NOVI, Mich. – Moms often joke about running things around the house, but experts say the mental load many parents carry is real and exhausting, and it’s impacting the mental health of the default parent.
That mental load is the invisible work of remembering, planning, anticipating, and emotionally managing an entire household.
For Mental Health Awareness Month, Kimberly Gill spoke with one local mom who says the work never really stops.
The mental load is about how the system of modern-day parenting often leaves one person carrying most of the invisible responsibilities and what we can do to fix it.
For Novi mom Ebony Bagley, managing her household requires constant organization.
“I write everything here so we can see it,” Bagley says while flipping through family calendars and schedules spread across her home.
Bagley is a former teacher and news producer who chose a flexible work-from-home career so she could be more present for her two young children. But she says the real challenge is not just completing the tasks of parenting, it’s the constant mental planning behind them.
“I’m the one who’s taking the kids to activities, scheduling, remembering everything, I’m writing it all down.” Bagley said. “Even when I have a moment, it’s like, ‘Okay, that’s a moment to think about what do I need to do next, organize next.’ So I feel like, a lot of it has to do with what we put on ourselves in this new generation of things but a lot of it is just making sure everyone has everything they need and I feel like I’m the one to manage all that ”
She says the mental load follows her long after the day is over.
“Some days I think I should just stop and see what happens because you know, because I think like a lot of moms with think ‘Do they even see? They don’t see the mental load, I think that’s why it’s such an invisible … no one sees me up at night after everyone’s in bed writing everything down, so yeah if I stopped being organized, I think it would be chaotic,” Bagley said.
Researchers call it “mental load” or “invisible labor,” the unpaid and often unseen work of managing a family’s entire life.
That can include:
- Keeping track of school events
- Scheduling doctor appointments
- Managing grocery lists
- Monitoring homework
- Handling emotions
- Anticipating everyone else’s needs
And for many families, one parent becomes the “default parent,” carrying most — if not all — of it.
“Some days I think maybe I should just stop and see what happens,” Bagley admitted. “I think a lot of moms feel like people don’t even see what we’re doing because the mental load is invisible.”
Dr. Rose Moten, a clinical psychologist, author, and life coach, says recognizing the problem is the first step toward addressing it. Make the invisible, visible.
“Because it makes it real, and it honors yourself, making it visible makes it real,” Moten said. “Far too often, we have not honored the exhaustion that we feel, that leads to burnout.”
Moten, who runs Bloom Transformation Center, says carrying the mental load for too long can lead to stress, anxiety, exhaustion, resentment, and even physical illness.
“Rest is not something that should be considered a luxury,” she said. “It’s a biological necessity. I think far too often, people don’t’ recognize that, like your nervous system cannot stay on forever because it will inevitably lead to burnout. I tell people it will lead to emotional disease, you know, depression, anxiety, physical disease.”
When the pressure builds, Bagley says she tries to remind herself this phase of life is temporary.
“When it gets overwhelming and hard, I really just try to focus on how quick this all goes by,” she said. “This is just a stage and a period of time where there will be kids. So I try to just be there .”
Moten says parents also need to give themselves more grace and stop chasing perfection.
“Most of the memories that really stand out are when things went wrong and we figured it out and laughed about it,” Moten said. “Life didn’t end because the house wasn’t clean or a child missed a few days of school.”
Instead, she encourages families to focus on being present.
“Being present, the here and now, is where all the beauty lies,” Moten said.
Dr. Moten’s extended conversation with Gill gives additional advice about balancing responsibilities in a marriage, recognizing resentment before it builds, and protecting mental health while parenting.
You can watch the extended interview with Dr. Moten here: