A nice dinner out, a pretty bouquet, and a child’s handprint forever sealed in painted plaster are all lovely gifts.
However, surveys show that what moms really want is for someone else to take on the planning on occasion, especially when the occasion is Mother’s Day. The mental load is statistically unbalanced, and moms are pleading for their partners to hear and help shift some of it off their shoulders.
Who’s Making Mother’s Day Dinner Reservations?
According to Parents, a new survey shows that more than a third of moms are making their own dinner reservations for the day set aside to honor and appreciate them — and they’d rather not.
Of the moms surveyed, 39% say they are the ones making the plans for the Mother’s Day meal, and 44% say that having someone else take on the planning is part of what makes the day special.
The imbalance of carrying the mental load for their households adds extra stress and health concerns for moms who already have a lot on their proverbial plates.
Mom’s Holiday Mental Load
We’ve long known that moms statistically carry the mental load for day-to-day household activities and holidays.
Memes, comic strips, advice columns, and the voices of wives and mothers all stress that women are frequently expected to handle the work of holidays, while their families take the time to relax and enjoy their break.
Women aren’t just doing the cooking and cleaning for these celebrations, they’re keeping the mental list of gifts to buy (including for their husbands’ families), schedules (Christmas parade, work parties, Easter baskets, birthday parties, teacher workdays), and more (are the stores closing early? do we have batteries for the new toys?)
In fact, according to People Magazine, a 2021 survey found that most women are even buying their own gifts!
“That’s according to a recent survey of 2,000 American women, in which 68% declared that they’ve shopped for their own gifts themselves, most notably for their birthday (73%), Christmas (65%) and Valentine’s Day (61%)…over half (54%) of all women polled bought themselves a Mother’s Day gift.”
The Unpaid Work Of Day-To-Day Mental Load
“Well begun is half done,” Aristotle is quoted as saying.
How much of ‘well begun’ is just recognizing that the task needs to be done in the first place?
You can’t pack a school lunch on Monday morning unless you’ve remembered to shop for lunch items over the weekend. Someone needs to remember that the last of the ketchup was used, or else write it down. Someone has to notice that the back door hinges squeak and need a shot of WD40, and someone has to remember what day the trash truck comes, when the electric bill is due, which vegetables the kids won’t touch, and what days soccer practice and dance class are scheduled.
According to Forbes, 78% of this falls on the parent who is the primary caregiver, and 75% of the time, that’s a mom.
They found that, on average, households spend more than 250 hours per year just planning schedules, and another 100+ hours in planning and preparing for holidays and school breaks, with moms doing most of it.
Is It Getting Better?
In some ways, there’s a significant shift taking place.
Dads are taking on more parenting responsibilities, according to studies. For example, 40 years ago, more than two out of every five dads said they had never changed a diaper, while in the most recent surveys, that’s decreased to about three dads out of every hundred.
Dads are spending far more time with their kids than they did just a generation or two ago, and an increased awareness of the mental load has helped shift the balance of chores and household duties, including cooking, bill paying, and providing homework help.
All of this is a vast improvement, and shows a shift in the right direction.
Moms Still Need More Balance
It’s great that almost every dad now says that he does at least some of the diaper changes, and that more kids are growing up in families with two involved parents.
However, the invisible work is still most heavily on moms, and that invisible work is a significant stressor, often a hidden one. The Bump reported:
“[W]hile 1 in 3 moms report feeling stressed at least five days a week, 67 percent feel like a burden when they reach out to their family to share their feelings. Another reason moms hold back? Forty-six percent of moms said they hide their feelings because telling someone else would make them feel like a failure.”
Other stats from that study include that 88% of moms say they would need “at least four clones of themselves” to get everything done; that 76% say they are burnt out; and that 63% have sought mental health support.
What Parents Can Do
What’s the answer?
Couples can sit down and reach an agreement about balancing the mental load. Dads can consciously choose to take on some of it, too.
Moms need a safe and supportive environment to speak up about their stresses, and families need open, honest conversations about the balance of labor, including age-appropriate chores for kids, and the equitable distribution of the mental load.
And dads, if your wife has been buying her own gifts for Mother’s Day and other holidays, step up. It’s on May 11th this year, so there’s still plenty of time to shop, order something, make reservations, or simply buy a card and flowers.