's a small example, but it's an example of how some things just have remained, we have tried so hard to uncover every single invisible thing, but there are things that, that just remain.

• 13:59Speaker 00

  Slip through the cracks.

• 14:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally. So why don't we play a grab now from Penny and I from the first episode? Because for anyone who hasn't heard it, it'll give you great context to what we did to try and divide the mental load equally in our household. And the fair play cards are a great way to do that, if you're looking to start the conversation in your partnership.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  Well, I think like all couples should do, we ended up seeing.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  Great couples therapist.

• 14:24Speaker 03

  Oh, he's terrific. He's magnificent, man. He kind of said to me at one point, you need to do these cards, I think. Or it came up that you really wanted to.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Came up a lot of times.

• 14:33Speaker 00

  Get him, Penny.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  No, but I do want to make this clear, because I feel like every male listening to this is going, oh, God, this is not good. I don't like.

• 14:44Speaker 04

  Switch it off, switch it off.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  Throwing the phone in the pool.

• 14:48Speaker 03

  Delete this episode from my wife's feed. But I just, I don't want men to hate me because I didn't want to do this. And we did end up doing it, and it's one of the best things I think we've done for our relationship.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  So Hugh, you've got a pile, and Penny, you've got a pile. So are these the ones that you, is your?

• 15:04Speaker 02

  That we took on.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, we took all the cards out, put them all in front of us. And then we literally went, we draw a card and go, who wants this one? I'll take this. You take that one. I've got this one. I've got this one. You got that one. So, okay. Number one, cleaning.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  School forms.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  Groceries.

• 15:18Speaker 02

  Bathing and grooming.

• 15:19Speaker 03

  Extracurricular activity for the kids.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Laundry.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  Garbage.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Clothes and accessories for kids.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Home maintenance.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Caregiving, pets.

• 15:28Speaker 03

  Meals, weekend.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  Meals, weekday dinner.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Meals, weekday breakfast.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Home goods and supplies, nappies, wipes.

• 15:37Speaker 03

  If it was up to me, our kids would be the first kids to never wear nappies.

• 15:40Speaker 04

  It would affect your cleaning card a bit.

• 15:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're right. Ponytail was not mentioned in this.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  Hi, it's Ryan from The Imperfects, and I'm reaching out to you now because we need your help, gosh darn it.

• 15:58Speaker 04

  What, why do we need?

• 15:59Speaker 00

  Sorry, no, we're, I'm just making a plea to the listeners and viewers to ask them to subscribe to the show in whichever way they see fit, because it really helps. The more subscribers, the better we can make this show. Am I right?

• 16:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I don't think we need to, I think we could just ask them politely.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, but if I use the emotional music.

• 16:17Speaker 04

  I think the music's a bit much.

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Is it?

• 16:19Speaker 03

  Who's playing that music?

• 16:20Speaker 00

  Doesn't matter who's playing the music. The important thing is, we're pulling at the heartstrings and asking them to do us a solid.

• 16:26Speaker 04

  Could we not just ask, like, just ask them straight? Like, it'd really help us if you guys subscribed, because we would be able to make more of the show and make the show better.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  Oh, and not use emotional manipulation?

• 16:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, I reckon.

• 16:38Speaker 00

  Well, you can give it a go, but I doubt it'll work.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  But maybe a good thing to do now is, if, if you're comfortable, just to maybe talk us through the eight different types of mental load that you speak about in your book?

• 16:50Speaker 02

  No problem. So you think there are one type of mental load, but I'm here to tell you there are eight. The first one is called life organization. And this is maybe the most traditional way, and I think a lot of what was described would be characteristic of life organization. So that's like the emotional thinking work you do to keep everything running in the home, list making, et cetera, et cetera. Thus far, this has been our definition of the mental load. This is how we've understood it in the media. This is how we talk about it to each other. It's one type. The second type is emotional support. This is emotional thinking work to make sure that people feel included. This might be like you're sitting across from your child or someone at work or your partner, and you're scanning to see

• 17:33Speaker 02

  how are they doing today? Are they okay? What's going on? When I did the interviews, this was what women tended to hold more within the home, and men tended to hold less of. You might do this at work too. But I want you to think about, you're doing emotional support, work for your friends. It might be why you don't want to pick up the phone sometimes when someone calls, right? Sometimes you're burnt out and you're like, oh, I can't do this emotional support work right now. The third is relationship hygiene. And this, at work, we would just say this is networking, right? Like, do you have the right people in your life? Are you maintaining connections and networks? But at home, it could be something like, you know, has grandma been invited to dinner? Do my kids have play dates?

• 18:13Speaker 03

  Yep. Am I right in saying women, typically from the conversations you've had, the work you've done, they do more of that as well?

• 18:19Speaker 02

  They, well, I, I would like to say, like, they do more of that in the home life, but men would, I think, say, yeah, I'm doing a lot of relationship hygiene work at work. Exactly, right? Because these are the networks I need to, to work towards my dreams and work towards my goals.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  So men traditionally, their relationship hygiene is more hygiene for themselves as opposed to.

• 18:41Speaker 03

  For other people.

• 18:42Speaker 00

  For the other people, yeah.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  For those of you listening, I am nodding.

• 18:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay, yeah.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  But what I want also is to say, you're, you can actually have those skills, they can just cross transfer, right? It's not that you don't know how to do it. You're doing it over here, bring it across over here. Everyone comes to the middle.

• 18:58Speaker 00

  Which is, I mean, this is, it helps us become more conscious of doing that. Yeah.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  Great.

• 19:02Speaker 03

  Okay, number four.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  Thank you. Four is dream building. That's like the emotional thinking work you do to think about. Does everyone have everything they need for their biggest dreams, goals and ambitions, including yourself? What I heard a lot was mothers started to put their dreams down to the bottom of the list over time. I think you, you all talked a little bit on the first episode, how do you negotiate, like, who was going to stay home and who wasn't? And then everything changed a little bit, right?

• 19:27Speaker 03

  That's exactly what it was. It was before we had kids and before any of this had happened, I said to her, I love the idea of being a stay at home dad, which was extremely appealing to her because career is such a big thing. And all of a sudden, this happened and took off. And then she would never want to deny me of doing this thing that I love so much, but I mean, she had to then sacrifice her career for a few years while the kids, well, I say a few years, it tends to be ongoing for her.

• 19:52Speaker 00

  But also, like, just to, to add to that, when we started the podcast, we, it was the most part time thing you could imagine. It was, we literally did six episodes across a whole year. It was really doing it in our spare time, and we never expected it to become a full time thing. So that was a surprise, I think, for all of us.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, there's also, the resilience project became so big, and it was, we felt like such important work. She'd never say, well, don't do that. And then, and so that, that's the, in, on the topic of like dream making, that's a huge, a huge thing that we, we. Still struggle with a lot.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  Cause you're both doing emotional thinking work for your dreams and her dreams and where are the dreams going, right? And how do you negotiate that? Beautiful.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  Five, magic making. This was one that was really imbalanced. Actually, men would say, I don't do it. It's not important. Or it's not, it's not, she treats it as more important than I think it actually is. But this is making life feel special, carrying on traditions. It could be Elf on the Shelf. It could be, you know, making the pudding. I have to do an Australian example, making the Christmas pudding that no one eats, right? Like these things that sometimes we carry forward because we feel like we need to carry tradition. And sometimes we do and sometimes we don't. Magic making can be as small as like, you know, making sure a weekend feels special.

• 21:12Speaker 00

  Why is it that traditionally women find it more important than men do?

• 21:16Speaker 02

  For some people, they love this work. Some people are really good at magic making. They're really good at making things feel special and that is a skill that is valuable.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  And it fills their sort of cup to do it.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Exactly. Crediting.

• 21:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  I want those people, men and women, to be like, yes. And then I want to buy things from them because I don't do magic making either. Right? So there's like, I think some people have certain skills, talents, and it fills their cup. Then I think what we've done is said, but no, no, no, we need to make sure life feels magical for our children because if you don't, then, then actually, or other people, because if you don't, it's a way to show that you don't care or their childhoods are going to be scarred. And if they don't have the eight million trips or the whatever it is.

• 21:58Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  That then they don't have a good childhood and then they're going to look back and they're going to go to therapy and say like, no one did this for me.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  Do you think since the age of social media and sharing our lives publicly, do you think the incentives for people have slightly changed in terms of magic making?

• 22:15Speaker 02

  I think yes. I think there's more pressure on it.

• 22:17Speaker 00

  Yeah. Because it's probably, it feels like there's maybe more motivation to create the magic moment so you can be judged positively.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 22:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, which you're offering up anyway.

• 22:31Speaker 02

  And who doesn't want to have a magical life, right?

• 22:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. So maybe it's a good thing.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  But there's a huge amount of work coming behind.

• 22:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  So who's doing the work to create it?

• 22:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  And then maybe sometimes it's valuable, right? Like sometimes it is really magical, but it's, I think it's sorting through when we, when the magic making is worth it. So I, I was in the age at Christmas two years ago and there was like me in the pool eating lasagna.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  This is in the newspaper, the age.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, like the fancy one, right?

• 23:00Speaker 02

  And I say like, I don't do magic making during Christmas. I just eat lasagna in the pool.

• 23:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Which is not a lie.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  And it was like a revelation, like you can reject this actually. You can do this or you can reject this. This is my way of saying, there's so much social pressure, social media, women's magazines coming before, I mean, fill in the blank, right? To have everything be perfect and you have to do crafts and your kids can't show up with pre-baked stuff. And there's a standard we're all trying to get to.

• 23:28Speaker 00

  So you have children?

• 23:29Speaker 02

  I have a daughter.

• 23:29Speaker 00

  You have a daughter. Okay. So does, cause as a, to reject it and to go like, I don't like it. I'm out. I'm going to eat lasagna in the pool. Does that mean that you then have to negotiate with your partner to be like, I don't want to do it, but that means you have to?

• 23:45Speaker 02

  Oh, bless you. Um, yes. Well, my husband knows that I am terrible at it. So he does do it.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  Okay. Yeah. So was that a conversation?

• 23:53Speaker 02

  No, it just was like pure negligence on my part. But my daughter did have a deep confrontation with me where she said, you never hid Easter eggs for me.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  I had to hide my own Easter eggs.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  It's kind of true. It was like, it was like, it was like a 50% true story. Like she, of course we did. And there are pictures of her and whatever. And I was like, yeah, but girl, I've like taken you around the world. Like we've done, like this magic making is not my magic making, but there's all these other things that we've done.

• 24:27Speaker 00

  I see. I know what you mean.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  And I don't feel bad about this. Also, I didn't make a big deal about the holidays because it's not my skillset, but you're the first person that you call when you need emotional support. We do all sorts of other magic making and I don't feel, sorry, I don't feel guilty for disappointing my child because I can't be everything to everyone all the time.

• 24:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:48Speaker 02

  And still keep myself.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  Do we like that?

• 24:55Speaker 03

  Well, that's the next one, isn't it?

• 24:57Speaker 02

  Individual upkeep. Oh, thank you. Okay. Individual upkeep is emotional thinking work you do to keep yourself fit and healthy. Um, this could be, you know, have I gone to the doctor? Have I gone for the walk? Have I read the book? Have I done the additional training?

• 25:11Speaker 03

  Cause we, we did the audit. We'll talk about this in a second, but I thought, yeah, I was proud. Like, yes, I'm very good at that. But I think you can go too far with that. And that becomes an issue for the other person because you're so busy measuring every measurable thing in your health and then exercising all the time that the other person, that's potentially not a good thing for the other person.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Can we talk about that? Like what happened? Cause this came through the interviews. Was this a, like, was this a division within your partnership? Like for the individual upkeep? Or what did it look like for you? I'll ask it more broadly.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  Well, I wrote 50/50 years in, we both think a lot about it, but I actually, because Penny's away, I couldn't do this with her, but so I did it for her.

• 25:48Speaker 00

  You filled in Penny's mental load.

• 25:53Speaker 03

  I did very well.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  Everything's, everything's half half.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  She's actually handling things really well.

• 26:04Speaker 03

  She thinks I'm great at this.

• 26:06Speaker 00

  Wow. What a hack.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  What I meant to say, sorry, was I feel I did my own answers and I couldn't obviously do hers. So we can't compare them to what she thinks. So this is my response.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  One of the things we heard was like, men would say, I need the individual upkeep. I need the exercise. I need the time because if I, that's a recovery time for me. That's a time for me to de-stress. That's a time for me to like, kind of ground myself. I show up better in the family. And it's also important for work, right? Like I have a job and it's kind of rebalances me. And then women would say like, I haven't, I can't make the time because time away to do these things is at the expense of my family. So men would often talk about like, I'm taking the resources and it's filling back in so I can show back up in the world in a better way and my partnership in a better way. And women feel an incredible amount of guilt about that. They would say like, I can't do the walk. I can't do the,

• 27:01Speaker 02

  because someone needs me. And so my goal is everyone comes a little bit in, right? Like it's, it's not saying like to men, like, oh, you gotta drop all that because that's nonsense. No, it's actually really important for your health and wellbeing and all this stuff. You might not even know that this is the thought process going through your partner's head, right? Is like, I can't go to the doctor. I don't have the time. The kids need it. And so how do you bring everyone back into the middle? And the, and the mothers would talk about like, I'm the linchpin in the family. Like if I go down, the whole family goes down.

