She writes shopping lists, searches for spare clothes for the nursery out, unsolicited, included in parent-WhatsApp-groups, bakes waffles for the school and attended parents ‘ evenings. Even if many fathers now look after significantly more to their children than in the past, manage mostly mothers of the family of companies. They keep track of and every little thing thinking, so many suffer from the so-called “Mental Load”, the mental load. Now, just before Christmas, to RUB a lot of moms every year, to the point of exhaustion, finally, the Advent season is the highlight of the family organization.
In the article “Advent, Advent, the running mom” has dedicated the MIRROR of this topic and readers are asked to share their experiences. The reactions are amazing:
- Many of the male readers with the image of the overworked mother does not agree, you can complain about an antiquated understanding of roles and feel even personally offended.
- Many readers , however, write: “Very true.” “Thank You.” Or: “The witty article hits the nerve.”
The male and the female MIRROR-readers didn’t seem to know each other well, let alone pairs. Perhaps men and women perceive, but also extremely different, who does what in the household. Or – third possibility – reacted, perhaps, only emancipated men and overburdened women in the article?
Woman at stove, man in the office
In your E-Mails to men describe how they contribute: “I see you, I do not feel my role in the household and the family as a ‘supporter’ or ‘helper’, but rather as a Motor and putty”, writes a man, however, was without a single Cloud calendar with the wife, without regularly friends and sports. Also a single father described his daily routine, which includes everything in a logical manner, what occurs in family life.
Such emails show that men can take as well to the Old Chancellor Schröder dominated the area of “family and all that stuff” as women – but this has hopefully questioned, no one seriously.
The Feedback from the women, however, often in a very classic, cemented the role of the image include:
- “This mother is running for 35 years for 5 children and a successful career. There are 21 years between 1. and the last child, to Scare where my feminist hasn’T improved anything. The family world works exactly as you describe it. Women nowadays need to offer children, career and beauty.”
- “I a doctor, am a self-employed pet, my Partner is self-employed in the IT industry. 90 percent of the housework such as washing clothes, sorting, dishwasher and clearing out, shopping, cleaning and cooking, I do.”
The majority of writes – often resigned: they had arranged with the role as the sole family organizer. Even if the mothers take a break, plan for your absence in advance.
Even more, the women have developed due to the Stress already physical symptoms suffering:
- “I’m in a rat race, out of the I can’t get to 10 years out, in spite of 1.5 years of couple therapy. In the meantime, I give myself over to dinner regularly , because everything is too much for me. The worst of it is, to see that my husband makes nothing and the few handles complains.”
- Older women reported: “I was the woman who was under weight, because you simply forgot to eat, couldn’t sleep, because the head and the restlessness of the day could not simply leave, and the guilt and failure feelings are not developed, because the day had enough hours to meet all the requirements perfectly. I had long forgotten how it feels to have needs, to have for a bit no power, or simply not in the mood. I have not simply taken place. And to satisfy always the feeling of not giving enough, not anywhere.”
Must be because always everything was perfect?
Again and again it comes to the mental burden that women, because they hold all the strings in the Hand, but also to the demands you place on yourself and the family – and specifically to the Christmas party.
Not only men write, it can make some women barely legal and at the end of everything tear. Also, women recognize the trap into which you fall with this behavior. “Just look at the own claims down screws,” advises a reader. “Relax!” and “don’t rush”, write the other. Advent calendar would only litter the apartment, at Christmas, you should just go out to eat, the Raclette or the completely ignore.
Why must everything to be perfect? For Instagram? For whom the Five-course cooked meal? You want to prove to other women what can be done? Or all the effort for the children’s eyes (the lamps also French fries and a single LED-candle)?
“Caught!” writes a reader, “We had the other day a bad fight due to toast bread. We will eat of our role that we think at some point really, there is no other good enough to get.”
If the environment stresses
A reader writes that the environment more stress than the double burden. Many mothers know that It is the reproachful looks of some teachers, if you pick up the child at the last Minute, the victorious glances of other mothers, which bring the self-welded nippelten fruit hedgehog for the school buffet, the horrified gaze of Relatives, when a mother explains that she is two days on a business trip.
The true trigger for the Congestion of the mothers neither careless men even perfectionist women, however, are: It has not changed our world of work, the children but of their own.
Most of the men also work after starting a family in full time. At the same time, the majority of the women to return, in the meantime, at least part-time in the profession, if the child is still in infancy. Thus, a mother who works 20 or 30 hours, more “recreational” than the man and so she takes on the tasks associated with the organisation of the family.
The reactions to the article show that it is in need of Tools and Tricks on how we organize the everyday life and the mental load on an equal footing can be distributed. In the next article, we discuss what the rates of therapists and experts, and what politics has to do for parents.
At this point, practical advice from readers: