Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1232 - 71% of Household Mental Load Falls to Mums - Here's Why (R)

Transcript

#1232 - 71% of Household Mental Load Falls to Mums - Here's Why (R) · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: One conversation that keeps on coming up over and over
0:08
Speaker 1: and over again has to do with I guess you'd
0:11
Speaker 1: call it equality in the household. Who's doing what? And
0:15
Speaker 1: not just who's doing what, but who's carrying the mental load,
0:19
Speaker 1: the cognitive load. Who's the one that's remembering when sports
0:22
Speaker 1: day is, when library day is, when piano lessons are,
0:25
Speaker 1: when swimming lessons are, and what we're supposed to be
0:27
Speaker 1: doing on Saturday morning, and who's bringing what to the barbecue?
0:30
Speaker 1: The cognitive load consistently falls upon women today. My special
0:34
Speaker 1: guest is an expert researcher from the University of Melbourne
0:38
Speaker 1: who studies what's going on in families when it comes
0:41
Speaker 1: to who's taking on the household mental load. Hello and
0:46
Speaker 1: welcome to the Happy Families podcast, Real Parenting Solutions every
0:50
Speaker 1: day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. My name is
0:53
Speaker 1: Justin Coolson. Today, my guest on the podcast is Professor
0:56
Speaker 1: Lea Ruppaner. That's how you'd say it if you're an American.
0:59
Speaker 1: I'm just going to go with Professor Lea or maybe
1:01
Speaker 1: just Leah. Is that okay? Lea? Just perfect, perfect professor.
1:04
Speaker 2: That's my Instagram Hamital because I know no one can
1:07
Speaker 2: do that last name. Don't worry, You're not alone.
1:09
Speaker 1: I love the rupanner, though I'm going to try it. Well,
1:12
Speaker 1: I should be gentle and polite about it. Leah is
1:14
Speaker 1: a research professor at the University of Melbourne who studies
1:17
Speaker 1: how modern families work. Her research focuses on gender equality,
1:20
Speaker 1: mental load, and how the demands of family management impact
1:25
Speaker 1: women's lives and careers. I think this is fascinating. Kylie
1:29
Speaker 1: and I talk about it all the time. In addition,
1:31
Speaker 1: Leah is the podcast host of I haven't listened yet.
1:34
Speaker 1: I feel really guilty, but I only just found out
1:36
Speaker 1: as we began our introduction conversation just now a podcast
1:40
Speaker 1: called Misperceived Lea, what's that one about?
1:44
Speaker 2: So I am an academic. I'm Australia's top sociologist last
1:47
Speaker 2: year with Australia's top gender scholar. And that is just
1:50
Speaker 2: me bragging. That's the first interest. It's a nice ones,
1:53
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you. And what I was really committed
1:56
Speaker 2: to doing is how do we take research and make
1:57
Speaker 2: it tangible? How do we take research and translate in
1:59
Speaker 2: the way that's really easy, digestible for people who don't
2:02
Speaker 2: really have enough time, so they're ten, fifteen, maybe twenty
2:05
Speaker 2: minutes unpacking research on things like can women actually multitask?
2:10
Speaker 2: Do men who have a do more housework get more sex?
2:13
Speaker 2: What is the mental load? Should you be friends with
2:16
Speaker 2: people at work? So we're doing episodes each week, just
2:19
Speaker 2: a little short listen based on empirical research and giving
2:22
Speaker 2: you the knowledge without having to get the PhD.
2:24
Speaker 1: Wow, I actually think that I need to subscribe by
2:27
Speaker 1: the end of this podcast. That sounds like it's a
2:29
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Leah. I want to ask you some
2:31
Speaker 1: softball questions, but I also want to be fairly provocative
2:34
Speaker 1: in this conversation. So here's my first question for you,
2:38
Speaker 1: expert Professor Leah. Your research shows that mothers take on
2:42
Speaker 1: seventy one percent of household mental load tasks. What is
2:48
Speaker 1: the household mental load? Firstly, and this is a double
2:52
Speaker 1: barren question, terrible interview technique, but I want to get
2:55
Speaker 1: it all out at once. Number one, what is that
2:57
Speaker 1: household mental load that women are taking on seventy one
2:59
Speaker 1: percent all? But secondly, what's happening in families where the
3:04
Speaker 1: split is more equitable? What are they doing differently?
3:08
Speaker 2: This is actually a very good question, because we are
3:11
Speaker 2: doing some work currently where we're really trying to get
3:14
Speaker 2: a clear definition of the mental load. One of the problems,
3:17
Speaker 2: I think is that we don't really understand what the
3:19
Speaker 2: mental load is and how it's different from say like
3:21
Speaker 2: emotional labor or cognitive labor, or housework and child care.
3:25
Speaker 2: And so I have a book coming out later on
3:28
Speaker 2: that'll really give you a brand new definition, but that'll
3:30
Speaker 2: come in twenty twenty six Strain. But what I want
3:32
Speaker 2: to say right now is that the mental load is
3:34
Speaker 2: the emotional thinking work that we do to keep our
3:36
Speaker 2: households functioning. It's that work that you do, and that
3:40
Speaker 2: our research we're calling it cognitive labor because it's this
3:42
Speaker 2: thinking work. It's around remembering if your kids are signed
3:47
Speaker 2: up prafter school activities. We have twenty one items and
3:50
Speaker 2: it's asking the question of like, you know, are you
3:52
Speaker 2: remembering if the kids nails are cut? Are you remembering
3:54
Speaker 2: if to bring that thing that activity for school? Are
3:59
Speaker 2: you thinking about the finances, are thinking about car maintenance?
4:01
Speaker 2: Are you thinking about childcare? So there's a range of items,
4:05
Speaker 2: but is that work around the domestic work, that's the
4:08
Speaker 2: thinking work to making sure everyone's doing what they're doing
4:10
Speaker 2: as they need to be doing when they need to
4:12
Speaker 2: be doing it.
4:12
Speaker 1: I have a question on this before we get into
4:14
Speaker 1: the families that are splitting it equitably. You mentioned one
4:18
Speaker 1: item there that was definitely what I would categorize as
4:21
Speaker 1: male oriented rather than female oriented. And I know that
4:24
Speaker 1: this is probably right at the very heart of everything
4:27
Speaker 1: that you do from a research point of view. Why
4:28
Speaker 1: do we perceive that the car maintenance booking is the
4:31
Speaker 1: man's job, whereas the kids getting their haircut or having
4:34
Speaker 1: their toenails clipped is the woman's job. I know that
4:37
Speaker 1: I'm sounding I'm probably sounding like I was born in
4:39
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. I'm sounding completely ideologically pure when it
4:44
Speaker 1: comes to what male and female are supposed to be
4:46
Speaker 1: all about or not about. But how do you balance
4:50
Speaker 1: those items? Do you have more that orient towards the
4:53
Speaker 1: men as well? Because you only mentioned the one, whereas
4:55
Speaker 1: you mentioned all of those more female oriented items.
4:59
Speaker 2: I'd bless you because there's this is literally what the
5:00
Speaker 2: research article did, right. So what we did was and
5:03
Speaker 2: it's with Anna Weeks at the University of Bath and
5:05
Speaker 2: this is part of Anna Week's PhD project. So what
5:07
Speaker 2: she did was she collected these twenty one items right,
5:10
Speaker 2: and they fall into these broad categories food, care, maintenance, finance, socialization, right,
5:17
Speaker 2: the organization. And it's that thinking we're going on behind.
5:20
Speaker 2: And the research project was to do exactly that to
5:23
Speaker 2: see because we know to see how this shakes out
5:25
Speaker 2: by gender, like our men sharing all of it? Are
5:29
Speaker 2: and this is all parents, right? Are they sharing it all?
5:31
Speaker 2: Is it not sharing it all? And in part this
5:32
Speaker 2: is because I've been studying housework, right who does what
5:35
Speaker 2: at home? For decades and in the housework literature, what's
5:39
Speaker 2: really clear is that men take on the more episodic tasks.
5:42
Speaker 2: They do the maintenance, they do the finance, they do
5:44
Speaker 2: the bills, they do the changing of the light bulb
5:47
Speaker 2: right when things go wrong, they do the yard maintenance.
5:49
Speaker 2: And this is often called episodic or outdoor tasks. These
5:53
Speaker 2: are the things that are not done every day, and
5:55
Speaker 2: women tend to take on the daily tasks, the cooking,
5:58
Speaker 2: the cleaning, the laundry, the childcare, these types of things.
6:02
Speaker 2: And so what we were really interested in understanding is
6:04
Speaker 2: like does the mental load split in that way? Do
6:07
Speaker 2: you actually see that men are taking on more of
6:09
Speaker 2: the mental load around say finance and maintenance, which, as
6:12
Speaker 2: you said, is like that's gender roles that we tend
6:16
Speaker 2: to say, these are the tasks that men do in
6:18
Speaker 2: part because their fathers did it, in part because you know,
6:21
Speaker 2: we could do the whole lineage. Right, it's logical work,
6:24
Speaker 2: it's tied to it's tied to machines. Or do we
6:27
Speaker 2: actually see that the mental load is different and it blends.
6:30
Speaker 2: And what we found was on the edge of your seats,
6:34
Speaker 2: I'm sure what we found was is that, yes, it
6:37
Speaker 2: splits in that way that actually men are much with
6:40
Speaker 2: the fathers are much more likely to say they do
6:42
Speaker 2: the maintenance stuff. They're much more likely they say they
6:44
Speaker 2: do the finance stuff and the mothers. That leaves the
6:47
Speaker 2: mothers with pretty much everything else. But what was kind
6:50
Speaker 2: of interesting is because the mental load can be duplicated. Now,
6:54
Speaker 2: just like bear with me, when we think about something
6:58
Speaker 2: like changing the light bulb, you are not going to
7:01
Speaker 2: have one partner in the family go change that light
7:04
Speaker 2: bulb and then the other partner is going to unscrew
7:06
Speaker 2: it and change that light bulb again. Right, This is
7:08
Speaker 2: like very unlikely if you're doing this stop. But with
7:12
Speaker 2: the mental load. You could have both partners carrying both
7:15
Speaker 2: things right. The father and the family could be thinking about, Okay,
7:19
Speaker 2: that dishwasher doesn't look well. It needs you know, it's
7:22
Speaker 2: breaking down, it needs to be repaired, and the mother
7:26
Speaker 2: can be doing the same work. Right, Both people can
7:28
Speaker 2: be monitoring the same thing because it's internal, it's your
7:31
Speaker 2: mental load, and we're tracking it. And so this was
7:34
Speaker 2: one of the things that we did find. Right, that
7:36
Speaker 2: fathers do do more of those episodic tasks. They're much
7:39
Speaker 2: more likely to say they're primarily responsible. But it's not
7:42
Speaker 2: an even split. It's not like the fathers do it
7:45
Speaker 2: and the mothers drop it. The mothers do it too.
7:47
Speaker 2: And you can say the same thing when we look
7:48
Speaker 2: at you know, the childcare and stuff like that. You know,
7:50
Speaker 2: father's picked up pieces of this, pieces of the childcare,
7:54
Speaker 2: pieces of the meal preparation. But the mental load is
7:57
Speaker 2: this really different type of war work that both people
8:02
Speaker 2: can be doing simultaneously. It's invisible, it's boundaryless, it's never ending,
8:08
Speaker 2: and it's a really different and distinct tape.
8:11
Speaker 1: The second part of my question was about what's happening
8:14
Speaker 1: in the families, whether split is more equitable, but I
8:16
Speaker 1: want to change the question ready for two reasons. What
8:21
Speaker 1: you've just highlighted is it's kind of a light bulb
8:23
Speaker 1: moment for me when I've talked about mental load, because
8:25
Speaker 1: my expertise is in psychology, not in household domestic labor
8:29
Speaker 1: and cognitive wear and tear. It's just occurred to me
8:34
Speaker 1: Kylie and I worry about the same things we check
8:38
Speaker 1: up on each other. I've got the fact that I've
8:41
Speaker 1: got a daughter who's supposed to be bouldering or at drums,
8:43
Speaker 1: or a child who's got to be picked up from
8:45
Speaker 1: here and taken to there. That's going through my head
8:47
Speaker 1: at the same time that it's going through hers. I'm
8:50
Speaker 1: worrying about dinner tonight just as much as she's worrying
8:52
Speaker 1: about dinner tonight. So there's a whole lot of duplication
8:55
Speaker 1: that's happening in couples when it comes to this mental load.
8:58
Speaker 1: I would imagine that there's a lot more mental load
9:02
Speaker 1: being carried than one hundred percent. Is kind of what
9:04
Speaker 1: I'm getting at right, Like, I'm worried about it eighty
9:06
Speaker 1: percent of the time, Kylie's worried about it ninety two
9:08
Speaker 1: percent of the time. Therefore, one hundred and seventy percent
9:10
Speaker 1: of the time we're worried about dinner, and yet we
9:13
Speaker 1: still have to buy takeout because because we haven't organized dinner.
9:17
Speaker 1: So isn't about equality? What do we do about the duplication?
9:21
Speaker 2: How do we.
9:23
Speaker 1: Solve the heaviness of this? Because I can't imagine couple
9:28
Speaker 1: sitting down and saying, well, I'm just not going to
9:29
Speaker 1: worry about these things anymore. You worry about them, I'm
9:32
Speaker 1: putting them out of my mind? Or do they.
9:35
Speaker 2: Why can't you?
9:37
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe I'm just too much of a
9:39
Speaker 1: backseat driver. One of the things I was just on.
9:42
Speaker 2: A conversation with Eve Rotsky, who wrote this New York
9:45
Speaker 2: Times bestseller and it's called Fairplay, And she read this Wellga,
9:48
Speaker 2: and what she basically is saying is she has this.
9:50
Speaker 2: When she was asked to think about all the things
9:53
Speaker 2: that she does right before the baby is born, she
9:56
Speaker 2: made this list of tasks. And what this has happened
10:00
Speaker 2: is the list of tasks has grown and grown and
10:02
Speaker 2: grown and grown and grown grown. So if you think
10:04
Speaker 2: what do we do at home, like, what are if
10:05
Speaker 2: we broke everything we do down into tasks? What does
10:09
Speaker 2: it look like, and so what she's done is she
10:11
Speaker 2: has this deck of cards right where you sit down
10:14
Speaker 2: with your partner and you can buy them on Amazon
10:16
Speaker 2: and you allocate them based on who does what you know,
10:20
Speaker 2: I love and load the dishwasher from its top to
10:23
Speaker 2: bottom minutia right. And and her argument is you have
10:26
Speaker 2: to take the whole task. You have to take the
10:28
Speaker 2: whole task, including the mental load. And you have like
10:31
Speaker 2: that is it? So when you said to me, we're duplicating,
10:35
Speaker 2: I'm having this light bulb moment. I think many people
10:38
Speaker 2: listening will have the same light bulb moment because I
10:40
Speaker 2: think we don't think about the mental load. We're doing it,
10:42
Speaker 2: we're in it, we're swimming in it, but we're not
10:44
Speaker 2: cognizant of it. When you have that light bull moment,
10:47
Speaker 2: I want to say to you, but why couldn't you
10:49
Speaker 2: guys specialize? Like why couldn't you drop drop? What would happen?
