transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Amy, let me tell you about a magical place that is so exactly designed to be in closed space, year-round fun for the whole family, that I bet you already know what I'm going to say before I even say the name. Let's say it together on three. One, two, three. Great Wolf Lodge. You got it, Amy.

Speaker 2:
[00:21] My kids loved Great Wolf Lodge when we went. You probably already know that it has a huge indoor water park with a wave pool, lazy river, a bunch of massive waterslides. But then your pack can hit the other attractions because wait, there's more.

Speaker 1:
[00:35] Great Wolf Lodge has adventure packed attractions like Magi Quest, a live action game kids can play throughout the lodge. Plus, the Northern Lights Arcade spent some quality time there. So your kid who loves the lazy river and your kid who loves fantasy games will both have a great time.

Speaker 2:
[00:51] Great Wolf Lodge also offers great dining options and complimentary daily events like nightly dance parties, all under one roof. Unpack the car once and you're settled in to have fun. And with 22 lodges across the country, you're always a short drive away from adventure.

Speaker 1:
[01:05] We've both had such great times at Great Wolf Lodge. So bring your pack together at a lodge near you. Learn more at greatwolf.com and strengthen the pack.

Speaker 2:
[01:18] Hey, everybody. Welcome to Fresh Take from What Fresh Hell Laughing in the Face of Motherhood. This is Amy. I am so excited today to be talking to Leah Ruppanner, Ph.D. Leah is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Melbourne, one of the founding directors of the Future of Work Lab, and the host of, seriously, one of my very favorite podcasts, the Miss Perceived Podcast. Leah has a Ph.D. in Sociology from UC Irvine and has spent the last decade researching gender, work, and family. Today, we're going to be talking about Leah's new book, Drain, to reduce your mental load, to do less and be more. Welcome, Leah.

Speaker 3:
[01:57] Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2:
[01:59] I really have been a fan of your work for so long. I wrote a book that came out last year called Happy to Help that came at women's lives from a very personal, humorous, and personal lens. And I talked about your research in an essay that I wrote about multitasking, because I really did go through a lot of my early parenting years thinking, well, it's just how it is. Women are just better at multitasking. And so, oh, well, and found your research, which indicated that that was a complete myth. So tell us a little bit about that before we get started.

Speaker 3:
[02:33] Okay. So one of the biggest myths or traps, like one of the things I'm very much interested in, and I'll tell you that one, then I'll tell you another one that seems to be resonating quite seriously with the world. One of my purposes in this world, I think, as a researcher is to think about the things that are not true, misperceptions, hence the name of my podcast, and bring research so that as you're working through your lives, you have the best tools, information, research, and empirics. Then you can make good decisions. You may make the same decision, but at least you make informed decisions. One of the things that was so clearly holding many of us back, women, mothers specifically, was this idea that we can multitask, this idea that we are inherently better at doing multiple things at the same time, that our brains are just somehow wired to be simultaneously juggling, swim lessons, your email inbox, what's for dinner, and fill in the blank, whether the dog is up to date on its flea medication. The research just doesn't show this. The research shows that actually no one, I'll say this again for those of you who need to hear it.

Speaker 2:
[03:43] In the back.

Speaker 3:
[03:46] No one is good at multitasking. Our brains are terrible at multitasking. We cannot simultaneously do two things at once. Now, some of the audience members are going to be like, okay, but can you walk and chew gum? Yes, fine. I understand. Thank you very much. Yes. Some things that are really rote, you can do simultaneously, like if you're driving and you're listening to music. But actually, when you try to concentrate on two things, or if you've ever been driving and you're like blah, blah, blah, into your friend, and then you missed your exit, it shows you that your brain is focused on something else at that moment in time. What we are good at, what we're very, very good at is task switching. We're able to move between tasks really quickly, and that makes us feel like we're multitasking. Now, here's the thing I want the mothers and the women in the audience to hear, and also the dads and the men in the audience to hear, is that we've been sold this big fat lie, that women are just inherently better at multitasking, right? When I would do my interviews, a lot of mothers would say like, no, but I'm really good at this. I'm good at doing everything at once. And the answer is, you are, but you're not doing it because you're inherently a better multitasker. You're doing it because you're doing the work. And there's a consequence for that. There is a consequence in terms of your cognitive functioning, right? Like imagine if you're splitting your brain across 85 different things all at once. That is overwhelming. That is sucking up some of your cognitive energy. And this is at the expense of your mental load. I know we'll talk about the mental load in a minute, but this is at the expense of your mental load. So this myth of multitasking is really, really problematic. It's just not true. And I think once we banish that myth, if we say, wait, that's actually a lie, we can start to say everyone's terrible with multitasking. And then we can start to see the work as the work and the rest, recovery, time for relaxation as so critical for someone who is burning through multiple things in their brain.

Speaker 2:
[05:39] We've talked a lot on this podcast about the mental load and have had other guests talking about it. And in your new book, Drain, do you talk about the mental load? That's what it's about. But you argue it's one of these terms that has quickly gone from, I've never heard that before, to yeah, yeah, I know what that is. It's when you have to remember everything. But you argue in the book that we're actually only seeing part of the elephant. So explain that to us.

Speaker 3:
[06:01] Okay, absolutely. So there's a couple key points I make in the book. The first is based on a research article that we wrote in 2022, I think. I made that up. Don't don't fact-check me. With myself, Liz Dean and Brandon Churchill at the University of Melbourne. One of the things we talked about is like, what we got wrong about the mental load as we think about it as the thinking work we do to keep our family and life functioning. That's one piece of it, but it is actually the emotional thinking work we do. It is not just thinking work, but it is emotional and that is what makes it the mental load. And so let me give you an example. Let's say you are there in your house and you're thinking about whether there are enough diapers for your baby. A simple cognitive thinking would be, there's not enough diapers, we need to make sure we get diapers and then you put them on the list and whoever buys the diapers, it's done. That is straightforward thinking. Often for us, the mental load, because it's tied to the people we love the most, it's emotional thinking work tied to our core people, including ourselves and our dreams and ambitions, the mental load goes something like this. Are there enough diapers? I don't think I have enough. God, how come I couldn't remember to do that? Am I overwhelmed? I'm a terrible mother. But actually, I'm a terrible, terrible mother. Who would forget diapers? That's so critical. Now, what if the baby wakes up in the middle of the night and there isn't enough diapers and then she's crying, but she's been crying a lot lately. Does she have colic or am I not stimulating her brain enough during the day? If I don't stimulate her brain enough during the day, will she be actually prepared for college? What if she goes to university and she can't get into Harvard? But if she can't get into Harvard, she won't make enough money. I will stop right now because I know you can understand exactly where my brain is going. This is because it's emotional thinking work. It's tied to the biggest dreams, ambitions, goals of the people we love. That's what I want people to think about. Yes, sometimes our mental load is thinking work that moves linearly, but often it is emotional thinking work that is tied to this bigger questions about who am I, what am I, what am I doing. To the same argument, there are eight different types of mental load. Now, I know you're like, wait, what?

Speaker 1:
[08:08] Yes, there are eight.

Speaker 3:
[08:10] This came through the research. One of the things we often think about is the mental load as being this list making work. That is part of it, but it's not the whole thing. My book Drained identifies eight different types that include things like life organization. That's the more traditional way we think of the mental load, but it is staying on top of the planning and tasks.

Speaker 2:
[08:32] But really, that's just one type, right?

Speaker 3:
[08:34] One type. That's one thing you're carrying. That's one.

Speaker 2:
[08:38] It's kind of, I think, if you're doing more work than your male partner, if you're married to a man or you're with a man, and they say, but I buy the dog food, they are taking part in maybe that one part of mental load. It's not that they're not participating, it's that everybody thinks that there's only one sort of it to be doing. But get ready, there's seven more types.

Speaker 3:
[08:56] Because that is actually so interesting you're saying that because I think we've trained people to think of mental load as just being this like tracking, right? Like that's what you're like tracking of who needs to be aware and what needs to be done. And yes, it is. That's one part. And you're right that often the men are thinking about like, well, I'm remembering to pick them up for school or I've bought the dog food. And Alison Damager in her book talks about like, the men are doing more of the executing work, like they're much more likely to do the executing piece of the mental load. But there's a whole other cycle around it. You know, there's seven different stages. So if men are only doing like a couple of the stages and a couple of the types, it leaves the rest to mothers.

Speaker 2:
[09:36] That's right. And I mean, better that than nothing. But what is then left to mothers is this idea that the rest of it is just extra. The rest of it is just stuff you're choosing to make more complicated. Who cares what she wears for Halloween, right? Who cares what we serve my mother-in-law when she comes over for dinner? Who cares that you're making too big a deal out of it and all this extra stress is optional? We have a sociologist here to tell us that those are lies. But those are lies.

Speaker 3:
[10:06] This is 100 percent of reverse gaslight. Get ready. There's two things that are happening. One is that, yes, your partner is probably telling you you're holding your standards too high. The answer in my book will help you unpack it. Sometimes they're right. Sometimes you are. Sometimes you're doing things that don't matter. Sometimes store-bought cookies are good enough. Good is good enough. But often, you are doing eight different types across seven different stages. And then, wait for it, because you live in a social world that tells you you are responsible for it. If things go wrong, it's your fault. And so this is the second study that people love that we've done. So we did another study where we looked at what would happen if someone dropped in on your house unexpectedly, and it was a little bit messy. And so we manipulated the gender. We had a room, and we sat in either John's or Jennifer's. And we asked people, like, if Jennifer's boss dropped in unexpectedly, if John's boss dropped in, if their coworker, if their relative, how would they view that person based on the room? And the answer was, not only would they see the room as messy, but they would also see that person as less competent, capable, likeable, agreeable, less human. And so when women say to men or to the world, yes, but if I drop this and it doesn't look the way I'm expected it to look, my parenting, my home, my children, all of it, my physical body, yes, people are going to judge me. Yes, people are going to not just judge me as less, they're going to see me as less human, less competent and less capable. And so my goal with this book is to say to you all, you're not making it up. You are not fabricating all of this, right? It is social norms and social pressure for you to do it a certain way. And yes, you are going to feel that. And that is going to drain your mental load in a different way. That's going to impact how you move through the world. And that's going to impact the pressure. Now, before you get crazy depressed about this, once we see it, we can decide whether we participate in it. Once I say to you, men of the world, she's not lying to your husbands or your male partners, right? She's not lying when she says that if the kids show up in mismatched socks, there's going to be a judgment she'll get that you won't get. That's true. But we also get to decide whether we care. And we also get to decide whether we're going to hold each other to account. And that's the power.

