The involvement of the couple in household chores is the most determining phenomenon when starting a relationship, according to the latest data from the Center for Sociological Research (CIS). The survey on affective and sexual relationships says that this issue, sharing housework, weighs more than sex or the difference in age to the couple.
It is a very important issue for many people, but stewardship is still a pipe dream. Women spend 15 more hours each week than men doing housework and caring for their children, a total of 780 more hours a year, according to the study Gender inequalities in paid and unpaid work after the pandemic , of the Social Observatory of the “la Caixa” Foundation.
These are figures on the actual hours dedicated to tasks, but to all this we must add the mental load, the weight and the stress that always involves organizing the logistical issues of the home and the children: medical appointments, school excursions, material for the activities kids, shopping, meals… The list of things to think about, organize and do can be endless.
Mental load was already talked about in the 1970s, but it was applied to managers (men), whose brains were saturated with all the issues for which they had to take responsibility. Now – already a few years ago -, the concept is applied to the role of women in homes. “Although the distribution of tasks between men and women has been balanced, the woman is still the head of the company that is the home. Her brain is always busy, without rest, ”explains Marie-Laure Monneret, professional coach and specialist in neurolinguistic programming in the book The Mental Load I Feel Terrible (Lunwerg).
This story by the perinatal psychologist Paola Roig had thousands and thousands of reactions on Instagram due to the realism it emanates and the number of women who felt identified with the situation. The man’s final line, “if you had asked me, he would have done it,” is a great trigger, a line that women often hear in these or other words at home.
“This sentence is what sums up the mental load, which is a very big stressor for women in most heterosexual couples, and which is also invisible. That I have to ask you to do everything means, implies, that all the planning of the home is in my head and not in yours, you just follow orders. It is a much more comfortable position”, explains Roig.
Julia (fictitious name) is 40 years old, and has two children, a six-year-old and an eight-year-old. She has separated from her a few months ago and believes that her mental burden has taken its toll. It is a carbon copy of the situation explained by the psychologist. “I felt like I had three little children, the two boys plus my husband. He didn’t think anything alone, I had to tell him everything that had to be done: food, clothes, dinner, vaccinations… I couldn’t take it anymore. Now, alone, I am much more decisive ”, she explains in RAC1.cat.
In order for this situation to change and to avoid separation -as in the case of Julia-, according to Roig, it is necessary to go towards co-responsibility, a concept as simple as “that both members of the couple take charge of the physical tasks and the mental tasks involved in maintaining the home. It is easy to say, but very difficult to apply in heterosexual couples, in a society with a macho tradition, where the roles of men and women have been marked by fire for centuries.
In order to get closer to co-responsibility, according to the couple psychologist, it is necessary for both members of the couple to become aware and act together. “There is a double task: that women release and men find. If they don’t both, we won’t get ahead. If only one of the two changes the way of doing things, there is no solution”.
For Roig, the first thing is to make visible everything that is invisible, in terms of family and home needs. He proposes to carry out a kind of inventory or list of tasks by themes. For example, to take care of dinner it is necessary to plan the menus, do the shopping, cook, set the table… This exercise must be done with everything. Making the change of the children’s wardrobe implies checking which pieces have become small, making a list of what to buy, buying it, ordering it in the closet… We must write down the tasks related to medical visits, communication with the school, the economic management, management of the social agenda and vacations, taking care of gifts, etc. Thus, we will have a very detailed list of everything that must be done.
Roig proposes scoring each task with 1, 2 or 3 points depending on its difficulty. “It is not the same to renew car insurance, which is once a year, than to wash the dishes every day.” Jobs will be distributed so that each member of the pair has the same assigned task points.
It may seem like an overly strict and rigid exercise, but “if you don’t do it like this, it’s very easy to fall back into how we always do things.” Every week we will have to review how the organization is going and how everyone feels about their jobs. “It is very difficult to change the ways of doing, it is necessary to do conscious work. It seems rigid because it is bringing awareness to something we do out of inertia. From inertia to women we can cover everything ”.
This text was originally published on the RAC1 website.