• 27:31Speaker 00

  Interesting. I think my wife and I are terrible at that part, but let's do the last two. Safety.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  Safety. Um, so thinking about is everyone safe, right? Like, um, looking out to the world, we heard that the LGBTIQ plus population would say this is higher, right? I'm thinking a lot more about my safety. Makes sense. If you run, work through unsafe worlds, a lot of your mental load would go to that. But am I safe? Is my family safe? And in particular for Hispanic and African Americans in the US at this moment in time. So thinking about that, mental loads going to, am I safe in this world? And then the last one, I hate the way I named it. So I'm just going to start, I'm going to start that I want to like cross it out. But we called it Metacare, which is both confusing in Australia and the US. It's a real, that was a real misnomer. But I want you to think.

• 28:19Speaker 00

  What would you prefer to call it?

• 28:21Speaker 02

  The world is a dumpster fire and what's going on? Care? Mental load?

• 28:25Speaker 00

  Right. Oh, so it's, it's care about like issues and things that we're all seeing on our feeds every day.

• 28:32Speaker 02

  Exactly. So part, um, part of it is like, am I being a good parent? Am I showing up in the world? Like, am I showing up in the world aligned with my values? Like, am I doing this whole thing right? And also people will talk about like, what does the world look like that's reflected back to me? One of the things I, I keep saying as I'm moving through the world, talking about this book is like, if you're doom scrolling and you find that you're actually exhausted by it, it's in part because it's burning through your Medicare mental load, right? It's like the meta mental load. Like what is this world that I'm seeing? And we've told each other that to be informed is to be engaged. We need to know everything all the time. But actually to be informed in an information overload moment is to be totally disengaged because by the end you're exhausted. So I

• 29:15Speaker 02

  would like to give you all permission for that piece of it, to drop some of it. Because actually, what I, what I hope is that we free up some time to be like, here's the world I want to create. Here's my goals, my dreams, my ambitions, which happens in the audit. And then is this time, this mental load energy spent looking at a world that I don't like, worth it? Because actually all that, it can result in total inactivity or inaction, which actually what we need now is more action, right?

• 29:41Speaker 00

  Well, and action requires energy.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. So just to list the eight again, quickly, there's life organization, emotional support, relationship hygiene, magic making, dream building, individual upkeep and Medicare. But Sophie and I actually did the audit and it was an interesting experience. I have to admit, the first time I brought it up that we were going to do it and we started talking mental load, I got, I got pretty defensive straight away. It was like in the morning, we're getting kids ready for school.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  I didn't plan to have the discussion, but it's.

• 30:14Speaker 04

  Started, the discussion just sort of started. I got defensive and it didn't go that well. But then, um.

• 30:19Speaker 03

  Man are trash.

• 30:22Speaker 03

  The worst.

• 30:23Speaker 04

  But then last night, it was like the last possible chance to do it. And I did want to do this close to us having the discussion today. So it was all fresh. And Soph had a big work thing. And then she ended up having a few drinks and she came home and, and was in a, she'd have, she was a bit drunk. And, uh, we ended up starting and doing it last night. And it was a lot of, I have to say, it was like really fun. Like it was a really enjoyable experience. And I think going into it just purely out of happenstance that she'd happened to have a few drinks and I was in a different mood. It was nice to do it with a sense of lightness rather than heaviness. So, and, and I found it to be a really fulfilling experience because there was a lot of

• 31:06Speaker 04

  like lovely moments of like, oh yeah, you are doing that, or I am doing that, or this acknowledgement of all the things we are doing. So it wasn't at all a blame, a, a, a finger pointing exercise. And I think because I think I, I came to it with second time going, don't be defensive here at all. And also she was.

• 31:28Speaker 03

  Drunk.

• 31:28Speaker 04

  Drunk.

• 31:31Speaker 04

  No, it wasn't just the drunkness.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  The guard is down.

• 31:33Speaker 04

  I just wanted, I, I think it was, it's a, it's a good thing to mention that an audit sounds serious, but it doesn't have to be.

• 31:39Speaker 03

  You can have fun with it.

• 31:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, you can have fun with it. Yeah. And we did have fun with it. And it was a beautiful thing to acknowledge all the work that we're all doing.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Maybe it'll be a drinking game. Maybe this will be the next.

• 31:50Speaker 04

  We'll call it the blame game.

• 31:55Speaker 04

  But can I offer something that I'd love your thoughts on here? So Soph and I never did the cards. We, we always said, we're going to do these cards and we just never got around to doing it.

• 32:04Speaker 03

  This is the fair play cards.

• 32:05Speaker 04

  The fair play cards that, um, yeah. When we had a night off to go out for dinner, I thought, this is our one probably relationship hygiene moment. I don't want to spend it doing this. So we resisted it. And I think we've failed in, there are moment, there are definite, as I go through my audit, it's, it's, there are some where it's really uneven. Um, to Soph, somewhere it's uneven to me. Um, and somewhere we both feel like we're failing, just failing and not feeling enough of that at all.

• 32:35Speaker 04

  But one of the things that I think that I've struggled with, with the idea of the mental load is that a lot of the, the cards and the way I've heard other people talk about it is this idea that we will segment these jobs, as you just said, you'll do that, you'll do that and everything's going to be great. Whereas I think that for me, and I was actually chatting to Penny about this, um, last week. And she sort of put up the idea. She's like, I don't know how to, I, I have no idea how to solve this problem. And she's like, I don't know if you're supposed to like be clearer when you're earlier on in a relationship of defined roles and stuff like that. And my feeling is that there's a assumption built in here that people are, um, unchanging throughout their life.

• 33:18Speaker 04

  And I think that everyone changes all the time. We're always changing and our desires change, our needs change, our wants change, um, our dislikes change. And the success of a relationship, or I feel like the success for me and Soph, if we can have a good relationship for our whole life is how we're going to navigate that change together and how we become different people throughout our lives. And the only way to do that is through really good communication, I think. And so for me, the value of this process is it facilitated open communication about where we're at with all this stuff. And who does what is less important, more to know how we're feeling about everything. Seemed to be the more valuable part of the whole exercise.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  That was so beautiful. I want to like, hold your hand as, after you said that, because I thought it was so beautiful. Um, cause I agree with you. I think it's like, how are you changing together and turning towards each other rather than turning away, right? And building empathy and compassion for each other.

