Why women carry more of the mental load, and how couples can share it

“My head’s always full,” says Stacie Matthias, a mother of three. “I go to sleep with a mental to-do list.” She is describing the mental load, the often invisible work of planning, organising, remembering and anticipating the tasks that keep a household running.

That work includes remembering school trips, checking parents’ WhatsApp groups, noticing what needs cleaning, monitoring children’s sleep, arranging medical appointments and buying school uniforms. Academic research suggests that in heterosexual couples, women, particularly mothers, carry a disproportionate share of these responsibilities as well as much of the physical household labour.

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My head’s always full. I go to sleep with a mental to-do list.

For Matthias, 37, from Stockport, the pressure feels especially intense when children return to school in September. “It’s that feeling of always having something to remember, organise or worry about that makes this time of year particularly full-on,” she says. She compares her mind to a washing-up bowl filling throughout the day. “If someone’s not helping you remove those pots and pans, your water’s overflowing by the end of the day, and you’re at tipping point.”

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It’s that feeling of always having something to remember, organise or worry about that makes this time of year particularly full-on.

A survey of 3,000 U.S. parents by academics at the University of Bath and the University of Melbourne found that mothers handled 71% of household tasks requiring mental effort. These included tracking when sheets and towels needed washing and remembering when food in the refrigerator had to be eaten. Fathers handled more of the tasks researchers called “episodic”, such as remembering when to service the car.

University of Melbourne professor Leah Ruppaner describes the mental load as invisible, enduring and without boundaries. “You don’t bring your dishes to work, but you bring the mental load everywhere,” she says.

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If someone’s not helping you remove those pots and pans, your water’s overflowing by the end of the day, and you’re at tipping point.

The issue has become a frequent subject on forums including Reddit and Mumsnet, where women seek advice about discussing the exhaustion with their partners. Mothers told BBC News that schools often added them to WhatsApp groups as the default parent, while their partners did not join. Sophia, a 35-year-old mother of three in Portsmouth, pays for school trips and orders lunches through her children’s school app. She says her husband has never downloaded it.

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You don’t bring your dishes to work, but you bring the mental load everywhere.