The mental load starts as the thing you can laugh about — the admin, the medal for mowing the lawn. And then, somewhere underneath it, it stops being funny. It's the sentence that comes out of your mouth before you can stop it: 'would you mind having the kids on Saturday so I can get a haircut' — asking the other parent for their own children like you're lodging annual leave with HR. It's 'they were so good while you were gone,' and knowing 'good' meant nobody got fed. It's being so tired of being the only adult in the building that you stop being angry and just go quiet.

This is Part 3, the last in the series, and it's the heavy one. It begins with a laugh and then it lets that laugh go. This one is for you, on your own, with your headphones in — and if you're right on the edge of exasperation today, Jane's honest recommendation is that you save this one for another day. Built entirely from what you wrote in. Support links are in the notes below.

CHAPTERS

00:00 — The last one. It starts funny, then it doesn't.

00:44 — 'I shouldn't have to book my own kids in like it's annual leave'

01:37 — Watch where the school emails go — and the 11-day anaphylaxis email

03:37 — 'It was so easy while you were gone.' Was it though?

05:41 — The 7am text from Cassie, and what Jane wrote back without thinking

07:32 — 'I'm not even angry anymore. I'm just so tired of being the only adult.'

07:46 — The nine-year-old asked to regulate himself while the 39-year-old isn't

11:33 — The question underneath all of it: are these women still with them?

12:37 — 'Supportive of what?' — when the pat on the back keeps you carrying it

14:39 — The economy of gratitude — his effort is a gift, yours is the weather

15:03 — 'He's cheaper than hiring someone' — the accounting that holds women in place

16:58 — Why this lands twice as hard on an ADHD mum — the load that has no gender, and the one that does

20:52 — Why leaving isn't the easy answer, and the thing nobody says about single-mother poverty

22:38 — This series was never mine. It was yours.

What We Cover

• The sentence so many women said comes out of their mouths and they don't know how they got there — asking the other parent to mind their own kids
• Where the pattern hides in plain sight — whose inbox the school actually emails, and the 11-day reply to an anaphylaxis email that says everything
• 'It was so easy while you were gone' — what 'good' actually meant, and where the bar for care got left
• The 7am text from a friend that Jane laughed at before she worried, and the moment it turned from a joke into something real
• The messages about children being asked to manage their emotions while a grown adult in the same house isn't — and what it costs the kid who gives up on a parent
• The question that started sitting under every message — are these women still with their partners, and if it's this hard, why do we stay?
• 'Supportive of what?' — the uncomfortable idea that the comfort itself might be the thing keeping you carrying all of it
• A sociologist's phrase you can't unhear — why his effort gets thanked and yours becomes the weather
• Why this exact load lands twice as hard on an ADHD mum — the part that has no gender, and the part that absolutely does
• The honest, un-tidy truth about why leaving isn't a clean answer — and the structural thing nobody wants to name

🆘 Support

If anything in this episode landed close to home, you don't have to sit with it alone.

1800RESPECT — national domestic, family and sexual violence counselling — 1800 737 732, or 1800respect.org.au (24/7, free, confidential).

Lifeline — 13 11 14, or lifeline.org.au (24/7 crisis support).

If you're not sure whether what you're experiencing 'counts,' you can still call. They will talk it through with you.

Free Resources

Household Family Meeting Template — for the 'hand over a whole job, not a favour' conversation this episode is really about — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/

Related Episodes

The Admin Husband: 'Do We Have Parmesan?' — Part 1 —

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/mental-load-do-we-have-parmesan-cheese-he-was-standing/id1686843092?i=1000777917338

The Gold Medal Husband: 'Did You See the Lawn?' — Part 2

https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/mental-load-he-mowed-the-lawn-once-and-wanted-to-know-if-you-saw-it/

I Love My Family… But I'm So F**king Angry (Mum Rage Part 1) — S2 EP84 — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-84-i-love-my-family-but-im-so-fking-angry-mum-rage-part-1/

What We Wish Our Partners Knew About the Mental Load — And How to Truly Support Us — S2 EP75 — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-75-what-we-wish-our-partners-knew-about-the-mental-load-and-how-to-truly-support-us/

References & Further Reading

Hochschild, A. R. (1989). The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home. Viking.

(The 'economy of gratitude' Jane cites — whose effort reads as a gift to be thanked, and whose reads as the background running of the house.)

Also relevant — the cognitive/mental load framework underpinning the whole series:

Daminger, A. (2019). The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor. American Sociological Review, 84(4), 609–633. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419859007

📬 Listener Questions & Community

🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)

Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.

Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313

Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313

👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group

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Mental Load: 'I'm Just Tired of Being the Only Adult.' When the Kids Start Paying For It.

[00:00:21] Speaker:

[00:00:28] Speaker: The admin husband was funny. The gold medal husband was ranty angry. This is a level below both of them and

[00:00:40] Speaker: This one is for you alone with your headphones in.

[00:00:46] Speaker: But slot in whoever is in your life, wife, partner, other parent,

[00:01:01] Speaker: Here is something that came up over and over again from the listeners. sh*t I can't say to my partner, I do not wanna have to ask you to watch your own kids. I don't wanna have to book them in with you like I'm requesting annual leave from HR.

[00:01:24] Speaker: This one is hands down one of the main ones that kept coming up. " Hey, babe, would you mind having the kids on Saturday so I can get my hair cut?" So many women were like, "How did I get into this position where I'm asking for that?" When the sh*t that they wanna say to their partner is, "They're yours.

[00:01:53] Speaker: And where else do we see this show up? School. Watch where the emails [00:02:00] go. So many women wrote in and said, "The teacher emails me, never him."

[00:02:18] Speaker: Jenny said, "No, what actually happened was the last time they emailed you, you left it 11 days. 11. Over an email that was about our son's anaphylactic allergies and an upcoming day that had food and cooking involved, which seemed urgent. And then after 11 days, you forwarded it to me with two question marks in the subject line

[00:02:48] Speaker: He didn't respond with, "That's okay, it's these nuts," or anything. He just forwarded it to her 11 days later

[00:03:02] Speaker: And of course, I had to send Jenny a message back and ask her, "Please clarify for me, Jenny, what does your partner do for work?"

[00:03:23] Speaker: He's a mortgage broker. So,

[00:03:33] Speaker: Responding to emails, getting back to people, using a computer, basic comprehension, communication, things he's good at

[00:03:53] Speaker: This next one has pissed me off And so many other women said the same thing. There is a [00:04:00] line that gets a lot of us, and it is, Oh, that was so good when you were gone. Super easy

[00:04:31] Speaker: Is the absence of screaming and fighting good? Because it's also the sign of no interaction, no demands, nothing happening. Because it depends how you look at it, but for a lot of moms who wrote in, the bar, that's not really them being good. That's the bar of responsibility on the fucking ground.

[00:05:33] Speaker: But then he'll say, "They were so good." But when I have them and I get them to do jobs, we interact, we play games, I feed them It's definitely a harder day in terms of parental labor. You have to do more. You have to interact with them. So are they easier for you, or did you just drop the bar to a living and breathing child at that point?

[00:06:05] Speaker: I'm unstacking the dishwasher one morning, my Apple Watch lights up. I have a look, and there's a text message from my friend Cassie, and it says, " I'm seriously considering killing my husband."

[00:06:35] Speaker: I'm thinking about trying a new gym She just drops in, "I'm seriously considering killing my husband." And I didn't even talk her down

[00:07:02] Speaker: I wrote back straight away and said, " Sounds like he deserves it. I'll help you hide the body

[00:07:13] Speaker: Then she writes back

[00:07:23] Speaker: Anyway, I responded and said, "Yeah, cool. I'll bring some wine." That was it. I said we could make it a date

[00:07:42] Speaker: And she said, " I'm not even angry anymore. I'm just so fucking tired of being the only adult."

[00:07:51] Speaker: This is where it stops being about a man or a person, an adult who won't empty the dishwasher, and it Becomes something that [00:08:00] you and the kids and everyone around you is paying for

[00:08:07] Speaker: She said, " The sh*t I can't say to my partner

[00:08:16] Speaker: My partner complains about him constantly, but one of the reasons why my nine-year-old is so dysregulated is because of my partner. my partner amps him up. He has a lack of understanding, a lack of empathy, but yet he expects a nine-year-old to regulate his own emotions. But my 39-year-old grown-ass man of a husband also cannot regulate his emotions.

[00:09:02] Speaker: She ends the text message with, "End rant."

[00:09:16] Speaker: Whilst the grown man gets to be dysregulated, amps the child up, loses his temper, and then comes out to talk to Kate, who's also running on empty with nothing to give, and she's expected to come and regulate both of them.

[00:09:35] Speaker: The next one I couldn't stop thinking about because it's not just about her, it's about what the kids see

[00:09:45] Speaker: My partner likes to say to me, "They didn't cling to me when I dropped them off. She didn't scream at me every time I offered her food. She was fine." Sophie said, "No, that is because you gave her sugar and packaged food. [00:10:00] So of course she ate it because that's all you gave her, and that's her favorite

[00:10:12] Speaker: when we have gone over that rule many, many times, you need to eat a proper meal. He also likes to say, "She doesn't ask me to stay with her when I put her to bed.

[00:10:36] Speaker: Then she lays there too frightened to sleep for two hours, but also too frightened to come out and upset you So Sophie said, "It's not that I don't believe you. I'm sure she doesn't ask you to stay with her in bed

[00:10:55] Speaker: Because their partner makes the whole thing worse so let's just strip this back for a minute. [00:11:00] They don't cling to me when I drop them off Maybe that is because the child has learnt not to expect that person to comfort them

[00:11:27] Speaker: The calm that you're taking credit for as the better parent is because our child has learnt not to ask you for anything or expect any comfort

[00:11:47] Speaker: Which I think is fucking sad

[00:12:03] Speaker: In the first two episodes, we heard from Dani, who very clearly stated that she was talking about her ex-husband, that she'd recently divorced

[00:12:19] Speaker: I wrote back to a lot of the people who sent messages in, and I asked that question

[00:12:33] Speaker: This was again from Sophie. She said, "Because when you're crying on the kitchen floor and he comes over and rubs your back and says, You do so much. I just don't know how you do it." And in that moment, that feels like support

[00:12:54] Speaker: The season three wrap up episode, which is called Supportive of What

[00:13:04] Speaker: I started to wonder if it was less like help and more like a hostage negotiation, but then with a hug at the end. Because real help is taking jobs and owning it, actually taking things off your plate as a whole task and saying, Hey, from now on, I'm gonna go to Woolworths every Friday for the weekly shop."