Speaker 2:
[12:34] Holding other women to account like you shouldn't feel bad that your kid doesn't have their permission signed.

Speaker 3:
[12:40] Exactly. Less judgment, more community. I'll just give you one little example. I was at a conference last week with all these wonderful people talking about the mental load. And one woman said, I have a messy house party. Do you love it? Tell me more. So, a party where you invite people over into your house when it's messy. Great. Like a dinner party. How much of a gift would that be, right? If you didn't have to make everything spotless. So can we have more messy house parties? More like messy kid parties?

Speaker 2:
[13:09] That's the sociologist lens, I think, because we all think no but everybody else's house would be neat if I just showed up. But being a sociologist allows you to see systems and also beliefs around those systems. Is that getting it right?

Speaker 3:
[13:21] And the research, so I'll say to you something, is that like, yes, we all think everyone's going to have cleaner houses, but actually the data shows that over time, we're spending less time cleaning our homes. So actually we are messier, but we all think we're not. Like, we think we're not. We're all messier because we're all busier. We're spending more time in primary care of our children. We're spending more time in employment. Everyone's house is a mess, y'all. Just not when you're invited over.

Speaker 2:
[13:48] You heard it here first. I'm talking to Leah Ruppanner. Her new book is called Drained. When we come back, we'll talk about the other categories of mental load work. Hellions, it's time for some spring cleaning, and I don't just mean the coat closets. Doing your financial spring cleaning can actually be super easy when you let Monarch do your financial spring cleaning for you. One dashboard that gets your entire financial life organized. No more clutter, no more mess, no more logins scattered everywhere, just accounts, investments, property, and more all in one place. Get your first year of Monarch for half off, just $50 with promo code fresh. Monarch allows you to look not only at what you've already spent, but also to plan for the future. With Monarch, you can set savings goals, plan for big purchases, and notice spending trends before they become a problem. I can generate cash flow reports that show me what we spent this quarter, this month, what we're probably going to spend next month, and feel prepared, organized, and knowing how to plan for the future. No more surprises and a lot more clarity. Try Monarch. Use code fresh at monarch.com to get your first year half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code fresh.

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Speaker 2:
[16:13] So Leah, we started talking about this in the first segment, but I wanted to go through and understand each of these different eight categories of mental load work. So the first is life organization, which as you said is how many of us understand the mental load to be. List and lists, nothing but lists, and then the understanding stops there. Just help me with some of the stuff on the list and that's the mental load. But there's a lot more to it. So let's go through the other categories. The next one is emotional support, which as you point out is very hard work and it is often impossible for moms to delegate. Tell us about that.

Speaker 3:
[16:48] So emotional support is that kind of emotional thinking work where you're checking in on your friends, your family, your coworkers. This was one of the categories that really actually women held a larger percentage of that men often would say, oh, you know, she's just inherently better at emotional support, right? And let's be honest, like, she might be, but that's because she's doing the work, right? And has this and all of the things. That is not just by luck. That is by hard work. And so this is kind of that work when you're thinking about, you know, is my friend okay? I saw her the other day and she didn't look happy or you might do it even at work, right? Where you're looking at a Zoom screen or you're with colleagues and you're trying to figure out, like, is that person mad at me or is that person doing okay? And this was work that mothers held the bulk of. Some of them would describe it as a spidey sense, like, I'm kind of looking for subtle shifts in my kids' faces. And for those of us with teenagers, because I know you have two teenagers, yeah. This is the emotional support work that might become heavier. Let me rephrase that. Emotional support work is always heavy, but parents with teenagers would talk about the stakes are higher, that actually the emotional support work is more critical because the things that our children are facing in their teen years, bullying at school, social media, sexuality, all of that becomes higher stakes, mental health issues, and they would talk a lot about that shift. So I'm just a little curious, does that resonate?

Speaker 2:
[18:12] For sure. And it's unpredictable. It isn't like, you know, I can say to my teenagers like Tuesday night, let's have a real sit down with a mug of tea because they might not be in any mood to talk to me, right? But then Wednesday morning, I'm planning running up the door and they're crying about something. It can be, you're needed and it's you that's needed and it's important and it's unpredictable.

