Hint: It’s not just both changing nappies
I’ve been really lucky to take off big chunks of time when I’ve had my babies. This has come at financial loss for our family, which is tough, but a sacrifice we were happy with for those early months. My partner and I chat a lot about what our ‘ideal’ is – we did before kids, we continue to now (it’s very much a work in progress). We’d like a set-up of shared parenting, and shared income-making. One thing we’ve really battled with is the re-adjustements of home v outside work as change happens, and yes, a lot of it comes back to our friend THE MENTAL LOAD.
I read a great description recently of what shared mental load looks like (it was found via Instagram, but I can’t for the life of me remember where to credit!). The author spoke of how her partner is the nappy guy. That’s his thing to do. That doesn’t mean he’s the person changing all the nappies. No, he’s the guy that remembers and makes sure everything re nappies is good to go.
Because the mental load is not the person having to do the job; it’s the person having to remember there’s a job to do and everything needed for it to be done.
The nappy guy is such a great example for my household where I’m the nappy guy. I’m the person responsible for:
- checking we have enough nappies
- The nappies are the right size / keeping tabs on how the sizing & fit is doing & remembering our baby’s weight
- Troubleshooting – deciding pants style for the day wiggles, sized up tape for night
- Restocking the nappy trolley
- Checking stock of wet wipes
- Refiling the water
- Checking the nappy bag is stocked
- And then because we also use some reusables:
- Daily pre wash (nappies & wipes)
- Keeping tabs on when the last main nappy wash was etc
I change nappies, my partner changes nappies, our nanny changes nappies (and she also helps with the nappy washing and folding, praise be) but I’m the nappy guy, I’m tracking it all, and making sure the show is running. It’s a constantly open tab, running in the background of my mind.
And it’s the myriad of these often invisible tabs that makes finding that home/work FairPlay balance tricky. Happy to take it all on when At Home is fully my place of work, it’s proven really tricky to adjust and redistribute as outside work took more of my time, and a source of anxiety when knowing I need to contribute more financially but already feeling close to my cap on workload – how could this be?!
I have no perfect answers here – yet. We are in the thick of it; of finding how to adjust and reorganise and better communicate, but I feel the first and most powerful step, as always, is that ability to name and say out-loud the things which are silent.
Your mental load will stay invisible if you never address it head on, and ways to better delegate will not just poof into place.
How many Nappy Guy tasks are you mentally carrying?