• 34:17Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  One of the things that I, uh, I've, I've been asked a lot about the audit, right? Like, and for those of you who are listening, like what I'm asking you to do is start thinking about your energy as being finite, thinking about it like your money. Start to figure out where it's going into which of these eight accounts. Start to figure out if you're spending more than you have. Start to figure out if it brings you energy or it takes energy away. This is my credit versus debit. Start to figure out who deserves to be in your life, who doesn't. Um, and then start to realign, like get really clear on your goals. Where do I want to be in one, three and five years? Just like you would a financial planner, right? Would ask you this. But I, what I, what I have asked, because people have said like, oh great, I'm going to have another, this is not what you're saying to me, but

• 34:58Speaker 02

  I'm okay, I'm going to have to go have another fight with my partner, right? Like, I think you're going to ask me to do this and then we're going to see inequality and we're going to show up and we're going to fight. And I'm saying not necessarily actually, because two things, one, you don't have to do the audit with your partner at all, because it's actually just intrinsically helpful for you to see where is your energy going and is it aligned with your goals? That's one. Two, we, once you get clear on your goals, you, it might not be your partner who's the person who's going to help you on this, right? Like you might actually be like, I want to get a promotion at work. He's not the person who's going to help you. You might need networks at work or you might need to activate resources from your family budget. Like you might need to think about moving states or moving jobs or

• 35:41Speaker 02

  it, it, it might not be, I think there's a lot of pressure on the partnership to solve all of the problems of the world. And then one of the things that I heard too is like,

• 35:52Speaker 02

  once I can say to my partner, here's where I want to go. I'm trying to get a promotion at work. How do we do this together? This is the goal. Then some of the work around it becomes more easy to negotiate and less resistant, right? It's not like you are doing 50%, I'm doing 30%. It's like, here's where I'm trying to go. How do we get there? That's a little bit of a more open, which, and to your point, like that can change. Here's where I'm trying to go now. Okay. Wait, now I really want to do this. How do we do this as a couple? How we do this as a partnership? So I like that evolution across. Did that help?

• 36:25Speaker 04

  Absolutely. I, I think one of the things that came out of it was a certain clarity. I think Soph and I are probably, I think this could be somewhat stereotypical. But in a lot of cases, she's carrying mental load on things, but then will delegate the task for me to do it. And we hadn't quite realized that that was happening on a lot of occasions.

• 36:47Speaker 04

  And it was good to have the discussion of like, well, are you okay with that situation? Like is that, and I'm not sure we're fully through that conversation. I'd say we're halfway through that conversation of like, some of these jobs. She's like, I'm actually kind of, I, I hate doing, um, like what would be a good example. Well, recently my, my son, um, started playing basketball. So there's all the logistics about that. And she was like, I would love him to do it. I think this is falls into, I guess, dream building to a degree. Of like, I'd love him to do it. And, and I feel the same because I think it's going to be great. But I have worries, like safety concerns and that comes into it. But then also she's like, I don't really want to have to manage the whole thing. That you're, you have to take that on.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  If, if we're going to do this, because I've got all this other stuff and we have the discussion and now it's like, okay. The doing of it now becomes my job, but now there's mental load in the doing of it. So there was mental load in the thinking of it, that it had to be done, that I have to join that WhatsApp group, that I had to download the app. That I needed the boot from like the, the sort of nudge from her to get it started, but now it's on me. And now I carry the mental load of that. So.

• 37:57Speaker 03

  It actually reminds me of the brilliant analogy you had from the last episode.

• 38:01Speaker 04

  Uh, as far as, oh yeah.

• 38:02Speaker 03

  Which we actually have a grab for.

• 38:04Speaker 04

  Oh yeah.

• 38:04Speaker 03

  So if you want to finish that idea there first, but I'm.

• 38:07Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, we could play that grab, but I, I think what I'm saying is that I, maybe we should play the grab and I'll talk off the back of it. If that works. Yeah.

• 38:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. But I also realized that a lot of the things I'm doing are kind of like, to a degree, not to kind of like shift work as opposed to running a business.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 38:25Speaker 04

  In that like, and shift work can be hard and it can be very tiring and, and there's nothing easy about shift work. But you switch off and it doesn't carry on to the next thing. And I come up and then I go off to work. So some maternity leave at the moment. So she's there all the time. And yeah, and I started to realize, oh, I don't know certain things about Orgy's routine, about when he's supposed to have bottles and when he's, and, and if we're moving on to a different type of food now.

• 38:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 38:55Speaker 04

  I don't know. I didn't know there was a thing that happened with Charlie's childcare. And I was like, I actually don't know what our plan is for, like where, where I moved him into the wrong room at one point. And I was like, I actually don't know what our plan is for three year old kinder and four year old kinder. And Soph knew everything and had it all figured out and they'd been doing all that thinking.

• 39:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:16Speaker 04

  And it became really clear to me the amount of stuff that even though I'm doing a lot, that, that a lot of the jobs I take on are in and out shift work as opposed to.

• 39:25Speaker 03

  Great analogy.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  That is a really good analogy.

• 39:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  So to link that to this, I feel like we've evolved, we've changed, as I said before, quite a lot as a relationship, as our kids have grown as well, that I feel like I have, I'm taking on the basketball, not as a shift worker now, if that makes sense. So that's kind of like, I'm the boss of that element. But I have a question that I'd love to ask you, and I'd love to hear your thoughts about this, that is related to one of the other things that came up from, from this list, was by the concept of buying presents. So it falls to Soph a lot to buy presents for other kids in when we go to birthday parties, and she thinks about that a lot more than me. It's so stereotypical, but

• 40:15Speaker 04

  I'm probably the dad that of the morning of the party goes, oh shit, we need to go to get a present. And there was a discussion that we had off the back of this last night, because I'm not that great at getting presents for, say, my mum and dad for their birthdays. But I would say as a family, that, I don't know, I've never asked them if they have a problem with that, but I don't think they have a problem with that. I don't think, certainly dad wouldn't expect me to be getting him a present for his birthday. I'm looking, talking to you here, I don't know, but there's been assumption built in, like you and I don't really get each other birthday presents, whereas Soph feels this anxiety that, Josh, you haven't bought presents for your parents, that makes me a bad wife and a bad mum. And

• 40:59Speaker 04

  I'm like to Soph, none of the pressure on that is coming from our family, that you're, like, my parents would not look at you and think, how did my son miss my birthday? Why didn't his wife remind him? There is zero pressure coming from internally in the family. But she feels that pressure immensely. And I think this leads perfectly into the perfect motherhood myth, and how that interacts with the mental load.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  Okay, I'm going to talk to you about a different study that we did that is like making its way around the, around the, and then I'm going to give you relationship advice. You're ready? As a sociologist, not trained, not trained at all. Okay, so we have this study that we did with Sarah Tabo and Sabino Cornrich at UC Santa Barbara and NYU. We did this a while ago. It's called the messy house study. Sabino and I were wandering around Melbourne, and he said, you know what's the one thing you want to test? And I said, I want to test this idea that men are dirt blind, right? Like, this idea that we say to each other, like, you just can't see the keys, you can't find anything, men just don't see the mess. The reason why women clean more is because men just can't see the mess. They don't see the dishes, they don't see anything.

• 42:02Speaker 04

  That's the hypothesis you wanted to test.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  Exactly. And so what we did is we did a study where we had one room, it was the exact same room, and one was relatively clean and one was messy. And the first thing we did was we showed people the messy and the clean room, and if men couldn't see the mess, right, they would look at that messy room and be like, oh, that's clean. And they, right, that would be the result. So that was the first thing we tested. And then the answer was, everyone saw the messy room as equally messy, and everyone saw the clean room as equally clean. So this idea that like, men are wandering around the room and like, oh, I don't see the dishes, we have science to back up that that's nonsense. Not true. So if that's not the issue, then the question would be, why? Why do women then stress clean? Why when someone's about to show up, I'm going to bring it back to the birthday gift,

• 42:47Speaker 02

  I promise. Why when they, when someone shows up unannounced, do women feel this incredible sense of anxiety around it? And so we asked, if you came into this room, how would you view her?

• 42:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  And people will say like, fine, she's fine, doesn't matter. But if someone else shows up unexpectedly or unannounced, a relative, a coworker, a boss, how would they view Jennifer or John based on the status of this room? If the room was relatively clean, they would view her, Jennifer, as less human, less capable, less competent.

• 43:22Speaker 04

  If it was clean?

• 43:23Speaker 02

  Maybe, even if it's relatively clean.

• 43:25Speaker 04

  But not perfect.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  But not perfect.

• 43:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  That they would view her as less, less human, right? Not, not like messy, but yeah, they're going to think she doesn't have her shit together, right? The, I think the reason why this keeps hitting women is because I think it's this, what you're describing to a little bit of this like miscommunication, where she's saying, I don't know, I just feel like people are going to judge me. And you're like, no, they're not. And our study is like, people are saying like, I wouldn't, I might not care about the status of this room. But yes, her boss is going to judge her, or yes, her in-law is going to judge her, yes, her friend is going to see her as less. And so I think one of the challenges is when women say like, I don't know, I just feel like this is going to be a problem. And you're

• 44:11Speaker 02

  like, no, it's not going to be a problem because my family doesn't care and no one's going to judge you. It's like she's talking about the water we're swimming in, right? Like, it's a little bit, women then feel gaslit, right? Like, I'm telling you this is a problem. I'm telling you that I think that someone's going to say something to me. I'm telling you this, and you're telling me, don't worry, don't worry about that, don't get, it's not a problem. And so I, one of the things I ask, I talk about how you can't see into her world and she can't see into yours. And so remaining a little curious and actually going like, yeah, I think you're right. Like, or like, my family might not, but I do understand that you probably feel like you're going to be judged if you don't get the gifts right. We have been socialized into systems where we believe that someone is going to come in and judge us for these things. And then if you actually say like, will they really?

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Sometimes you're like, oh no, this is just, I've held this norm, or I think my grand, my mother would, or I think this person's going to see me as less.

• 45:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:03Speaker 02

  But whether they actually do or not, is an open question.

• 45:07Speaker 04

  Okay, okay.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  But either way, it has an impact on how we move through the world, right?

• 45:11Speaker 04

  So as we're anticipating judgment.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Exactly. And it feels shameful.

• 45:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, on that one, like, Maddie at work, who is a really old friend, and we were discussing about like, the pressure of keeping your house clean. And we were like, let's just make an agreement, if we ever come to each other's house with kids, we don't clean up, but I still, I cheated and I cleaned.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Why, um, why?

• 45:32Speaker 04

  Because I felt like if she really saw, like, I cleaned a bit, I cleaned to a degree, like a middle amount where it's like, oh, he hasn't completely sanitized the place. But if she saw how I really live with kids, oh, oh dear. And I think I probably did the same when, when Ryan and Jam came around, because they don't have kids. I cleaned to a degree that I thought, this is socially acceptable to have this amount of mess.

• 45:56Speaker 02

  We still thought you were less human afterwards.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  Confirmed.

• 46:03Speaker 04

  But I mean, I feel that pressure, but I think, I think women in general feel it more, or mothers feel it more, I think. And I feel it, I think, feel it across the board. I feel like with the presents thing, there's a carefreeness that I can go, I feel like it's easier to be carefree with so much of this mental load stuff, because I could turn up to a party with a present that was wrapped in newspaper and make a joke about it, and I feel like people wouldn't judge me. Whereas she would turn up with that and feel judged less than, I'm the, I'm the worst mum here.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  The research shows that we're messier now than ever before, right? That actually people are spending less time cleaning, that people are more busy, they're spending more time in work, less time in leisure. So it's all like, we're all trying to hide the truth from each other, which is like, we're messy, and we should just be able to wrap things in newspaper, right? Because who cares? Or give kids cash, because really, why pick out the perfect present when really doesn't everyone just want 20 or 50 dollars? Or like, isn't that the answer?