Speaker 3:
[18:36] Absolutely. One of the women who's featured in the book talks about like, I come home from work and I've had a whole day of work and my kid is waiting there to tell me about everything that's happened in my day. And it's a gift.

Speaker 2:
[18:50] It's a gift. It is.

Speaker 3:
[18:51] And it's a mental loan.

Speaker 2:
[18:52] That's absolutely true. All right. The next one is relationship hygiene, which is, I guess, a sort of more standard maintenance version of the above, right? Making sure everybody's good with everybody.

Speaker 3:
[19:05] Yeah. So this is can be work. And at work we would call this networking, right? Like we say, have you networked in order to make sure everything's going well? But in our home lives, it can be things like, did you remember to reach out to a mother of a school friend, right? Your child is trying to make friends with someone and you reach out. We wrote a little op-eddy article about like, what happens when you don't like that parent? Like what happens when you're doing all of this work and you're stuck with these people? I mean, I feel like anyone listening can have this moment, right? Like where you're doing the relationship.

Speaker 2:
[19:36] The kids are perfect, right? The kids are so perfect for each other, right?

Speaker 3:
[19:41] And then you're stuck with their relationship hygiene of some sort of parent that you're like, I do not like you. And so this is work that mothers also carry. And often can be, it can be emotional work. So these things can cross over. So this is the relationship hygiene where it could also be that kind of work of like, making sure, you know, if an aunt is included or, you know, checking it, reminding a partner to email, you know, contact their mother or father based on birthdays. But this is the work to make sure we have strong social bonds.

Speaker 2:
[20:10] You use an example in the book. I forget all the details, but it was the male in the relationship said, well, I'm dealing, I have a lot going on right now because my dad has a heart issue and that's very stressful for him and for my mother. So I've been putting a lot of time in on that. But then when you scratch the surface, it was the female partner who had been saying for six months, something's up with your dad, he's short of breath, and she had been writing it, organizing, and then getting him to do it because it's his parents. But there was still the mental load and the work for the woman that isn't that she had a problem doing it, it's that it's not visible always to the other partner.

Speaker 3:
[20:47] One of the things I talk about, and I'm asking you to do it in the book is to start thinking about like, when is your mental load spent in small little drips, and when is it spent in big large costs? This example you give was one of those ones where she was talking about like, I was doing the little bit, the little bit of checking in, the little bit of calling, the little bit of reminding, the little bit of pinging, and then all of a sudden the big thing happened, which was he was very unwell and had to go in and have a surgery, and serious medical condition, and so this work can be tiny. It can be little, right? It can be two seconds in your brain, and it can then be something that takes you to your knees. So thinking about the mental load is this very unique thing where you can be doing something that's small but it can be weighty, or you can be doing something that's big and it can be weighty, or it can be big and it can be not weighty. So trying to think about the cost of it is one of the things I also want you to start thinking about. When you think about your mental load.

Speaker 2:
[21:43] Or it can be weighty and you have to keep that window open, that tab open on your browser because the person that you're trying to get to sign up for the internship or to tell their dad they really should go to the doctor, right? That drip of the action needs to be taken, but you can't force it, but you need to keep an eye on it.

Speaker 3:
[22:02] I'm going to say one other thing too that maybe is controversial. One of the things I'm working on right now is a little company called Light and Lab. So how do you come in and understand the mental load? How do you come in and take an assessment and see where it is? Start to measure your mental load. And we're talking a lot about the mental load of home and life and family, but you're carrying a mental load to your work too. You're not just carrying the mental load. And so when you said, how many tabs do I have open to my browser? It's like you are doing life organization work at work, making sure everything happens, everyone is where they are. You're doing relationship hygiene, like making sure your team, is your boss happy? Are you making networks of emotional support? So you're doing all that, and then you're coming home and doing all that again. So I want you to start thinking like, I am doing, I have a mental load capacity, I only have a limited amount, and it's going to all of these different things in my life, in my home, and in my work. And once we start to see the full picture, my goal, my dream, my hope, my ambition for you all is like, this thing is invisible, and you're carrying it all around. So let's start to give it some visibility, some language, some understanding, and some tools. And then let's see where the conversation could go, right? Because this is why you're so burnt out. Like, man.

Speaker 2:
[23:15] This is why.

Speaker 3:
[23:16] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[23:17] The next type of mental load work, we've definitely talked about this on the podcast, magic making, that Christmas is perfect, that the creamed white onions that nobody actually wants are on the table because they have to be on the table. You use that example in the book, and Margaret has also totally had that example in her life. Nobody likes creamed white onions, but there have to be creamed white onions.

Speaker 3:
[23:37] Because grandma once made them, right? We have to have grandma's, and grandma's not even there.

Speaker 2:
[23:41] Yeah. And this is a particular one where you suggest maybe they don't need to be creamed white onions anymore. We can query who this is important to really, and what would change if they went away.

