18. Mental Load: 'Do We Have Parmesan Cheese?' He Was Standing at the Fridge. I Was Interstate — ADHD Mums

The mental load is the thing you couldn't name for years — the invisible mental load that means one adult in the house knows when library day is and one adult keeps asking. The one who anticipates, identifies, decides, and monitors, and the one who stands next to the dishwasher and shouts through to the lounge room to ask if it's clean. You've known the pattern for years. You've done the therapy. You've read the book. You've made the 1.2-metre colour-coded family planner. And he still texts you from home, from within arm's reach of the fridge, to ask about the Parmesan.

This week the ADHD Mums Facebook group broke open. So many messages, voice notes, and 4am DMs from women hiding in their own ensuites that Jane's had to split it into three episodes. This is Part 1 — the Admin Husband. Part 2 is the Gold Medal Husband next week. Part 3 is coming.

CHAPTERS

00:00 — The Facebook post that broke the internet

00:27 — Lisa. 4am. From inside her own ensuite. Husband asleep in the next room.

01:23 — Please stop asking us what time school pickup is

02:03 — Renee: 'I made the calendar. I bought the calendar. I put it up. I synced it to your phone.'

03:32 — Do men use Siri? A serious question.

04:59 — The 1.2-metre colour-coded family planner he walks past every single day

06:47 — He texts her the address of the program she set up, booked, paid for and drives to every week

09:26 — Parmesan. He's at the fridge. She's in Adelaide.

10:55 — The T-shirt drawer that hasn't moved in three years

12:20 — The 36-minute toilet holiday, and what he's actually doing in there

14:18 — Alison Daminger's four stages of the mental load — and which one he only turns up for

16:35 — Affordance perception: he isn't ignoring the crumbs. He genuinely can't see them.

19:16 — Same-sex couples don't do this. Which tells you something.

21:53 — 'Accidentally, lovingly raising the next man to look at a bench and just see a bench.'

22:36 — 'Just ask me if you need help.' Why that sentence is worse than no help.

What We Cover

The Facebook post that unleashed more DMs and voice notes than anything else on the show — including one from a woman messaging at 4am from inside her own ensuite while her husband slept in the next room
What Renee has done to try and stop her husband asking her what's on today for the seventh time before 9am — and why none of it worked
The 1.2-metre colour-coded family planner one member has installed on her wall. Her husband walks past it every single day. He hasn't looked at it once. She's been tracking.
Why he can find the remote. Why he can conduct a full detective investigation into a missing beer. And why the billboard is invisible.
The Parmesan text. From another state. Not a rhetorical device — a real message.
A sociologist who broke the mental load into four stages, and the one stage he actually turns up for
Two philosophers on why your partner isn't lying when he says he doesn't see the bench. He's not seeing it the way you're seeing it — and this is the bit that stopped Jane in her tracks
What the research on same-sex households is actually telling us — and it's not that men's brains are different
The 36-minute toilet holiday. The medical event. What he's really doing in there.
Why answering him when he shouts through from the kitchen is the exact thing that keeps you Siri
The sentence a Facebook group member said out loud that Jane hasn't been able to stop thinking about since — 'I'm accidentally, lovingly raising the next man to look at a bench and just see a bench'

Free Resources

Household Family Meeting Template — for moving off stage-three-only and onto shared stages one and two — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/

The ADHD Mums Facebook Group — where this whole episode came from, and where Part 2 and 3 are being built right now — https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast

Paid Resources

ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/

Related Episodes (the mental load / invisible labour series)

The Invisible Job: Being the One Who Holds Everything Together — https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/the-invisible-job-being-the-one-who-holds-everything-together/

The Invisible Coordination Load: Why ADHD Mums Carry the Work Systems Won't — https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/the-invisible-coordination-load-why-adhd-mums-carry-the-work-systems-wont/

The Hidden Cost of Being the Good Girl — How the Mental Load Became Ours — https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/the-hidden-cost-of-being-the-good-girl-how-the-mental-load-became-ours/

References & Further Reading

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