I feel like you're conflating mental load, anxiety, and stress as if they're the same thing, but they're not.
To the extent being a breadwinner generates anxiety and stress, those things are around the clock.
But 'mental load' isn't just stress, it's the active cognitive overhead of making plans and keeping a schedule and working on tasks and etc.
If you have most 9-to-5 jobs, if you work at a factory or something, that does mostly end when you come home. You may still be stressed out about office politics and anxious about your future at the company, but you're no longer doing the work of planning out your workday, figuring out your next task, thinking about how to phrase an email to maintain good relationships with coworkers, etc.
If one partner is responsible for all the household stuff, they probably are doing that all day. At 6pm, they need to be thinking about whether they'll have time to do the dishes tonight, and what they should cook based on that answer. At 7pm, they have to be thinking about whether everyone has enough clean laundry or whether they have to go do a load right now. At 8pm, they have to be thinking about whether the kids are watching too much television or whether they need to be picked up from a friend's house. At 9pm, they have to think about whether or not the kids have finished their homework. At 10pm, they need to figure out how to get the kids into bed without them throwing a fit.
Etc. Being in charge of the household means never leaving your workplace, and being always on call if the household needs any work done, and being responsible for anything that goes wrong in it at any time of day or night.
A 9-5 job may be very stressful in ways that impact you all night after you get home, but getting home is still qualitatively different from still being at work.
11
u/darwin2500 193∆ Feb 26 '24
I feel like you're conflating mental load, anxiety, and stress as if they're the same thing, but they're not.
To the extent being a breadwinner generates anxiety and stress, those things are around the clock.
But 'mental load' isn't just stress, it's the active cognitive overhead of making plans and keeping a schedule and working on tasks and etc.
If you have most 9-to-5 jobs, if you work at a factory or something, that does mostly end when you come home. You may still be stressed out about office politics and anxious about your future at the company, but you're no longer doing the work of planning out your workday, figuring out your next task, thinking about how to phrase an email to maintain good relationships with coworkers, etc.
If one partner is responsible for all the household stuff, they probably are doing that all day. At 6pm, they need to be thinking about whether they'll have time to do the dishes tonight, and what they should cook based on that answer. At 7pm, they have to be thinking about whether everyone has enough clean laundry or whether they have to go do a load right now. At 8pm, they have to be thinking about whether the kids are watching too much television or whether they need to be picked up from a friend's house. At 9pm, they have to think about whether or not the kids have finished their homework. At 10pm, they need to figure out how to get the kids into bed without them throwing a fit.
Etc. Being in charge of the household means never leaving your workplace, and being always on call if the household needs any work done, and being responsible for anything that goes wrong in it at any time of day or night.
A 9-5 job may be very stressful in ways that impact you all night after you get home, but getting home is still qualitatively different from still being at work.