Mental load

We're convinced of the need to break the silence surrounding motherhood, and determined to lift taboos that shouldn't be taboos. By bearing witness, you are offering support and comfort to all women going through a similar ordeal without daring to talk about it. Thank you for them, thank you to you.

Anonymous testimonial

Mental workload. This condition mainly affects women, who are already responsible for 70% of the housework in a heterosexual household with young children(statistics).

"Before I became a mother, I had a vague idea of what it was like. In fact, the constant noise in my head has a name and is very real and recognized; in sociology, it's called cognitive load. I told myself that my mental load was because I'd become an anxious perfectionist. Then I started talking to people around me, to my girlfriends and my mother, and I realized that either we're all anguished people, or there's a real societal problem to deal with.

In the summer of 2016, my life turned upside down following the tsunami that was the birth of my first child, I began to feel under my skin what these words meant. I've lived it ever since as one injustice too many, because it reflects the gender inequalities that are amplified when you become a mother.

Today, with two children of my own, this problem, which I can't get out of my head and find hard to explain to my partner, plunges me into semi-constant stress. Yes, he's a wonderful dad, a feminist at heart, and he shares the housework. I don't even have to tell him to empty the dishwasher, he does it. He does the shopping, he tidies up, he changes diapers, he plays with his kids, the list goes on. And far be it from me to think that he has it easy, because being a dad in a society like ours isn't easy either. So what am I complaining about? Why do I constantly feel like my head's under water?

Because I feel I have to think of everything. That I'm in charge of the family orchestra, and the slightest oversight is the false note that brings it all crashing down. It doesn't matter that I'm barely over childbirth, family management is waiting for me around the corner, to the sound of the tuning fork, while society thinks I'm on "leave". Perhaps if Swiss men had the right to a proper "leave" the song would be different... in the meantime, the administration of children, with all its logistical, financial and bureaucratic aspects, isn't waiting for my perineum to get back into shape or for my milk supply to stabilize.

A major detail is that we don't have any close family who could help us out on a regular basis. I have 2 different childcare systems for my 2 children, as the youngest, who was registered just after she was conceived, doesn't yet have a place in a crèche. My husband works far away, and even if I do, I'm the one who manages the schedules from a distance, because distance and strict nursery hours mean that we can't bring or fetch the older one to the nursery.

I have to constantly (or almost constantly) make sure tasks get done, even when I'm delegating, I have to manage, recruit the nanny(s), do the household budgets, plan, anticipate, have a plan B, C, D, Z, don't forget to think about the childminder's present, send the various extra documents requested for the summer crèche that I've managed to find because I'm on the ball.

I think ahead, I plan the vacations, I book the flights, I change the flights, I put a little jacket in the big one's bag, I think about the car seat when we get to our destination, I think about the day's essentials, all between two reports for work, the evening meal, what's missing at home, the little one's pediatrician and the 2.5-year-old's obligatory teeth brushing. "Yes, you have to brush his teeth EVERY day," I hear my husband say.

When did I become the ultimate boring queen of this family? I too want to be the fun, carefree parent, to be in "pause" mode. It's weighing on me.

Running my household is a two-man job that only stops when my soon-to-be 3-year-old son and 6-month-old daughter let me sleep, which is never, sorry, a few hours a night...

Between the time I spend thinking, planning, buying, making lists, running, preparing, changing bath towels, the roll of toilet paper that won't put itself back on, the empty bottle of shampoo that needs replacing, washing/finding the day's comforter, and pumping my milk for the little one in the train toilet, I work from 6 a.m. until bedtime. I have two jobs, sometimes simultaneously, one that doesn't pay and isn't valued by anyone, not even my own family, for whom it's a "difficult phase" and "that's the way it is", "you're a mom now".

I'm too often in the business of assigning tasks, reminding people, being a supervisor and checking things. I've realized that I can't delegate administration unless I run the risk of it not getting done or getting done late. I can't erase it from my mental to-do list anyway, because I have to make sure it gets done. And unfortunately, sometimes it doesn't get done. And if my husband thinks I'm exaggerating, I think I want to set an example for my children. No, you don't put official documents in an old Migros bag. My carefree attitude is gone forever.

I've become quality control, HR, CFO, CEO, administrative advisor and cleaning lady in my spare time for this company I inherited without knowing it or wanting to. And while my husband clearly has his hands in the dough, I have many more roles to play: I'm involved in upstream organization, financial projections, budgeting and the various programming of the big one. I'm in standby mode, whereas my husband is allowed to unplug. So much so that sometimes I have to stop, look at my children, breathe and remember how much I love them.

Yes, women have to let go, delegate and accept that things won't be done the way we want (at the risk of not having a place in a crèche, because oops, we forgot the 6-month deadline...).

But the mental burden means having to deal with the guilt of being everywhere at once and nowhere, especially not with your children. The mental burden that lies just behind the myth of the ultimate fulfillment of women through motherhood is the scam of the century.

However, the mental burden is not a biological difference between a man and a woman. The mental burden is more preponderant in women, because as soon as the child is born, they are left to manage almost everything on their own, and even if they delegate, they act as submarines, because everything connected with the child is attributed to them, and they are indirectly or directly blamed for it.

I'd like society to stop relying on the general exhaustion of mothers and couples as a consequence. Maybe we'd save a lot of money on the mental and physical health of exhausted mothers and fathers, maybe we'd reduce resentments, divorces, burn-outs, the rate of dissatisfaction that rises when Westerners have children (frightening, isn't it?).

I'd like to be allowed to enjoy the fundamental right of creating a family, to be given the resources to educate my little humans properly... Because I'm at the end of my rope."