Speaker 1:
[23:51] But who knows?

Speaker 2:
[23:53] The kids could be like, where are the creamed white onions? The one I find when I try to cut corners, that's the one that someone would be like, where's this? Where's the cinnamon rolls? I'm like, I thought you didn't, nobody wanted those. No, they're the best part. So it's hard to know.

Speaker 3:
[24:07] May I just say that when that moment happens, right? Like, because I have a feeling that what you've just described, many a mother has experience, right? You cut some corner because you think no one cares. And then everyone seems to care about the thing you cut. When that moment happens, may I suggest that the answer is, oh, I didn't know you love that. You are now in charge of that for next year. Make sure you are now responsible for that. Hand that gift to the child, to the partner, to the whomever, to then bring. And I say that a little bit tongue in cheek, but also honestly, right? Because if that is the thing they love, bring them in on the tradition and let them do the work of that, because then they can carry that little piece that they love forward.

Speaker 2:
[24:46] And it is gratifying. I mean, you talk about helping our kids achieve their dreams, and we're going to talk about dream building in a minute, but that work is, it isn't like everything we do is annoying and we hate it. There's just a lot of it. And so, right, the person who makes the cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning, if it is important to them, they will get joy out of making Christmas rolls that everybody can enjoy. It's not all drudgery and unhappiness. So another reason to share it and not do it all yourself.

Speaker 3:
[25:12] Exactly. And give them the opportunity to shine in front of the family, right? And to be celebrated because they get to bring it. Magic making, I'll tell you, was the most controversial category. So it was one that dads didn't really do. I came back through after the interviews and I'd say like, I had focus groups and I brought the people we interviewed back in, and I'd say like, okay, here's the eight that we found, right?

Speaker 2:
[25:34] This, this, this, this, this.

Speaker 3:
[25:35] And then I would say, okay, tell me what kind of magic making do you do? And the dads would say, oh, I do that. And again, I share it 50 percent. One dad said this, I share it 50 percent. And then I said, okay, give me concrete examples of what you do. And he said, I'm going to be honest with you, I don't do any of that. Once he tried to think about the concrete example.

Speaker 1:
[25:59] I feel like I do that.

Speaker 3:
[26:01] It's like, okay, you're the passenger on that event.

Speaker 1:
[26:04] It's so funny.

Speaker 3:
[26:05] You're in the magic making, but you're not doing the magic making. Right. This is one that either women loved it. I love it. I love the holiday season. They would talk about the holiday season. I love creating the magic or they loathed it. They hated doing it. They felt like an obligation to do it. Fathers didn't necessarily see it as valuable work. They often saw a lot of what was being done as like, why are we doing this? It's superfluous.

Speaker 2:
[26:29] Optional stress.

Speaker 3:
[26:30] Exactly. One of my dreams, I'm going to put it out to your audience. One of my dreams is that we could better connect up the women, men who love this work and I could come buy it from you. We could create a marketplace because I hate it. One of the things I talk about in the book is one of my proudest moments was I got to be taken a photo of me sitting by the pool next to Santa on Christmas day and saying, I don't do magic making, I just eat lasagna in the pool. There's literally a quote, like Professor Raminer, I don't do magic making, I just eat lasagna in the pool. That person who pulled out my quote must have been laughing so hard that they could put this big giant bump out. But I like to feel the feelings of the specialness, but I don't like to do it. How do we connect up the women who you know? I mean, you have women friends, I do, or men friends who are incredible at this work, make cakes that should be in a museum. I want to buy those. I don't want to have to make those. But I think one of the things is we feel a lot of shame and a lot of guilt if we are not perfect, if we are not doing more, if we're not giving the gold standard experience to our children, and we don't want to tell people we can't do that. So I want to break that down too.

Speaker 2:
[27:47] It occurs to me there's eight kinds of mental load work, right? And we think that it has to be a perfect circle, that we have to be giving 100% and make perfect cakes and always be available. And it is spiky and it should be spiky and uneven and lean into it.

Speaker 3:
[28:00] Exactly. And then find the people that, you know, we have an economy for all these things that men do. Like you can easily find someone who can cut your grass or clean your gutters. But what about finding someone who can, I don't know, make crafts for my kid's birthday party? I'd pay for that.

Speaker 2:
[28:15] Etsy.

Speaker 1:
[28:16] Yeah, probably.

Speaker 2:
[28:17] I'm a big Etsy fan. All right.

Speaker 3:
[28:18] Never mind.

Speaker 1:
[28:19] Etsy.

Speaker 3:
[28:19] Go to Etsy and feel no guilt. No guilt.

Speaker 2:
[28:23] The next type of mental load work is dream building. Loved this one. Hadn't thought about this before. Right. The part of the work that we do as the primary caregiver is to make sure everyone close to us is finding the right opportunities to fulfill their passions and ambitions. That might include making sure your spouse has time to get to the gym or golf or whatever. Those are things that are important to him. Getting your son to soccer, getting your daughter to comic book class, but helping everybody with their dreams. Then maybe the dreams that we have ourselves get put last behind some other people.

