Before we became parents the concept of “Mental Load” was largely theoretical as both of us were easily able to manage the everyday logistics of our own lives. With children coming into the equation everything suddenly becomes a juggling exercise - at least that was our experience.

I’ve read in several publications that the mental load or, to use a different wording, the organisation of everyday logistics is often predominantly done by women/mothers.

We try to share all tasks as evenly as possible. We both work approximately the same amount of time. We both earn similar wages. We share costs on a 50:50 basis. We both took the exact same amount of parental leave. However, the logistics of everyday life have, without even trying to aim for that, drifted more towards my wife.

How do you go about sharing this task? What kind of technical/IT solutions do you use to remain on the same page? Is it even necessary to share this task or are there others ways to “specialise” in certain areas of being a parent?

  • Jeena@piefed.jeena.netEnglish
    6·
    18 hours ago

    It’s just a drop in the ocean, but I set up a family calendar and I put in everything I come across which needs to be dealt with into it and we both can see it in our phones and on the morning dashboard in the living room. I ask my wife to also populate it which she occasionally does. It helps to not need to keep it in your head all the time because you see it every morning on the dashboard for the next couple of days. Things like:

    • Renew child A’s visa
    • Make child K write an essay on a regular basis
    • Vaccination for child A
    • Prepare for child K’s school trip
    • Change bed sheets
    • Bring child K to birthday party
    • Register for child K’s Summer Program
    • Go to Photo studio with child A
    • Call the bank about moving money abroad
    • Ceramic class
    • Visit grandparents

    and so on. The thing is when I don’t know about it then I can’t even offer to take it over. This way it’s also a bit more visible for both of us what the other is doing so we can share easier.

      • Jeena@piefed.jeena.netEnglish
        2·
        16 hours ago

        We practically only use the calendar, it’s possible to use tasks also with it but there is no native tool for it on iOS which my wife uses so we don’t use it.

        I selfhost https://radicale.org/v3.html and just added the calendar to iOS as a CalDav calendar, in GNOME Calendar and with help of DAVx5 on Android with the built in calendar. And then I added it to Home Assistant too, and made a dashboard which I automatically show at 7am on the TV.