10:53
Speaker 2: I'm going to thank you for my research project, thank
10:56
Speaker 2: you for thank you very much for participating in my interview.
10:59
Speaker 2: What would have if you actually one of you stopped?
11:04
Speaker 2: I feel and our interviews?
11:06
Speaker 1: So what do you have for ye? So if I
11:07
Speaker 1: was a research participant and I was asked this question,
11:09
Speaker 1: I would tell you that I felt uncomfortable with the
11:11
Speaker 1: proposition that I was going to leave things entirely to
11:13
Speaker 1: my wife, and I would feel uncomfortable that she left
11:16
Speaker 1: things entirely to me. That would feel transactional. And I
11:18
Speaker 1: would also potentially, I feel like there's the potential for
11:22
Speaker 1: conflict here. And I'll tell you why, because if Kylie
11:25
Speaker 1: is looking after let's say, for example, dinner, and I
11:28
Speaker 1: walk into the house and dinner's not done, there's the
11:31
Speaker 1: possibility that I'll become resentful and say, well, I'm doing
11:35
Speaker 1: everything on my list. I'm working my backside into the ground.
11:37
Speaker 1: I don't have time to do everything on my list
11:39
Speaker 1: because my list is so big. I know you've got
11:40
Speaker 1: a big list too, but I'm getting mine done. You're lazy,
11:43
Speaker 1: you're not doing your thing. And of course I would
11:45
Speaker 1: never speak to my wife like that, but the potential
11:47
Speaker 1: for resentment to build when somebody isn't doing what's on
11:51
Speaker 1: their list, it makes it feel transactional to me. Moreover,
11:55
Speaker 1: if something comes up that's an emergency, like one of
11:58
Speaker 1: the kids calls and says, I forgot this thing and
11:59
Speaker 1: it's really important. It's life and death. I need you
12:01
Speaker 1: to drive to the school, or my life is over
12:03
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, which happens frequently. That will impinge
12:07
Speaker 1: unfairly on her lists, which means that it's harder for
12:10
Speaker 1: her to do her things, which means that I start
12:12
Speaker 1: to get irritated at the children because they're ruining their
12:15
Speaker 1: mother's life, and therefore they're ruining mine because I rely
12:17
Speaker 1: on highly to do those things, because I'm doing the
12:19
Speaker 1: things that she's relying on me to do, and it's
12:20
Speaker 1: just not fair. So my response would be, I don't
12:23
Speaker 1: like the transactional nature of it. That was a long
12:25
Speaker 1: way of saying that I liked it.
12:27
Speaker 2: So if you have duplication, it's interesting because if you
12:30
Speaker 2: have duplication being saying, if we all of a sudden
12:33
Speaker 2: become transactional, then our relationship becomes transactional, which is interesting
12:37
Speaker 2: because I think for a lot of couples that don't have,
12:41
Speaker 2: you know, aren't put focused on equally sharing something. It's
12:44
Speaker 2: sometimes a way to reshuffle away from the women and
12:47
Speaker 2: into the men's laps, right, get fathers engaged. But you're saying,
12:50
Speaker 2: I'm a fully engaged father, and actually I like to
12:53
Speaker 2: have this equal share because otherwise I feel like it'll
12:56
Speaker 2: create tension.
12:57
Speaker 1: Well, I don't even think that our share is equal.
12:59
Speaker 1: I have no idea, and that's because I don't keep score.
13:01
Speaker 1: But what I do have, and this is my opportunity
13:05
Speaker 1: virtue sickle and tell everyone how great I am. So
13:07
Speaker 1: forgive me for being a little bit all about me
13:09
Speaker 1: for a minute. But my orientation when I walk into
13:12
Speaker 1: the house unless I'm absolutely exhausted and just need to
13:14
Speaker 1: pass out, which does happen from time to time. We
13:17
Speaker 1: all have those days. But my orientation is how can
13:20
Speaker 1: I serve who needs me? What can I do? Oh,
13:23
Speaker 1: the dishwasher needs unstacking, Well I'll do that, and I'll
13:25
Speaker 1: call a couple of the kids in because they need
13:27
Speaker 1: to contribute, and we can be together while we do it.
13:30
Speaker 1: At nighttime, after dinner, we do this thing called all in,
13:33
Speaker 1: which is literally what it sounds like. We're all in
13:36
Speaker 1: the kitchen and we're cleaning and we're putting away. We're
13:38
Speaker 1: washing dishes. We don't use the dish washer. We wash
13:40
Speaker 1: them and drive them and put them away, and the
13:42
Speaker 1: vacuum cleaner comes out, and the benches are clean and
13:44
Speaker 1: the food's put away. It's all in. So the orientation
13:47
Speaker 1: that we've tried to instill, the family culture we've tried
13:50
Speaker 1: to create is one of let me see the opportunity
13:53
Speaker 1: to contribute, rather than that's not my job, which is
13:57
Speaker 1: a sentence that if I hear, I kind of crack it.
14:00
Speaker 2: I love this. Actually, Hailey Swinson, we're doing some live
14:05
Speaker 2: interview podcasts that will come out later on, but one
14:08
Speaker 2: of the things we're trying to do is help give
14:09
Speaker 2: families like concrete tools to help produce their mental load, right, like,
14:11
Speaker 2: how do we help people understand how AI could help you?
14:14
Speaker 2: How do we help them understand you know, what you
14:16
Speaker 2: can do on a day to day task. And Hailey Swinson,
14:18
Speaker 2: she's a she's at New America and they have this
14:20
Speaker 2: Better Life Lab and they're doing these experiments where they're
14:22
Speaker 2: trying to give people actually concrete like worksheets like and
14:26
Speaker 2: one of the things you're saying that all in sounds
14:28
Speaker 2: like something that she was talking about, Like they have
14:31
Speaker 2: an experiment like this where it's like everyone's involved, so
14:35
Speaker 2: everyone can see what's going on. Everyone comes together for
14:39
Speaker 2: a period of time to go all in to do
14:41
Speaker 2: a task, and at the end the mom said, then
14:44
Speaker 2: we bake cookies, like we put cookies into the oven,
14:47
Speaker 2: and we all come together and while the cookies are
14:49
Speaker 2: baking for thirty minutes, we're all in the kitchen or
14:51
Speaker 2: in the house doing everything. And then at the end
14:53
Speaker 2: of the thirty minutes, you get the cookies right. And
14:55
Speaker 2: I thought, what a beautiful way to create family bonding
14:57
Speaker 2: but also raise visibility about what's being done in house right,
15:01
Speaker 2: shared responsibility in the household. And so I think that
15:04
Speaker 2: all in is an incredible tool for people who haven't
15:08
Speaker 2: heard it or haven't used it. And it seems like
15:10
Speaker 2: it really does work. Am I right?
15:13
Speaker 1: It does? And we make it fun because sometimes the
15:16
Speaker 1: kids come in pretty grumpy and they don't want to
15:18
Speaker 1: do all in. But we play games, we talk about
15:21
Speaker 1: our days, we engage in in constructive conversations. You've raised
15:25
Speaker 1: two things in your quick response there that I need
15:28
Speaker 1: to ask about. The first is the invisibility of the
15:32
Speaker 1: labor of others. The children consistently say to me, you
15:38
Speaker 1: always make me do all the work. My sisters never
15:41
Speaker 1: do anything. My response to them is, you don't know
15:43
Speaker 1: what they're doing. You don't know what I'm asking them
15:45
Speaker 1: to do. You're only aware of yourself talk to that idea,
15:49
Speaker 1: because I'd imagine that's right in the sweet spot of
15:51
Speaker 1: the research that you do.
15:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely so. In twenty twenty I published an article
15:57
Speaker 2: with Lisdy and Brenda Churchill at University in Melbourne and
16:00
Speaker 2: one of the things we were really trying to understand
16:02
Speaker 2: is how is the mental load different from cognitive or
16:05
Speaker 2: emotional labor. So just bear with me because I'll be
16:08
Speaker 2: a little bit of an academic right now. So when
16:11
Speaker 2: we think about the type of labor that you do,
16:13
Speaker 2: you might do cognitive labor, like thinking work. This could
16:17
Speaker 2: be keeping a track of everything that needs to be done.
16:19
Speaker 2: It could be a list, you know, tracking. This could
16:22
Speaker 2: be making a list, for example, of what ingredients we
16:24
Speaker 2: need for dinner. Cognitive labor thinking work. You also might
16:27
Speaker 2: do some emotional work, thinking about if your child is,
16:31
Speaker 2: you know, having a hard day, or something in your
16:35
Speaker 2: partners having hard day, someone in your family requires emotional
16:38
Speaker 2: work and emotional support. These are two types of work
16:40
Speaker 2: that you're probably doing every day, all day long. Then
16:44
Speaker 2: you're also doing paid work. You know, you're getting paid
16:46
Speaker 2: in your job if you're working, or you're doing domestic work,
16:49
Speaker 2: which again is work but is unpaid childcare and housework,
16:53
Speaker 2: and these are kind of four types of labor. And
16:54
Speaker 2: one of the things we talked about was that the
16:56
Speaker 2: mental load is something different. It's when thinking work becomes emotional.
17:01
Speaker 2: So it's this idea that it's the coming together of
17:04
Speaker 2: emotional thinking work and that's what makes it heavy, and
17:07
Speaker 2: that's what makes it a load. So it's not just
17:11
Speaker 2: did we remember to, I don't know, buy the milk,
17:16
Speaker 2: It's more did we remember to buy the milk? Do
17:18
Speaker 2: we get the right type? Actually, are the kids going
17:20
Speaker 2: to be able to have cereal in the morning? If
17:22
Speaker 2: they don't have cereal in the morning, they're going to
17:24
Speaker 2: start their day off terribly. What am I going to
17:25
Speaker 2: try to find? Right? That's the emotional thinking work that
17:28
Speaker 2: you can see kind of goes in different directions. In
17:31
Speaker 2: addition to that, we said that the mental load was
17:33
Speaker 2: three things. It's invisible, which means it's done internally. It's
17:36
Speaker 2: in your brain. You can't literally cannot see when people
17:40
Speaker 2: are doing mental load work or the work. You might
17:43
Speaker 2: right now as I'm talking be thinking about something else,
17:47
Speaker 2: like I might have tiggered, like do we have enough milk?
17:50
Speaker 1: Am I going to have to go to the shops
17:51
Speaker 1: and get the groceries for that amazing recipe we're going
17:53
Speaker 1: to cook tonight, exactly, yeah, exactly.
17:56
Speaker 2: And one of the things we're trying to get is like,
17:57
Speaker 2: how do you measure the mental load? Do you measure
17:59
Speaker 2: it in seconds? Measure it in minutes? Do you measure
18:02
Speaker 2: How do you do that? Because it comes like a
18:04
Speaker 2: split second right into your brain and you're derailed, and
18:08
Speaker 2: it can leave just as quickly, but you're still derailed.
18:10
Speaker 2: So it's invisible. It's it's invisible work. It's boundaryless. And
18:15
Speaker 2: what we mean by that is like you, if you
18:18
Speaker 2: have unfinished laundry or you have dishes that are dirty
18:21
Speaker 2: at home, you are not carrying your dishes into work.
18:24
Speaker 2: You're not like, hey, everybody, sorry, I just didn't get
18:27
Speaker 2: to finish these fifteen dishes, so I'm gonna bring up
18:29
Speaker 2: a stack them in the work dishwasher, right like, You're
18:32
Speaker 2: not doing that. And that means that that kind of
18:34
Speaker 2: work is bound to a space and a place like you.
18:38
Speaker 2: It stays at home.
18:40
Speaker 1: Yes it does, but it doesn't right like you carry
18:42
Speaker 1: it in your head. You're like, ah, when I get home,
18:44
Speaker 1: I've got to do this and this and this. So
18:46
Speaker 1: you're not bringing it to work, but you kind of, ah.
18:48
Speaker 2: You're bringing the mental load of it to work. You
18:50
Speaker 2: a break. Correct, Absolutely, you're not going to bring your
18:53
Speaker 2: physical dishes, but you'll bring that mental load to your
18:56
Speaker 2: job exactly like you said, right, God, I gotta go home,
18:59
Speaker 2: dishes are there, so you'll bring So that's where it
19:02
Speaker 2: doesn't sit in one spot, right. It's not tied to
19:05
Speaker 2: a place or things or people. It goes with you
19:08
Speaker 2: and everywhere you go on, walks in the bath, wakes
19:12
Speaker 2: you up at night. You take it to work, you
19:14
Speaker 2: take it when you're at the someplace where you're trying
19:16
Speaker 2: to decompress. It goes with you everywhere. And then the
19:19
Speaker 2: last thing is it's enduring because it's tied to the
19:21
Speaker 2: love and care of people you love and care about.
19:23
Speaker 2: When do you stop having a mental load to your children?
19:26
Speaker 2: When you die? Like right, like when you die.
19:29
Speaker 1: That's so optimistic, isn't it.
19:33
Speaker 2: It'll never end, right, It just morphs. And so that
19:37
Speaker 2: invisibility is what makes it. Like all these three characteristics
19:41
Speaker 2: of invisibility, emotional thinking, work that is invisible, boundaryless, and enduring,
19:46
Speaker 2: I think is what makes a mental load so pernicious,
19:49
Speaker 2: like so potentially damaging. It also can be really beautiful, right,
19:53
Speaker 2: I mean in our interviews we're hearing things like when
19:56
Speaker 2: the mental load goes well, when I've done all that
19:57
Speaker 2: planning work and there's joy in my face family, Oh,
20:00
Speaker 2: it's the best feeling. So it's not all bad. I
20:03
Speaker 2: don't want people to be like the goal is not
20:05
Speaker 2: to have a zero mental load, but the goal is
20:07
Speaker 2: to understand what it is and think about when it's
20:12
Speaker 2: bringing us value and when it's draining us. When are
20:15
Speaker 2: we do lookinning and when are we not? How do
20:16
Speaker 2: we use it more effectively?