Speaker 3:
[29:01] Bottom of the list.

Speaker 2:
[29:02] That tracks.

Speaker 3:
[29:04] Absolutely. Dream building for men was often seen as something they did for the family. If I invest in myself, if I achieve my dreams, if I can do better at work, we can have more. My dreams are important and therefore my dreams deserve money, resources, time, relaxation. For women, they would talk about like I used to dream. There was this like, how did that disappear? I didn't even realize it disappeared. One of my goals in this book through the mental load audit is to help you start to reignite that dreamy, to start thinking about your dreams is valuable, to start thinking about what kind of world do you want to leave, what kind of legacy do you want? I don't mean like you got to go run for president, although maybe we do need more women running for president. Like I'm not saying like, yeah, you have to. But even little things like women would talk about, mothers would talk about like, I always wanted to play the guitar. It's like, okay, how do we get you to do that?

Speaker 2:
[30:02] Right. That's within reach, but where am I going to find the time? This really stopped me reading the book like, wow, this is really true. The idea that, again, these are societal. Nobody's a bad person in this equation, but the average man sees his dreams as additive to the life of the family and the average woman sees her dreams as what wouldn't be fair to the kids if I went to guitar lessons once a week, and everybody had to make their own dinner. You just put it to the side without even thinking about it. It isn't like, I wish I could go, but I won't go to the ball. It's just, who has time for that stuff?

Speaker 3:
[30:34] Exactly. It's not important. Or the other stuff is more important.

Speaker 2:
[30:37] Right.

Speaker 3:
[30:38] One of the things I did in one of my favorite chapters, there's two favorite chapters in the book, but I gave women money. I gave them $100 a week for four weeks to just try to lighten their mental load. They could spend it any way they wanted. The first part that was hard for all of them was to not take that money and push it in for the family. And this is kind of tied to that dream building thing, right? Wow. OK, we could do this, but it would be, my kid needs this, or what if I got a meal delivery service? Because then everyone wouldn't have to cook. Or what if I bought the Christmas presents first? Because it's early, and then I wouldn't have to think about it. And those are all fine solutions. If the answer is, that's the most useful use of your money and resources, that's fine. But I had to actually say to many of them, you can do that, of course. But I'm asking about your mental load. And so what would you do if you're just thinking about lightening your mental load? And very few of them then answered with that answer of going into the family. One mother talked about, like, she went to a bakery and she bought a delicious sandwich, and then she bought a whole loaf of bread. And she ate both before she got home because she did not. She knew the minute she stepped into that house and her teenage daughters would eat the whole, we eat it all. And so I guess what I'm trying to say is I see these as interlocked, right? Like, how do we start thinking about, everyone doesn't have to come first, and it doesn't always have to be them now. But I want you to start integrating back in a little bit of, like, I want to do, or I am interested in, or I, and baby steps. I'm not baby, baby, baby. It's like a muscle, right? Let's start training back up that muscle of dreaming and investing in your dreams, time, energy, and resources, because you deserve it.

Speaker 2:
[32:31] I'm talking to Leah Ruppanner. Her new book is called Drained, Reduce Your Mental Load, To Do Less and Be More. When we come back, we're going to talk about the mental load audit.

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Speaker 2:
[34:59] Okay, I'm back with Leah Ruppanner. I wanted to make sure to spend some time talking about the mental load audit because we definitely, anybody listening to this podcast is like, yep, it's a lot, it's a problem, and what am I going to do about it? And some people might even have a, your mental load can be particularly spiky. You can have a chronically ill family member or a kid with special needs, right? Something that's not going to be solved by-

Speaker 3:
[35:25] Meditating.

Speaker 2:
[35:26] Taking more time for yourself, right, right, there are issues. But the mental load audit, which you present in the book, is where you start. So talk us through the steps of this audit in general and what they offer somebody who knows she needs to make some changes.