[00:13:44] Speaker: Not for one Tuesday in March because she cried a lot and he thought he would

[00:13:55] Speaker: I'm starting to wonder whether that comfort is actually what keeps us [00:14:00] carrying the load. Because that isn't kindness. Maybe that's maintenance. And I don't wanna be too negative or ranty here, but I'm wondering whether that is him oiling the machine, and that machine is you

[00:14:27] Speaker: But I thought it was interesting that so many listeners talked about the moment of support with a pat on the back, and how in that moment they think, " I really need you. Thank you for your help. You're so supportive. I love you."

[00:14:55] Speaker:

[00:15:14] Speaker: Her effort is just the weather, the background, the house running.

[00:15:39] Speaker: See what I mean? We kinda go from funny to just, ugh, icky feeling He's cheaper than hiring someone. that's her thought pattern. That's her decision. Hire someone who can help me or deal with the person I've got who does a mediocre job, but I don't pay him. So she [00:16:00] actively, deliberately blocks out the rage because if she lets herself feel it, she will have to then look at it, decide, be aware.

[00:16:17] Speaker: So she swallows it. And I don't wanna digress, but I just have to wonder whether this is related to so many chronic health conditions that women have, but I'll leave that right there. And this is where it gets a bit darker, if it can, because this help that Christine is talking about, the bare minimum that he does, counts for so much in her accounting that it's actually holding her in place.

[00:17:15] Speaker: I feel like we're moving into domestic violence areas in this point, which I'm not gonna touch in this podcast. But for a lot of the people who have written in I'm gonna put in some domestic violence links into the show notes just in case anyone needs to see it.

[00:17:41] Speaker: So a lot of people would listen to this episode and say that would impact neurotypical mums the same as neurodiverse mums No, no, no, no, no, I would argue that is not true because we have to think about what it costs. What does it cost to be the default? What does it cost us Think about mental load as a whole [00:18:00] and what it asks of you.

[00:18:29] Speaker: But then when we drop something, we snap. Someone asks us something, "What's in the fridge?" And we go, I don't know. Just use your eyes and look." We snap. We're told we're too sensitive. Maybe you're a bit of a perfectionist because you insist that the kids don't eat sugar, and they get off their iPads if your partner has them all day

[00:19:12] Speaker: And that is not in your head, I'm sorry. That is two things landing on the same person at the same time, and the fact that you're holding any of it together is the part that nobody claps for. I haven't seen any fucking gold medals lately, have you?

[00:19:36] Speaker: Is maybe part of the cycle. Maybe the standard that we talked about last episode where he calls it being a perfectionist, particularly about the mom who had to do the hair lice removal. And he said that was being a perfectionist, and then he calls his own standard chilling out. But that's might be the most basic, the child's alive and breathing.

[00:20:06] Speaker: Maybe these women are staying for basic accounting. As we heard before, he's cheaper than childcare. He's cheaper than hiring someone. It's better than nothing. And for a lot of women who are incredibly burnt out, as a lot of us are on this podcast, actually leaving somebody is a huge process

[00:20:47] Speaker: I would put it right up there with grieving a, a parent. Incredibly difficult, and mediation, co-parenting, not for the faint-hearted. I just can't get through this episode without [00:21:00] mentioning single mother poverty in this country. It's a structural fucking disaster, and everybody knows it, but nobody talks about it, and it keeps women exactly where they are, and it pisses me right off because a lot of women stay.

[00:21:27] Speaker: Maybe the opportunities that they have to do sport, they're not gonna have anymore, and they stay for the kids, not because they think their partner's helping or parenting them well, because they need them, because they can't afford to have two homes But that's not marriage. That's fucking bullshit is what that is.

[00:21:47] Speaker: F*ck, I've gotten real ranty, haven't I? But for a lot of these women who were writing in, when I stripped back There was only one, Dani, who actually was talking about an ex-partner. And for a lot of women, when they were writing to me, they were [00:22:00] talking about basically the relationship

[00:22:10] Speaker: And almost no one will say that, but I think that's true. Again, share with me via voicemail, WhatsApp, or in the Facebook group. I'd love to hear from you. To the women who sent me the voice notes, the texts at 10:00 PM, 4:00 AM, to all of the women who stayed anonymous and who were willing to give names, thank you.

[00:22:49] Speaker: If you feel like you're the only adult in the building, that might be true. If you feel like you're doing the hardest job with the least amount of credit, and you've been doing it for a long time, that might [00:23:00] also be true. Because I think we need to really reflect on, or I will, supportive of what?

[00:23:19]