20:25
Speaker 1: Okay, let me ask you the second question that I
20:28
Speaker 1: had From your answer previously, you highlighted that AI could
20:32
Speaker 1: be used to reduce the mental load that parents are carrying.
20:37
Speaker 1: Kylie and I have experimented a little bit with this
20:39
Speaker 1: in terms of having AI put together an itinery for
20:42
Speaker 1: a family trip, help us to work out some fun
20:45
Speaker 1: activities on a weekend because every now and again we
20:47
Speaker 1: just don't want to think about what to do. We
20:49
Speaker 1: just want to be told what to do. And even
20:51
Speaker 1: finding recipes or having AI sort of cheat a little
20:55
Speaker 1: bit for us, is it cheating I don't think it's cheating.
20:57
Speaker 1: It makes some shortcuts so that we don't have to
21:00
Speaker 1: carry the load. What's your take on AI's you found
21:06
Speaker 1: intrusion or implementation in family life?
21:09
Speaker 2: I think what you described is perfect. It's a tool.
21:12
Speaker 2: Use it effectively to your benefit, right, Like the AI
21:16
Speaker 2: I think has the potential to be an important solution.
21:19
Speaker 2: And I'm really what I'm really committed to. We're doing
21:22
Speaker 2: a research project and we're doing it with Goldie whose
21:26
Speaker 2: apps that's taking generative AI and helping to read parents' emails,
21:32
Speaker 2: correspondence calendar invites and seeing if helping that kind of
21:37
Speaker 2: break you down and then put it into your calendar. Right.
21:39
Speaker 1: I like this, and I'll tell you why. I just
21:41
Speaker 1: delete the emails. I don't even read them, and I
21:44
Speaker 1: must know. Schools tell me all the time this is
21:46
Speaker 1: a problem. So what's called Goldie, Goldie Goldie And it
21:50
Speaker 1: does that for me?
21:52
Speaker 2: Yes? And then yes it does Okay. And if we
21:55
Speaker 2: think about the fact that Google or like if Google,
21:58
Speaker 2: it's funny because I'm reading this book right, I'm there
22:00
Speaker 2: at the computer blah blah blah, blah blah blah, and
22:02
Speaker 2: I write this thing where I say I think one
22:03
Speaker 2: of the great solutions is if things like Google who
22:06
Speaker 2: they can read our email and they can tell me
22:08
Speaker 2: when I haven't replied to anything, when a bill is due,
22:11
Speaker 2: when something needs to be done. Why can't we take
22:15
Speaker 2: this and move it into family life? And then all
22:17
Speaker 2: of a sudden, someone sends me this beautiful thing about
22:19
Speaker 2: Verity Tuck who started Goldie. Who's this woman founder? And
22:22
Speaker 2: is you know, stepping into the world. And she's done it.
22:26
Speaker 2: She's done it, She's built the out that can do it.
22:28
Speaker 2: So I think, like, how can we think about this
22:31
Speaker 2: is one of the powerful things. How do we think
22:33
Speaker 2: about the ways in which we use AI in other
22:35
Speaker 2: areas to create efficiencies? How can we help it to
22:38
Speaker 2: lighten the family elements? And this is one example of
22:44
Speaker 2: a technology that can do that. We all just if
22:47
Speaker 2: you will indulge me for one more second. One of
22:50
Speaker 2: the things I'm working on now is and we did
22:53
Speaker 2: a little pilot of it, is how do you give
22:55
Speaker 2: Goldie's one solution but it's not the only solution, and
22:58
Speaker 2: so how do we help understand the suite of solutions?
23:02
Speaker 2: So what we did was we gave parents money. We
23:05
Speaker 2: gave mothers money to see where would they spend it,
23:07
Speaker 2: what would they do, and how would they allocate that
23:10
Speaker 2: resource to lighten their mental load. And this, I think
23:14
Speaker 2: is what we need to do more of understanding the
23:16
Speaker 2: range of things that are on the market, coming together
23:19
Speaker 2: with good ideas like that everyone in the kitchen moment right,
23:22
Speaker 2: sharing them across, having them on one spot, because there's
23:26
Speaker 2: not going to be a single solution to this problem.
23:28
Speaker 2: So if you can have a range of solutions and
23:30
Speaker 2: you can see what they are, and you can see
23:31
Speaker 2: what's worked for other people, you could then adopt what
23:35
Speaker 2: works for you at whatever moment in time.
23:37
Speaker 1: Let's stay on this theme. I read that nearly three
23:40
Speaker 1: thousand WhatsApp messages land in parents WhatsApp groups every single
23:47
Speaker 1: year per child. That must be adding to the digital load,
23:52
Speaker 1: because I would guess that it's the mom's not the
23:54
Speaker 1: dads that tend to be in the WhatsApp groups. What's
23:57
Speaker 1: that doing in terms of adding to mother's men? What's
24:00
Speaker 1: your research showing.
24:02
Speaker 2: It's interesting because we asked this question in our interviews,
24:05
Speaker 2: or let me say it a different way, this question
24:07
Speaker 2: came up in our interviews again and again and again,
24:10
Speaker 2: and the idea is basically that schools are a huge
24:13
Speaker 2: generator of correspondence and meant a huge drain on parents'
24:18
Speaker 2: mental load. One of the things we're hearing from the
24:21
Speaker 2: interviews is like mothers can't escape it even if they
24:25
Speaker 2: put the fathers as a contact person. We had one
24:29
Speaker 2: mother that said, like, I am in a secure location
24:32
Speaker 2: because of my job, which means literally my cell phone
24:34
Speaker 2: does not work, and yet the school calls me even
24:38
Speaker 2: though the forum says to call the dad. Let me
24:42
Speaker 2: be clear, I'm not here blaming schools, right. I think
24:44
Speaker 2: schools have an incredible pressure on them to be everything
24:47
Speaker 2: to everyone at all moments in time. And I understand
24:50
Speaker 2: why schools are making the decisions that they're making. But
24:52
Speaker 2: we can see the ways when you ask me that
24:54
Speaker 2: question of like at the start of it, how do
24:56
Speaker 2: we understand why certain things get allocated to mom and
25:00
Speaker 2: certain things get allocated to dad. That is one example
25:03
Speaker 2: of gender norms that have mothers is like the primary
25:08
Speaker 2: contact person that even if the course, even if the
25:12
Speaker 2: directive is do not call me, call him, she gets called.
25:16
Speaker 2: And so I think it's thinking about ways in which
25:19
Speaker 2: so we heard this a lot that schools generate a
25:21
Speaker 2: huge amount of correspondence that it's not just coming from
25:24
Speaker 2: the compass. I don't know what your children have, but
25:26
Speaker 2: like the compass, like constant stream of that kind of
25:29
Speaker 2: stuff that comes at the most inopportune times across the day.
25:33
Speaker 2: You get a letter from the math teacher, you get
25:34
Speaker 2: a letter from the English teacher, you get a letter
25:36
Speaker 2: from the principle. You get right, the volume of correspondence,
25:39
Speaker 2: But then also it goes into the groups, and then
25:42
Speaker 2: what happens if you don't monitor them. What happens if
25:45
Speaker 2: you miss something and the parents are worried that their
25:47
Speaker 2: kids are going to miss out right, that's that's going
25:51
Speaker 2: to be a missing out. So I guess in summary,
25:53
Speaker 2: what I want to say is huge amount of correspondence,
25:57
Speaker 2: drain on the mental load, difficulty to put a boundaries
26:00
Speaker 2: because how do you put it boundaries to the concert stream,
26:03
Speaker 2: and then a worry that if I do and I
26:07
Speaker 2: forget something, the person who suffers as my kid.
26:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I said, I'd delete them. I don't have
26:13
Speaker 1: the headspace for them. I travel a lot for work,
26:14
Speaker 1: so I'm not the person who's going to be implementing
26:16
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of it. Anyway. I also tell Kylie
26:19
Speaker 1: the dee that to delete it. My guess is, if it's
26:22
Speaker 1: really important, my daughters will already know about it. But
26:26
Speaker 1: it's something that she refuses to do. She says, no, no, no, no,
26:30
Speaker 1: I'm keeping the emails. I've got to stay across it.
26:32
Speaker 1: But then she also tells me that she has six
26:34
Speaker 1: hundred unopened emails in her inbox because who's got time
26:38
Speaker 1: for all of that? I just I look at this
26:41
Speaker 1: and I mean to hear you talk about an app
26:43
Speaker 1: that can do this for you, and I think there's
26:44
Speaker 1: actually some good value in that. I think that that
26:47
Speaker 1: could be worth playing around with. Okay, the very first
26:51
Speaker 1: question I asked you I ended up changing, but I
26:54
Speaker 1: want to come back to it for a sec. This
26:55
Speaker 1: idea of equality is the right idea. Should we be
27:00
Speaker 1: aiming for equality? Is it about both doing fifty percent
27:04
Speaker 1: of the load? How do how do you even measure that?
27:08
Speaker 1: Is the whole concept flawed? Or is it something that
27:11
Speaker 1: is both desirable and attainable? Or are we just worrying
27:15
Speaker 1: about the wrong stuff.
27:18
Speaker 2: This is like a very difficult question. So my brain
27:22
Speaker 2: went to thirteen different things. Get ready, Okay, there's a
27:27
Speaker 2: discussion about whether it should be about equality, which is
27:29
Speaker 2: like a fifty to fifty split, everyone shares everything equally,
27:33
Speaker 2: or should it be about equity whoever needs this is
27:36
Speaker 2: I think you're taking an equity perspective right, like who
27:38
Speaker 2: needs at what moment in time? When we come in
27:40
Speaker 2: and we support that person from an equity perspective, I
27:44
Speaker 2: think the challenge is is that if we go from
27:48
Speaker 2: an equity perspective, which is who needs what at that
27:52
Speaker 2: moment in time, and how do we step in and
27:53
Speaker 2: support that person. The thing that worries me is sometimes
27:57
Speaker 2: mothers have a very hard time, and I'm hearing this interviews,
28:00
Speaker 2: they have a very hard time sharing through what they need.
28:03
Speaker 2: There is a block.
28:04
Speaker 1: I wish I had Kylie here right now because we've
28:06
Speaker 1: had this conversation. If I say to her, I want
28:09
Speaker 1: to have a weekend away. I just want to go surfing.
28:11
Speaker 1: I need to clear my head, Kylie says, Okay, go surfing,
28:16
Speaker 1: have a great time. But when I make the offer
28:18
Speaker 1: to her, it's been a while since you've had a
28:20
Speaker 1: day or two to yourself. Do you want to do anything?
28:23
Speaker 1: She'll say no, Why I've got too much to do
28:27
Speaker 1: or I can't leave this And we've heard Unfortunately from
28:31
Speaker 1: way too many moms. They'll just say, I can't trust
28:34
Speaker 1: my husband or my partner with the kids while I'm gone.
28:37
Speaker 1: Everything's going to fall apart while I'm gone. So I
28:41
Speaker 1: guess that's kind of what you're angling at, isn't it correct.
28:43
Speaker 2: It's a huge amount of guilt, right, It's a huge
28:45
Speaker 2: amount of guilt, a huge amount of loss trust, Like
28:49
Speaker 2: you're saying, if they don't trust them, This is one
28:52
Speaker 2: of the things that e Rothi said just actually in
28:54
Speaker 2: the podcast we're recording, like, you need to have trust
28:56
Speaker 2: that if that person's going to take it step in.
28:58
Speaker 2: Accountability and trust. Those are her two keywords, accountability and trust,
29:02
Speaker 2: and then mothers feeling they can step away. I'm saying
29:06
Speaker 2: to you, I am also hearing a huge block about
29:09
Speaker 2: I don't give to myself. I give to others, and
29:12
Speaker 2: it's hard to take. And so my goal in this
29:15
Speaker 2: world is to break down some of that, right, like,
29:18
Speaker 2: to break down some of that guilt and shame about taking,
29:21
Speaker 2: because I think mothers are so conditioned to give, give, give, give,
29:24
Speaker 2: and if you have ten dollars, then you're going to
29:26
Speaker 2: put it into your kid's college fund, university fund for y'all,
29:30
Speaker 2: and probably is private school tuition. I don't know where.
29:31
Speaker 2: I don't know where the money goes in this country,
29:33
Speaker 2: but like if the US would be like saving for
29:35
Speaker 2: college or you know, their down payment for their home.
29:37
Speaker 2: So there's this idea that if there's extra, it should
29:40
Speaker 2: go to everyone else. And that has to I think
29:43
Speaker 2: they three have to come together on that. There has
29:46
Speaker 2: to be trust, some accountability that when you step out,
29:49
Speaker 2: you're not coming back to a chaotic mess. But there
29:52
Speaker 2: also has to be an ability to say, I can't
29:54
Speaker 2: hold this all together at one person cannot be responsible
29:58
Speaker 2: for this whole thing. That's fair on me. We don't
30:01
Speaker 2: ask in any other circumstance for one person to be
30:05
Speaker 2: responsible for everything, right, Like it's weird, right, you wouldn't say,
30:09
Speaker 2: like no one says to me at Melbourne UNI, Okay,
30:11
Speaker 2: you're now in charge of Melbourn UNI, good luck. Right.
30:14
Speaker 2: But for some reason, it's like there's this incredible pressure
30:17
Speaker 2: social norms on mothers to be like you're in charge
30:21
Speaker 2: of the future of this family. Good luck, And so
30:24
Speaker 2: that's unrealistic and that's unsustainable, and so there has to
30:27
Speaker 2: be some moment too. And again when mothers get extra
30:31
Speaker 2: they give in or they give forward to either their
30:34
Speaker 2: kids or their husband or their family. I heard this
30:36
Speaker 2: one I said to mothers. I said to them, here's
30:37
Speaker 2: four hundred dollars to do what you want. And the
30:39
Speaker 2: first thing most of the mothers did was they try
30:41
Speaker 2: to give it back to the family. And I had
30:43
Speaker 2: to say, no, no, no, I didn't tell you. I mean,
30:44
Speaker 2: if you want to, but you don't have to give
30:47
Speaker 2: it to yourself. And that is I'm here to break
30:49
Speaker 2: that down. I guess that's my last thing. I'm here
30:50
Speaker 2: to break that down, that shame around giving to yourself,
30:54
Speaker 2: because in giving to yourself, you're giving to the group,
30:57
Speaker 2: and in no other circumstances won't feel that.
30:59
Speaker 1: I can tell you right now, Kylie would go straight
31:00
Speaker 1: to the day spa. Four hundred dollars is going to
31:02
Speaker 1: give her a good couple of hours of Ah, just joy,
31:07
Speaker 1: I don't like day spars anyway. I Digress's Kylie's special place.
31:14
Speaker 1: Your research, Leah, as you're highlighted in relation to your
31:17
Speaker 1: podcast topics, involves and investigates the area of how male
31:25
Speaker 1: and female or partnered contributions in the home impact on
31:30
Speaker 1: relationship satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, life satisfaction. Tell me for men
31:37
Speaker 1: who contribute more, do they get luckier?
31:41
Speaker 2: They get it all. Let me tell you something, they
31:44
Speaker 2: get everything.
31:45
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'll.
31:47
Speaker 2: Tell you across and the research, like I've done across
31:50
Speaker 2: the research. They get better sleep. Right Like, if you
31:53
Speaker 2: live in a more equitable, gender equal society, let me
31:56
Speaker 2: tell you the things you get. You get more better
31:58
Speaker 2: sleep or high quality sleep, you get better health, You're
32:02
Speaker 2: less riskier decisions. You know, they're less likely to make risky,
32:06
Speaker 2: they're less likely to die. The sex question, I'm going
32:09
Speaker 2: it's a little bit murky on that one. But they
32:12
Speaker 2: have more sustained relationships, they have more life satisfaction, Their
32:16
Speaker 2: partners are more satisfied. I mean, I think the weird
32:18
Speaker 2: thing is like we often think about this and I
32:21
Speaker 2: talk a lot about this and have for decades, but
32:23
Speaker 2: like we think of the conversations are often pitted like
32:26
Speaker 2: men versus women, And it's like the answer is is
32:29
Speaker 2: actually these social norms that tell men you need to
32:31
Speaker 2: be solely responsible for bringing in all the money for
32:34
Speaker 2: the family. You know what, rising inflation, I don't know,
32:36
Speaker 2: work harder. You know what, global pandemic work harder. COVID nineteen.
32:40
Speaker 2: Just dig in and work harder. It's detrimental to men.
32:43
Speaker 2: They're traps for men too. And what we're hearing is
32:47
Speaker 2: men are like, I want to be there with my partner,
32:49
Speaker 2: I want to be there with my kids. I want
32:51
Speaker 2: to work less, but I don't know how to do that.
32:53
Speaker 2: I don't have the incredible pressure of like I want
32:57
Speaker 2: to be less focused on work, but I don't know
32:59
Speaker 2: how to do that because I have simultaneous pressure to
33:01
Speaker 2: be focused on work, and I'm worried. We have a study. God,
33:04
Speaker 2: I could be here for like four hours, but we
33:06
Speaker 2: have a study where we actually looked at what happens
33:08
Speaker 2: when men take a career gap, what happens if we
33:11
Speaker 2: put us in their CV a gap for caregiving. And
33:15
Speaker 2: we found that the men get punished more than the fathers,
33:17
Speaker 2: get punished more than the mothers. And in particular and
33:20
Speaker 2: men dominated industries, like we fed them through algorithms, right
33:23
Speaker 2: and just saw what happens is a project with Shila
33:25
Speaker 2: and Nijodo, Mark Chong and Leah Furman at the at
33:28
Speaker 2: University of Molment. And so the consequences, the structural consequences
33:34
Speaker 2: for men stepping into care can be serious, and it
33:39
Speaker 2: makes sense that they're hesitant. They want to be equal cares.
33:42
Speaker 2: They want to be equal shares. They want to have
33:45
Speaker 2: lives where they can be connected to their children emotionally,
33:48
Speaker 2: they want to be actively engaged. And until we start
33:51
Speaker 2: to shift work, shift our policy structures and understand that
33:55
Speaker 2: men aren't insane on this. They're just looking at the
33:58
Speaker 2: world and facing pressures too that stressful for them too.
34:02
Speaker 2: It's not men versus women, it's us together to help
34:05
Speaker 2: create worlds in which everyone can step into love, life, laughter, care,
34:10
Speaker 2: and enjoyable experiences. That's Michael.
34:12
Speaker 1: Much of the conversation has been centered around women and
34:14
Speaker 1: the load that they carry as a man. Listening to
34:17
Speaker 1: what you're saying, I'm feeling like I'm getting goosebumps and
34:22
Speaker 1: think to myself that this is something that I hear
34:24
Speaker 1: men say all the time. They'll say, nobody understands the
34:29
Speaker 1: load that I carry as a man, especially in single
34:32
Speaker 1: income families, having to provide and provision and protect and
34:39
Speaker 1: do all the things that men are quote unquote supposed
34:41
Speaker 1: to do. Even if that sounds a little bit archaic,
34:44
Speaker 1: there is that masculinity drive to do those things that
34:48
Speaker 1: men have done across cultures and across millennia. But I'm
34:51
Speaker 1: also supposed to show up and have the energy to
34:54
Speaker 1: do X, Y and Z when I get home, and
34:56
Speaker 1: be willing to have the input and the emotional burden
35:01
Speaker 1: that lands on a man's shoulders when he walks in
35:02
Speaker 1: the door after he's done all the stuff and gone
35:04
Speaker 1: out and slain the line every day which he's supposed
35:06
Speaker 1: to go and do all the elephant or whatever it is.
35:08
Speaker 1: I've had men literally look at me and almost weep
35:11
Speaker 1: as they say, I just don't know if I'm saying this.
35:13
Speaker 1: It is such a heavy load. Now I'm again, I'm
35:16
Speaker 1: not trying to make it sound like life is extra
35:19
Speaker 1: hard for men or anything like that, but rather the
35:23
Speaker 1: cognitive load that we've been talking about, this idea of
35:26
Speaker 1: a household mental load. It seems it seems like, especially
35:36
Speaker 1: in a single income family, if we only focus on
35:39
Speaker 1: who's doing what at home, this might be a bit provocative,
35:42
Speaker 1: But if we only focus on the split at home,
35:46
Speaker 1: it will look like men are loafing. And yet the
35:48
Speaker 1: men that I speak to, specifically those who are in
35:51
Speaker 1: singling income situations, are doing anything but loafing. They are
35:54
Speaker 1: absolutely killing it. So let me ask you this. If
35:59
Speaker 1: both parts are happy with the split, and I mean
36:02
Speaker 1: genuinely happy, if both are feeling satisfied with the split,
36:06
Speaker 1: there's no coercion, there's no manipulation, there's no martyrdom occurring.
36:12
Speaker 1: If both in the couple are happy with the split,
36:14
Speaker 1: do we have a problem.
36:16
Speaker 2: The first answer is no. The only thing I want
36:18
Speaker 2: women to think about right in their relationships is when
36:22
Speaker 2: women step out of and paid employment, there's a lot
36:24
Speaker 2: of long term consequences for them, especially if they end
36:28
Speaker 2: up divorcing or separating from their partner. So I always
36:32
Speaker 2: want women to be thinking, like, in the end, if
36:34
Speaker 2: I think that there are multiple family forums, that what
36:38
Speaker 2: works for you at point for this person may not
36:40
Speaker 2: work for the other. What works for you at point
36:42
Speaker 2: A may not work at B, C and D. Right,
36:46
Speaker 2: But I want women to as they're thinking about making
36:48
Speaker 2: these decisions, to go, Okay, what does it mean for
36:50
Speaker 2: my superannuation? What does it mean for my long term earnings?