Speaker 3:
[35:40] Okay. So the first thing I ask you to do is to get a measure of whether you're in mental load burnout. Are you actually moving through the world with not enough mental load energy to respond to opportunities? So I start off with a little bit of a mental load burnout measure. I want you to start thinking about your mental load as having a finite amount of capacity. I want you to think about it like a bank account. I want you to think about you have a limited amount of spending and it's going in different directions. And so what I could hear through the interviews was like, yeah, I wake up in the morning exhausted or I hold just enough energy in the tank to respond to an emergency but I can't respond to an opportunity. And so this is first the kind of questions. Are you tired? Are you overspending? Are you in a credit card frenzy where you wake up in the red? And then I ask you to start really thinking about where it's going. You can do this like pen and paper but even just raising some awareness about like where is your mental load energy if there's a certain amount, if you have a hundred, where is it going? Is it going to life organization? Is it going to dream building? Is it going to individual upkeep? Are you thinking about safety, safety of your family all the time? Are you thinking about Medicare, whether the world is moving in the way you want it? And so I want you to start thinking about that energy and thinking about whether you're actually drawing it down into deficit. I want you to start thinking about whether you're duplicating it. Are you holding something that your partner's holding or someone else in your life is holding? And I want you to start thinking about whether you can delegate it out. So first is getting an idea, almost like when you're starting a new budget, of where are we currently spending. You don't have to do this with your partner. You can do this on your own because sometimes it's very difficult to get other people on board. But you can start to think, where am I going and what am I doing in terms of spending? The next thing I ask you to do is start to think about who it's going to. When I did this with one of the interviewees, Julie, she had 16 people. She had a little bit going to the PTA, a little bit going to her church group, a little bit going to her coworkers, a little bit going to her kids. The answer was her 100 percent was spread thin. I want you to start seeing this so you can see how many people you are taking into consideration. Because it might not be sustainable, right? It might not actually be sustainable. Then I ask you, after we get an idea of where it's going and how it's being spent, I ask you to start thinking about your dreams. I ask you to start coming in from the dream perspective. Forget you have any responsibilities. I know you're like, come on, but just like try. You owe nothing to anyone else. If that is true, what would you want to be doing in one year, in three years, and in five years? You don't have to do anything yet. Don't panic. But I want you to start getting an idea. Then I ask you to start thinking about who are your core people. You might have 13 people that are currently getting your mental load, but I want you to start thinking about your top five. You could put some others, they can substitute people in. You don't have to get rid of the other ones, but they can't all be on your mind at the same time. I then ask you to start thinking about social norms that make these heavier, this idea that you can multitask, this idea that you are actually the momager, you're actually better at doing the managing work at home than anyone else. And then I start asking you to think about what you want to give your energy to. What do you not want to drop? What do you want to drop? And what do you need to give more to? Start thinking about delegating and how can we align? I will say, because you brought up this example of like, what if you're in this circumstance where you have a child with special needs, or you have someone with a severe disability, living with a severe disability, or you have an aging parent, or and right now, your mental load is high. And we heard this across the interviews, like, I can't drop this because their safety or their life is on the line. And so it feels very difficult to reduce. If that is you right now, and this auditing piece of thinking about where you can drop and where you can get capacity is not possible. What I want to say to you is, you then need the recovery time. You then need to figure out what is your relaxation, what is your restoration, what will help bring more in to your mental load account, bringing more balance. Because what I also heard was, I can't rest because I'm thinking about a million things I have to do. And I can't sit down and watch a show because I have eight million obligations. No, you deserve that time uninterrupted and you should not feel guilty about that because you were actually holding all of these things together that are high stakes, high risk, tied to the safety and love of people you love the most. And that time is precious. That time is sacred and you deserve it. And even more, you need it to replenish because you are operating at 100 percent. You're the one who's like charging the card like crazy, right? And you can't. So you need that to recover, to bring some surplus back in. So I want to say those things to you that this is sorry, the last thing I'll say, it's going to ebb and flow. Your mental load is going to peak and trough and go up and down. And so this is something that you can do perpetually. Like I'm not saying like do this every single day. I mean, you can. And we have an assessment where you can see where your mental load is at the day. But I want you to think about this as influx. It's not a set it and forget it. Your mental load this morning might look different than it is in the evening, than it does on the weekend, that it does next month, than it does in a year. And how do we keep that kind of awareness of, okay, here's where it's going, here's where I'm trying to go, here's what I need, and keep those three things aligned?

Speaker 2:
[41:17] One of my kids works in basketball, and so I know a lot more about basketball than I used to. Anyway, the idea that even the most MVP MVP doesn't play all the time, you have to sit the best players sometimes so that they're ready when you really need them. And I think it's okay to think of yourself as the MVP and I'm going to sit down, I am not going to host Easter dinner this year because my mom is sick or because Janie broke her leg whatever, it's okay to sit yourself sometimes. And it's even more important when you're in these seasons that all of us have encountered.

Speaker 3:
[41:48] Absolutely, I give the example in the book, like you are the CEO and yet you have no team. You're the CEO and we're like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got it. Like what CEO of a major company is like, I will be in charge of finance and HR and recreate everything and I will never take a break. It's a ridiculous circumstance we've set mothers up for.

Speaker 2:
[42:10] Yeah, we would recognize that very clearly in a business sense. You can't do that. That's a way to have a company that doesn't grow.

Speaker 3:
[42:16] Yeah, you'd be like, well, it's all gonna fall apart. Like, what do you mean? Or you're gonna fall apart. And yet we've told mothers, we've had this social norm that like mother's love is the only love that can sustain it and you're responsible for making sure that your child has a bright future, right? Like some mother sitting in Poughkeepsie is like now responsible for like COVID and inflation and making sure you're tough, right? Like a war, like, okay, well, you better make sure your kid's not affected. Like ridiculous. What a joke we've done. What a disservice. What a way to set women up for failure and then make them feel like they personally have failed. And then what a disservice we've done to men by saying you're on the outside of this family when actually they're so critical and there's so much love and joy and gifts that come from being engaged with your family. So it's a disservice to both, but we don't have to do it.

Speaker 2:
[43:08] Well, you end the book saying, asking the question about what would we create if we had the capacity to do things differently and we had time to dream and to rest and to think about things, how different the world could be and how much better. And it doesn't have to be worth it for other people, but I think it's true. It would be better for other people.

Speaker 3:
[43:26] Can I tell you a little secret?

Speaker 2:
[43:28] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[43:28] I wrote that conclusion, right? Like I wrote that conclusion and you've written a book. I don't know if this is your experience, but I don't know. Stuff just comes out of you somewhere, somewhere.

Speaker 2:
[43:37] I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[43:37] You sit down and you start writing and things come out, right? And I wrote that conclusion and I was like, I think this is the right conclusion for this book. And then I sent it to the editor and she was like, and this is before the world became more complicated of our most recent events, right? Changing political climate, war, all of this. She said, I don't think people are going to, this is not the right conclusion, right? Like, everything's fine. And then what's amazing or terrible or all the things is it's not fine, right? Like, I think all of us are like, none of this is fine. Whatever political affiliation you have, whatever ideology you have, like, I don't think we want to live in a world where, you know, families are bankrupted because their children have cancer. Like, I don't think we want to live in a world where we bomb people around the world, right? Like, I just don't think many women would say like, this is the world I want to create. That is going to require all of us. Like, that is going to require women specifically, their voices, their energy, their ideas, their dreams, their contributions. And you cannot do that if you're absolutely burned out by the 8 million mental loads you're carrying. So I guess I'm saying to you, women of the world, we need you. This is my call to act like we need you. We need you to be rested. We need you to be lighter. We need you to have capacity. And it's not selfish. It's actually for all of us. So please, can you do it for all of us? Because we need you out there, especially now.

Speaker 2:
[45:01] I've been talking to Leah Ruppanner. Her new book is called Drained, Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More. I'm going to put the link in the show notes to buy Drained on Bookshop. You can get it wherever you buy books. But Leah, tell our listeners a little bit about the Miss Perceived Podcast, which is, you will love this podcast. I'll tell them about the podcast.

Speaker 3:
[45:20] Okay, y'all. Here's the answer. I know you're time-pressed and you're time-poor, so all I need is 10, 15 minutes of your time just to blab at you. Basically, what I'm doing is I'm helping you understand the research. Everything I talk about is empirically grounded. I have been doing this for 20 years. I've published over 75 academic articles, two books. I know my stuff. What I do in the podcast is talk to you about things that you might be hearing, like can you multitask? Do men get more sex if they do more housework? So I start to unpack that. I'm telling you more about the mental load, right? Like what's going on in terms of your mental load? Yes, doom scrolling is actually absorbing your mental load, so knock it off. So I'm trying to in very short moments, just blab at you about all the research that I know in my brain. So you can move through the world. You don't have to do any of that work. I said, you don't need a PhD, you just get to come hang out with me. Don't read the work. I got it. I got you. So this is what Miss Perceived does. You can find it everywhere. You'll fall in love with it. Thank you very much for letting me tell everyone about that. I appreciate that.

Speaker 2:
[46:22] I love the podcast. We'll put the link to that as well. And Leah, tell our listeners if there's other places on the Internet, they can find you and your work.

Speaker 3:
[46:29] OK. I will tell you how great I am pretty much everywhere. And I really do want to contact you. Like, I want to hear from you. Tell me, tell me, tell me. I'm on Instagram. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on TikTok terribly and Facebook. And you can find me all of those places. I will usually show up in a video not brushing my hair, just like I'm like, I have to get this into the world. My daughter's like, Mom, you need to try harder. I'm like, I don't think so.

Speaker 2:
[46:52] It's work of drumming.

Speaker 3:
[46:53] It's like, this is authenticity. Thank you. And also I have, if you go to lightenlab.com, it's a website where I'm helping you understand the eight different types. There is a free assessment. I don't want your email address. I don't want any of your information. I just want you to start thinking about your mental load, thinking about where it is at today, figuring out how you can start to go, I'm really heavy today on high achieving. I'm really like, and sometimes that's good. These aren't bad things, right? Sometimes that's good. So I want you to start thinking about your mental load much like you might think about your steps or your blood pressure or your sleep score. I want you to have a daily, thank you. I want you to have a daily mental load score. So you can go, do I need to shift, adjust or not? Sometimes you don't, you're right on track. But I want you to start having the mental load as being part of your daily regimen so that you can figure out when you need what you need and how you need it.

Speaker 2:
[47:53] So great. Okay, we'll put the links to everywhere you can find, Leah, and Drained and Miss Perceived. This was such a pleasure. I loved this book, Leah. Thank you for talking to me today.

Speaker 3:
[48:03] Thank you for having me.