• 47:00Speaker 04

  It's probably, it's probably a big reason why the idea of the, someone just dropping in unannounced is so terrifying, because it's like, if you just come unannounced, then you're going to see the real me. And I can't have that. Like, I can't, I can't let you see what's actually going on in here, because I have to get, get out of bed, I have to have a shower, I have to get dressed, I have to put on my public face. And then, and that's, but like, yeah, we, we can't let anyone see the truth. We've talked to, we have a resident psychologist that comes on a lot, Dr. M, and she's spoken a lot about, for a lot of conditions, being exposed to a level of experiencing it is the

• 47:42Speaker 04

  goal. We don't want to avoid unpleasant experiences, we don't want to avoid, spend a life avoiding things. We have kids in the neighborhood who, and I love it, it's one of my favorite things, just turn up to our house and knock on the door and say like, is Charlie home? And yeah, and then their parents might be a minute behind them, chasing him down the street, saying, sorry, he just took off and wanted to say g'day. And then suddenly you're welcoming in, in the middle of the day, unannounced, child, parent, chaos. And I've had to get a lot more used to being like, I'm sorry, Leoni, you're listening to this, probably. I'm sorry, Leoni, about the state of our house, but this is just, and, but it's made me get to a point of like, actually, it doesn't matter. And I'm wondering,

• 48:27Speaker 04

  to what level can you have that attitude, or that kind of invite a little bit of failure in across the mental load, across all these categories, with the, with the, through the lens of a bit of growth and a little

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. I want to give you a high five. I want to like, oh, yes, this is the point. This is exactly the point. So one of the things I talk about is good is good enough. Like, how do we get to a good is good enough mentality? You're saying like, actually, how do we take some of the pressure down to present as perfect, be comfortable with good is good enough, figure out what's the shit we actually care about? And what's the stuff that's like, we've been told since birth that this is important, but actually, if we really look at it, this is where I say use sociology as your superpower. Like, if you actually look at it, do I care? Do I really care? Wouldn't I rather have the moment with the parents in the house and the social connection in this moment where we're so socially isolated, but we keep people out because we don't want them to see the real us, but then, you know, you don't want them to see the unshowered

• 49:24Speaker 02

  person there, right? Like, and bring them in.

• 49:27Speaker 00

  Well, I actually think, and maybe this is just like such a classic man thing to say, but I actually, and I think Jam agrees with me on this. I think when we go to people's homes, other people's homes, and it's not perfectly clean, we'd prefer that.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  You must have loved it when you came to our place.

• 49:48Speaker 00

  But like, and the thing is, I'll never know how much cleaning anyone does before I get there. But it's a, we always talk about it, Jam and I, it's like, whenever we want our house to be a lived in house, but we always fall into the trap. And Jam particularly feels the pressure much more than me, which goes, which is in line with the science, that when people come over, she wants it to be really clean. And I end up always going like, I don't think it matters. Which is obviously.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  Now my study, well, she's right. You're, I'm sorry. She's right. You're wrong.

• 50:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 50:18Speaker 02

  You're welcome.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  Scientifically. But yeah, but I really, and I don't know how you guys feel about that, but I love it when I go to someone else's house and it doesn't feel like beautifully clean, because it feels, I don't know, like, real.

• 50:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I think there's, to be honest, I think there's a middle ground. Like, I would, this is gonna sound judgy, but I think there's a level to which I'd be like, oh, this is disgusting. Kind of. Like, if I'm being totally honest.

• 50:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:48Speaker 04

  I think there's like, there's an acceptable amount of mess that I'd be like, oh, yeah, this is.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  But do you think if we came over, if Jam and I came to your house and you didn't touch it, and it was like, you know, after, like, on a Sunday afternoon, after a full weekend.

• 51:01Speaker 04

  And it's messiest.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  And it's messiest. Do you really think that we would think that you guys are disgusting?

• 51:07Speaker 04

  I think there's a chance.

• 51:09Speaker 00

  Let's test it.

• 51:11Speaker 04

  You just gotta turn up unannounced one day. Yeah, I think there's a chance.

• 51:14Speaker 00

  I just, I just think, my assumption would be, I would be like, well, I have kids.

• 51:21Speaker 04

  Like, what about our rooms, though? So like, the kids' rooms can be messy. What about, so like, if there's a floor drob situation that you can barely see carpet.

• 51:29Speaker 00

  But like, that is our house as well. Like, it's like, you're assuming that we're living in like a Vogue-ready.

• 51:35Speaker 04

  I am.

• 51:36Speaker 00

  But you only think like, because every, the time you've been, it's been cleaned before you got there. So it's actually not true. It's like, our house is maybe not as messy as a house with kids, but it's still, we have floor drob situations all the time. Like, it's, it's the truth that nobody wants to get out. But it's like, it's, that is the reality.

• 51:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  Would you rather have the time with him and get the judgment, or no judgment and no time?

• 52:00Speaker 04

  Uh, great question.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  No judgment. No, just kidding. No, no, I love the time. And I think about some of the times when parents have come around unannounced, and I can think of one in particular with their kids, and this parent had had a really, really hard morning, and I didn't know them well at this point. And they came in, I offered them a cup of tea, and they started crying, and we had a hug. And it was, and our relationship's been so much stronger since then. And it was one of the most important moments of parenting. And that happened in amongst all that chaos. And, um, yeah, so I wouldn't have it any other way, really. Yeah. Yeah. Don't clean next time we come over.

• 52:42Speaker 03

  What are the, well, are there any other things that you, people must ask you this a lot, like, what are the things that couples that you've spoken to who are doing this well? Is there anything that they consistently do? You spoke then about like, sort of, I guess embracing imperfections and not trying to do it perfectly. Are there any other things that, that you have heard people do really well?

• 53:01Speaker 02

  One of the things that we heard from the LGBTIQ plus population of parents that we interviewed was like, they don't hold on to tasks forever. And that's what the fair play cards are asking you to do, right, is to have an honest conversation and then reallocate. Someone told me, if I'm really down and burnt out, I ask my kids, and they need something for me, emotional support or whatever, I ask them, on a scale of one to 10, what is it? And if it's an eight or above, it happens now. If it's a five, I say, I'm really tired right now. Can we revisit this tomorrow?

• 53:31Speaker 00

  Oh, that's good.

• 53:32Speaker 02

  I thought it was good, too. And then she says, I put a note in my calendar, so I don't forget, right? Like, I will come, and I'll come back to them and ask, even if it's below, she didn't say this, but I'm adding it in, if it's a one or a two, maybe they can solve it on their own. So getting, and it helps them to think about how to move through the world to solve their own problems, but also her time is being valuable. And so I think that was a really interesting thing that sometimes we need to put a stopgap, like, not everything is an emergency.

• 53:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's good.

• 54:01Speaker 04

  Did, in your research, have you found, because I, this is purely anecdotal, but I'd be interested to know if there's science behind it, that an imbalance in mental load is less common in same-sex couples?