36:53
Speaker 2: And what would happen if we actually split? What would
36:56
Speaker 2: it look like for me? And if in making those decisions,
36:59
Speaker 2: in thinking about those things, you're like, no problem, right,
37:03
Speaker 2: I can be independent I have enough financial resources, Like, great,
37:07
Speaker 2: do whatever you want, but having the knowledge. My goal
37:09
Speaker 2: is always to give women as much knowledge and men
37:12
Speaker 2: to as much knowledge as possible so that they're making
37:16
Speaker 2: informed decisions at key pivot points. There's these pivot points
37:19
Speaker 2: right where we end up on different tracks. And so
37:21
Speaker 2: if you have all the information at that point and
37:23
Speaker 2: then you make your decision, great, whatever decision you make, perfect,
37:28
Speaker 2: but let's make sure you have all that information. But
37:30
Speaker 2: in terms of what men are doing, So in our
37:33
Speaker 2: study that we just published Internal Marriage and Family with
37:36
Speaker 2: Enne Weeks on the mental load, what we found is
37:37
Speaker 2: in single households and non partnered for non partnered parents,
37:42
Speaker 2: it was exactly as you said the men did. There
37:44
Speaker 2: was no difference. The mental loads were similar between you know,
37:49
Speaker 2: single moms and single dads. So the men stepped in
37:52
Speaker 2: right and and they and they did it all. And
37:55
Speaker 2: so you're right on that, like you're right that there,
37:57
Speaker 2: You're right there is and I think you're also right there.
38:00
Speaker 2: Like the problem happens sometimes when we point like we
38:05
Speaker 2: point the finger at each other. It's hard because I
38:08
Speaker 2: can see that mothers are overwhelmed. Everyone's burnt out right now,
38:11
Speaker 2: and we show that in our research too. Australia is
38:14
Speaker 2: like experiencing this great burnout, especially post pandemic. So how
38:17
Speaker 2: do we think about this as like a public health problem?
38:20
Speaker 2: And then if we have a public health problem where
38:21
Speaker 2: everyone's burnt out, how do we make sure we're supporting
38:23
Speaker 2: men's mental loads and women's mental loads. It may look different,
38:27
Speaker 2: the composition may be different, but how do we make
38:30
Speaker 2: sure we're understanding that composition and then giving the supports
38:33
Speaker 2: as as necessary, and how do we have honest conversations
38:38
Speaker 2: about that.
38:38
Speaker 1: I was about to say, it feels to me like
38:40
Speaker 1: this is about couples talking to each other, being transparent,
38:43
Speaker 1: being vulnerable, having real conversations, and looking for opportunities to contribute.
38:49
Speaker 1: That's what I'm hearing, and that's where the satisfaction is.
38:52
Speaker 1: That's why both the men and the women who are
38:55
Speaker 1: in those relationships sleep better or at not have been
38:57
Speaker 1: life satisfaction and marital satisfaction and so on. Okay, last
39:01
Speaker 1: question for you. This podcast is about giving parents real solutions.
39:05
Speaker 1: In some ways, this has been quite an academic discussion.
39:07
Speaker 1: We've been talking about research and what we see in
39:10
Speaker 1: terms of this family is doing X, Y and Z
39:13
Speaker 1: and how that's playing out in their lives. If you
39:15
Speaker 1: could pull out your favorite solution, your number one solution
39:20
Speaker 1: from the bag and guide us to it so that
39:22
Speaker 1: we can have the kind of life and family and
39:27
Speaker 1: marital satisfaction that we all crave. What would you recommend.
39:33
Speaker 2: You're going to hear my answer. Sorry, I'm sorry for
39:36
Speaker 2: what it's about to happen. You're going to need to
39:38
Speaker 2: buy my book next year.
39:40
Speaker 1: Right, that's a long time. Can you give us something
39:45
Speaker 1: when your book comes out, I'll get you back on
39:47
Speaker 1: the pod because I think it's to It'll be another
39:49
Speaker 1: There's so much we haven't talked about that we could.
39:52
Speaker 1: But if there was one thing today that a family
39:54
Speaker 1: could do, that a couple could do to make that
39:59
Speaker 1: load feel lot of for the person who's carrying the
40:01
Speaker 1: ball cover at the seventy one percent that women are carrying.
40:05
Speaker 1: What what would the one thing be that you'd recommend.
40:08
Speaker 2: Let me be clear too, I would love to tell
40:11
Speaker 2: you what I had the solution I give you in
40:12
Speaker 2: the book because and I am I love telling everybody everything,
40:15
Speaker 2: and I have to put handcuffs on my on my mouth,
40:20
Speaker 2: tape my mouth because I'm always like, let me tell
40:21
Speaker 2: you what I found, I think, but until then, because
40:25
Speaker 2: I'll probably be busted by every editor and publisher in
40:28
Speaker 2: the world. Until then, what I think one thing to
40:31
Speaker 2: do is I think what you said about I think
40:34
Speaker 2: coming into it being like, Okay, I don't think we
40:37
Speaker 2: totally understand this work right, right, Like I don't think
40:41
Speaker 2: people have a good understanding exactly of what is the
40:43
Speaker 2: mental load, what is the cognitive labor. Even the fact
40:45
Speaker 2: that you said in this conversation like I had a
40:47
Speaker 2: million light bulb moments, which means I'm saying something to
40:50
Speaker 2: you that you haven't heard before or right, So, I
40:53
Speaker 2: think understanding that at this moment in time, we are
40:56
Speaker 2: not having quite the right conversation about this because we
41:00
Speaker 2: don't yet have the language for it, and so trying
41:03
Speaker 2: to work as a couple in terms of communication to
41:06
Speaker 2: better to really hear without the resistance coming behind. Take
41:11
Speaker 2: the twenty years of baggage and drop it for one
41:13
Speaker 2: second and come in and listen. I think that's the
41:15
Speaker 2: first step to hear it, to understand it, to ask questions,
41:18
Speaker 2: to remain curious, and to acknowledge that what you're carrying
41:22
Speaker 2: on what I carry are two different things. But they're
41:24
Speaker 2: equally heavy and that start, I think is the start.
41:30
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that in my book too, but you
41:32
Speaker 2: have to wait till twenty twenty six.
41:33
Speaker 1: And I'm going to add mums. When you get the
41:36
Speaker 1: opportunity to breathe, or you get someone give you four
41:40
Speaker 1: hundred bucks, run with it, run with it, take it,
41:44
Speaker 1: do something with it. This has been such a fun conversation.
41:47
Speaker 1: So glad to spend some time with your. Professor Lea
41:50
Speaker 1: Rupaner is rese Sorry I had to do it.
41:53
Speaker 2: You did great.
41:54
Speaker 1: Professor Lea Rupana is a research professor at the University
41:57
Speaker 1: of Melbourne in sociology is how modern families work, and
42:02
Speaker 1: her podcast is called Misperceived.
42:05
Speaker 2: Perfect and you. I have a at craft Leah, because
42:08
Speaker 2: no one can do my last name and at miss
42:10
Speaker 2: perceived handle on Instagram. If you want me to tell
42:14
Speaker 2: you how great I am every single day, great.
42:15
Speaker 1: Stuff, We'll make sure we link to all of that
42:17
Speaker 1: in the show notes. Great to be with you. Thank
42:19
Speaker 1: you so much, Leah, thank you for having me. The
42:22
Speaker 1: Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media.
42:26
Speaker 1: If you would like more information and resources to make
42:28
Speaker 1: your family happier, check the show notes for today's episode
42:31
Speaker 1: for everything that you need to know about Professor Leah
42:34
Speaker 1: Rapana from the University of Melbourne, or visit happyfamilies dot
42:38
Speaker 1: com dot au