We’re continuing to discuss how to lighten our mental loads around housecleaning.
Of all the articles I’ve read on this subject, I was impressed to find one written by a man who truly “gets it!” Nick Douglas wrote an article in May 2017 on lifehacker.com titled “How to Share the ‘Mental Load’ of Chores with Your Partner.”
Douglas wrote that among straight couples, even when men do equal work carrying out household chores, women still disproportionally bear the mental load of keeping track of those chores. This creates a kind of continuous partial attention that takes up energy and raises stress. It also forms an invisible hierarchy where men feel like employees running afoul of the boss.
Boom! Mr. Douglas, you nailed it.
He goes on to say that men often fail to appreciate or share this invisible management job. “If you can help carry the load, you can relieve your partner’s stress and feel less like an underling,” he writes.
Douglas goes on to share tips on how to do just that.
The first thing a partner can do is anticipate needs. “Don’t just do the laundry,” Douglas says, “Monitor the hamper and take the initiative to run a load. Examine when your tasks usually need to be done, and plan ahead for them.”
The second step is to write things down. Nowadays you don’t even need a pen and paper for this. Many people have smart phones where they can just set numerous reminders and they are off and running!
The third step is to automate things.
“Turn your phone into your manager and eliminate the mental load altogether. Add alarms to those calendar events. Set location-based notifications that remind you, when you’re passing the drugstore, to stop in. Move regular shopping trips onto Amazon Subscribe & Save,” advises Douglas.
He also says that you need to learn the skills for what you don’t do so you can serve as a backup when your partner is ill or traveling. For example, if you don’t typically do laundry, have your partner show you the basics such as sorting colors, different washer and dryer cycles and their purposes, etc.
Speaking of cleaning clothes, I haven’t been to the dry cleaners in years thanks to those wonderful kits for the dryer! I have used both Dryel and Woolite and have had success with both for clothes I used to have to take to the dry cleaner. These kits save me time and are a relief for my mental load.
Douglas suggests holding family meetings on Sundays to keep everyone apprised of what responsibilities each person has for the coming week and to discuss potentially swapping tasks if needed. And speaking of family, he dedicates a whole paragraph to putting kids to work, saying you can hand off some of the mental load by teaching them to self-manage.
He goes on to share that Lifehacker writer Beth Skwarecki asks her kids to “be the boss of cleaning the table,” telling her what to pick up while she does all the work. “They love their little power trip, but I love that they’re actually paying attention to what the mess is and how to clean it.” This management-only outsourcing even helps kids learn how to cook before they’re old enough to do dangerous tasks themselves.
All these techniques are especially important when major life changes hit such as an illness or injury, a new job, or having a child. “The more flexible you are with your partner, and the more chores you both feel comfortable swapping, the more you can handle in a crisis,” Douglas concludes.
If I ever meet this man, I’m going to give him a huge round of applause.
Amy Shankland is a writer and fundraising professional living in Noblesville with her husband John, two sons, two dogs and a cat. You can reach her via email at amys@greenavenue.info.