Woman Explains Why Dads Dropping Their Kids Off At School Or Camp Is Not Helping With 'The Mental Load'
The mental load is more than doing the bare minimum.
@sheisapaigeturner / TikTok A woman named Paige Turner is turning heads with her approach to what seems like a partner epidemic — men not carrying enough of the mental load in relationships.
Far too often, men are praised for doing the bare minimum and will claim that they’re doing a lot to hold their relationships together. Far too often, women are burning out of their relationships with men who do too little — and they’re tired of the mental load.
Turner explains that dads dropping their kids off at school or camp is not helping with the mental load.
Whether it be dropping their kids off at school or at camp, it doesn’t matter — it’s not enough. Of course, thanks are in order for doing a task that needs to be done, but it’s important to recognize that it’s the bare minimum for exactly that reason, and Turner explains this as well.
“Dropping your kids off at school, picking them up from school, is not the mental load,” she explained in her TikTok. “That is labor that has to get done. Somebody has to do that. Somebody has to coordinate it, right? But that is not the mental load.”
She prefaced the video by explaining that her main goal is to help explain the concept of the mental load and give examples so that partners can get on the same page and not feel “triggered” when the phrase is brought up.
“So, what is the mental load when it comes to school drop-off, pickups, etc? What is the mental labor that goes into kids going to school, camp, etc?” she asksed rhetorically, as she already prepared her answer. “[The mental load is] all the tiny little things that lead up to that kid getting dropped off.”
"It’s the person that knows when school starts and when school ends. Is it a half-day? Late start? What about the bus, when does the bus come? When does the bus drop off at the end of the day? What about on a half-day or a late start day? Do they need lunch on these days?"
She explained that the mental load is understanding the complexities of what their child might need in order to be prepared on a daily basis at school, but it goes much further than that.
She believes that the mental load gets even worse during the summer because of camp.
“I just got two handouts for camp for this week of all the information I need to know for every single day of the week,” she explains. “Monday, this is just a fun day. Tuesday, pizza day, you need to bring in cash. Cash only, exact change, nothing else. Wednesday? Oh, guess what, the ice cream truck’s coming. It ranges from $2 to $5, more cash.”
Thursday’s beach day, so mom has to prep their kid with a long list of required items, and that’s just scratching the surface of all of the things that she has to deal with that she believes make up the “mental load.” She has to keep reminders of these things on her phone, all while Dad thinks he’s doing enough just by taking them to and from camp.
Turner added that while she’s thankful for the labor that he does, including when she delegates some of these preparatory tasks to him, she emphasized that it is not part of the mental load that comes with parenting and their relationship.
Divorce lawyers, relationship experts, and even married women who live down the street will tell you that more and more women are leaving their partners because they can no longer handle the emotional labor and mental load that is required from them.
The first step is listening to what Turner had to say, and really committing to understanding what the mental load is and how you can pick some of it up. Because co-parenting shouldn't just fall on one person.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor for YourTango who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.