• 54:14Speaker 02

  Okay, so the research on like, housework and childcare is that it's not necessarily less imbalanced, per se, but people feel, they might have inequity, but the way people feel about it is better. And that's interesting, because there's something going on in the communication, right? So I keep thinking, like, what's our goal? Is our goal to get 50/50? Like, is that the aim for us to have an equal split? Because we've kind of been sold that as an idea. Or is it as my, my friend Kate Mangino in her Equal Partnership talks about, no, it's about who needs what now? Like, it's about the overarch of the relationship. Eventually, we should have close to 50/50 over the duration of our relationship, which is to your point of like, everything changes and people move in and out. Who needs

• 54:58Speaker 02

  what now? But making sure that that doesn't just mean one partner gets everything, right? Because their needs are bigger. So how do we think about this as an arc across our relationship?

• 55:09Speaker 04

  And so, to link it to the same-sex couples versus heterosexual couples, it seems, are you saying that the mental load and the allocation of work might not be equal, but there's more satisfaction with the way the, the, the whole deal's running?

• 55:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that's not necessarily more equal, but there's more movement of, of work between without resistance. And then there was also this conversation about like, when I say, I feel like I'm being judged for this. So we had one who was a non-binary parent who said, like, when I presented as a mom, and I showed up, like, they described basically that they had forgotten a white towel or something for tie dye day at school. Went into the car, found some sort of dirty something, brought it into the school, and the teachers are like, well done, dad. Like, you did such a good job. I can't believe you solved this problem. And was like, actually, when I presented as a mom, like, this would not be the treatment I would have gotten. And so one of the things I'm trying to, I guess what I'm saying is, if you're in a same-sex partnership, you understand when someone

• 56:12Speaker 02

  says like, and for dads, too, when dads say to their partners, if I don't show up to work and look serious and I'm dedicated, my boss is going to punish me. We have the research showing that's true, too. We did a study where we took CVs, exact same CV, high-quality CVs, and we put in a gap for five years for caregiving. And especially in men-dominated jobs, hated the man who had a gap.

• 56:40Speaker 00

  Whoa, that's huge.

• 56:42Speaker 02

  So when men say like, you want me back in the home, I understand, but there's going to be a cost for me at work, that, that's true. That fear is not unwarranted. Whether that's the right decision for the family is open, right? But like, so, but it goes both ways, where you can't, they talked about, they could see into each other's social worlds better, because they had the exact same experiences. And so when they would say something, it would be met with less resistance, more understanding, right?

• 57:07Speaker 04

  Such a good point. I hadn't thought about it that way. And stop me if I'm paraphrasing you wrong. But in a heterosexual relationship, there's societal expectations and pressures that we've had our whole lives, that we're, we're swimming in different water.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 57:22Speaker 04

  That we're not clear about. Whereas, more often than not, or more commonly in a same-sex, sex partnership, you are swimming in similar waters, so you have more empathy and understanding for the other person's point of view.

• 57:35Speaker 02

  Exactly. It's like, oh, man, the water's so hot in here. And then you're like, no, no, it's freezing cold.

• 57:40Speaker 04

  That's really interesting.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  And then you're like, no, it's hot. No, it's cold. But actually, both of you are right.

• 57:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:45Speaker 02

  Your water's cold, my water's hot.

• 57:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, that's such a good point.

• 57:48Speaker 02

  And so no one's trying to be a jerk, right? Like, no one's like, I don't want to hear what you have to say. But it's like, no, that's not how I'm experiencing the world.

• 57:54Speaker 04

  Yeah. Great. That's a good penny drop moment for me. And I think it's also, it's so good that, that's why I think audits, and that's why I feel like communication is the whole thing about, like, trying to understand what the water's like for the other person.

• 58:05Speaker 02

  Remain a little curious.

• 58:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 58:08Speaker 00

  Awesome.

• 58:09Speaker 04

  The great Penelope drop.

• 58:13Speaker 03

  There'll be so many people listening to this who aren't lucky enough potentially to be in a partnership. So they're doing this all by themselves. And I think it's so important to mention them. There were people who, for whatever reason, their partner is not even open to these conversations. That would be really hard to listen to this as well. And that must be really tough. Something that you know about, Leah, which is also, I mean, I've been thinking these people as well, people who are experiencing chronic ill health, potentially, and trying to, tried to do all this stuff whilst managing an illness as well. This is something that is new to you, but something you now know a lot about, unfortunately.

• 58:52Speaker 02

  Listen to this bullshit, guys. Ready? Are you ready? So, right before this book come out, and you know, you spend like forever writing a book, like, it's like, three years plus my entire life. I'm laying in a hotel room in New Orleans with my family, and I found a lump in my breast, which was a very interesting moment. And then I'm like, there's no, it's gonna be cancer, because God knows, like, no one would be this cruel. But like, they are, and it was. And so, one of the gifts of this experience, so thank you for asking, and I'm okay, everyone, I'm okay. I know now you're worried, and I love you for your worry. But it was interesting, because one of the gifts of this was, you know, we were writing about the fact that there's this complex care that people, I'm not alone.

• 59:37Speaker 02

  Like, many people are managing health challenges, complex care, prioritizing what is most important at this moment in time. And this was a moment where you got to see, like, one, the way in which, like, cancer treatment for women is so gendered. So I got told I could get a breast, might finally get that breast job I was always dreaming of, because my, I would get the surgery. No, thank you. I got gifted meal delivery service, because my family would be lost without me cooking. My husband cooks all the time. I got cleaning products. And I got a vacuum. Not just any vacuum, like, a 1980s bagged vacuum, with a breast cancer sign on top.

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  This is from, like, the hospital.

• 1:00:28Speaker 00

  Oh, the hospital. This is all from the hospital.

• 1:00:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is all from, like, the doctors. I got, like, these three things. And I was like, man, I'm a trad wife now, right? Like, I'm gonna be there with my new boobs.

• 1:00:44Speaker 02

  Microwaving meals. What a gift.

• 1:00:48Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  So this is unbelievable, right? Like, I thought this is so funny. This is like, hasn't evolved to where the women are in these days. But this is a moment where, I guess I want to say that it is, it gave me insight, lived experiences, insight into the experiences that many people are carrying. It gave me the gift of community and people who came and loved me and supported me. It showed me which things were priorities. I mean, someone said, how do you figure out what is in your mental load? And it's like, try getting cancer, right? You're like, oh, do I care about that? I don't think so. So I didn't know if I would be here with you all.

• 1:01:24Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  But I'm here with you all. What a gift, what a gift, what a gift, what a gift.

• 1:01:28Speaker 00

  So.

• 1:01:29Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:01:29Speaker 00

  Amazing.

• 1:01:30Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  How long ago was that?

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  Uh, March.

• 1:01:33Speaker 00

  Oh, wow. So it's really recent.

• 1:01:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:36Speaker 00

  Wow. That would have been scary.

• 1:01:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:39Speaker 04

  Does it, I've got an image of, you know, an Inside Out, have you seen them? Yeah. For those who haven't seen the movie, you really have to.

• 1:01:46Speaker 00

  The Pixar film.

• 1:01:47Speaker 04

  Yeah. And in it, the main character has these experiences, and the experiences and memories are these balls. And sometimes, you don't know when, but these balls are gonna solidify into a long lasting belief about yourself. And I have an image of you when you get that diagnosis, that, and I guess the question is, does that then suddenly solidify into a new form of mental load about safety, for example?

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  Oh, that's so interesting. One of the things, too, like, so in my book, I'll talk to you about that there's like, seven different stages of mental load. You have to identify problems, and then remember and monitor and delegate, just kind of what you were talking about earlier, right? Like, I get the delegation of it, and then I do it, which is shown. And one of the things that we kept hearing from everybody is like, life is unpredictable. Just the minute you have everything lined up, the dog dies, or someone gets sick, or something happens. And I thought, wow, like, this is a total unpredict, like, I, and I kept saying to the doctors, like, I don't think so, because I have a fucking plan. Like, I get you're telling me I have cancer, but like, this, I'm sorry, this wasn't in the plan?

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, not now. Can't be now.

• 1:03:01Speaker 02

  No, you got this wrong, right? And so, that unpredictability was so crystal clear in that moment. And there is this thing, my coping mechanism, this will shock you all, as a type A professor was to work. And I'm old enough to know what a trap that is for all of us. And so I was like, I'm not gonna do that on this time. I'm gonna actually feel my feelings. Fuck, that's hard. Like, it's so much easier to just stuff them down, push them out, not feel them. And that brought all these different things about what do I value? What do I care about? Where's the time? It's weird when you have little kids, like, it's not just you. What does this mean for my family? People said wild, crazy, dumb

• 1:03:45Speaker 02

  stuff to me, like, I don't know, I have a really great feeling you're gonna be fine. It's like, you have no fucking clue. Did you go to, did you get a medical degree? Like, I don't know. Or they'd say, like, you have cancer, it's weird. My Aunt Judy, she died of cancer. You're like, oh, I'd like to return that to you and let you process this. So you're trying to sort through all the feelings while keeping yourself going, while trying to stay positive, whilst trying to be realistic. It's a mental load, thinking about, like, do I need a will, right? Like, I mean, you think about the mortality piece, which you're always facing anyway. But, but then there's these joyful moments, too, where people that you didn't even know loved you so much, or they're sending you notes and

• 1:04:30Speaker 02

  asking you how you're doing, or calling every day. And it's, it's a gift to see how people show up for you in hard times, right?

• 1:04:37Speaker 03

  Well, I feel so lucky to spend time with you today. I felt a lot of people are just searching for your books right now. So, Motherlands, How States Push Mothers Out Of Employment, and your very recent book, Drained, Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More. That's where they can find the audits, where you can go through with your partner. And you can try and, from what I take from today, is just have very open communication about, doesn't necessarily have to be even, but it's just how you feel right now, what works best for the two of you. Yeah, it's been incredible. Thank you so much.

• 1:05:07Speaker 00

  I've got one more question. Are you from the same part of the States that Brené Brown is? Because your accent sounds, I think if I close my eyes sometimes, it sounds like Brené Brown's talking.

• 1:05:16Speaker 02

  I wish. She's a Texan and I'm a Californian.

• 1:05:19Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:20Speaker 00

  But you say y'all.

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  Well, that's because I'm living in Tennessee.

• 1:05:24Speaker 00

  That's correct.

• 1:05:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. And now I'm a southerner.

• 1:05:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:28Speaker 02

  I have 18 guns.

• 1:05:35Speaker 03

  Well, thank you so much, Leah. This has just been awesome.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  What a gift, what a gift to get to be with you. So thank you.

• 1:05:40Speaker 00

  Great to hang out.

• 1:05:46Speaker 04

  Hello, everyone. I'm back again. But this time, I'm joined by Bridget Northeast, executive producer of The Imperfects. Hey, Brid.

• 1:05:52Speaker 05

  Hey, thanks for having me. What a great episode with Leah.

• 1:05:55Speaker 04

  Wasn't it amazing? I felt like it really broadened the description of mental load in a way I'd never really considered it, which is great, because it's kind of why you're here, to talk about that.

• 1:06:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, I loved how she talked about how we don't just have a mental load in a relationship or a partnership, or in your family. Like, I've thought a lot about that kind of mental load. But you also have a mental load at work. And if you're in a toxic workplace, a workplace where you feel like you can't speak your mind, or you can't raise concerns, you don't have any agency of your job, your mental load that you're carrying at work will be so much heavier.

• 1:06:27Speaker 04

  And it also kind of permeates into the rest of your life. There's no, like, clear boundary.

• 1:06:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, it bleeds. So like, if you're having a terrible time at work, because it's an unpsychologically safe workplace, or it's toxic, there's no separation. Like, you can try separate it for a while, but eventually, though, you spend so much time at work. So eventually, that's gonna bleed into your everyday life, your family life as well. So that's what we're talking about with Dr. M on this week's A Little More Imperfects episode, our subscriber episode. We're talking about how to create a psychologically safe workplace, what creates a toxic culture, so the red flags to look out for if you're in one, and how to recognize when the mental load you're carrying at work could trip you into burnout.

• 1:07:05Speaker 04

  And it's an especially special episode, because you're in it.

• 1:07:08Speaker 05

  Yes, I am. So you get to hear more of these dulcet tones.

• 1:07:11Speaker 04

  The person who's had more jobs than anyone I've ever met, so you've got a lot of experience to draw on in this episode. For people that want to hear it, you can subscribe at patreon.com/theimperfects, or you can just click the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts.

• 1:07:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, awesome. And if you do that, if you subscribe via Patreon, you get the opportunity to ask questions of Dr. M about the particular topics we're doing.

• 1:07:32Speaker 06

  I wanted to start, actually, with a question that was from KP. And she says, when do you know an injury caused by negligence can't be repaired, and that it's time to leave, even if you love the work?

• 1:07:47Speaker 04

  Come join the community at again, patreon.com/theimperfects. Or if you just want the episodes and nothing else, just click subscribe on Apple Podcasts. This show was made in the lands of the Wurundjeri Wurundjeri people, and we pay our respects to elders past and present. The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service, and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment, or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 131114.