Nicky Lowe [00:00:06]:
Hi, it’s Nicky Lowe and welcome to the Wisdom for Working Mums podcast show. I’m your host and for nearly two decades now I’ve been an executive coach and leadership development consultant. And on this show I share evidence based insights from my coaching, leadership and psychological expertise and inspiring interviews that help women like you to combine your work, life and motherhood in a more successful and sustainable way. Join me and my special guests as we delve into leadership and lifestyle topics for women, empowering you to thrive one conversation at a time. I’m so happy that you’re here and let’s get on with today’s episode. The woman I’m about to introduce you to, if you’ve not yet come across her, is, I think, amazing. And that’s not a word I use lightly. Her work is shaping our lives as women, as working mums, and as people who’ve probably spent years wondering why we feel so exhausted, so stretched and so quietly invisible in our own overwhelm.

Nicky Lowe [00:01:09]:
My guest is Professor Leah Rupana and she has the research to prove it. Leah is a sociologist, a researcher and an internationally recognized expert on gender, work and inequality. She’s the founder of the Future of Work Lab and Gender Equity Initiative. Her work has featured in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post and cnn and it’s actively driving real change in workplaces and policies around the world. But beyond all of that, she’s an absolute joy. I had the privilege of meeting Leah in person a few months ago at a Mental Load collaboration in Europe and it was a one day workshop bringing together leading academics practitioners to explore this growing conversation around mental load and its impact on women’s lives. And, and honestly, I just loved Leah’s energy and the intention that she brings to everything she does. She has this beautiful ability to take really heavy, important and often painful material and bring warmth, humanity and real hope to it.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:24]:
You may know Leah from her and it’s a now really widely discussed messy room study which showed that women are judged far more harshly than men for household mess, exposing how like deeply gender expectations still shape our lives. And in her new powerful book, reduce your mental load to do less and be more, she goes even deeper. Because Mental load isn’t just about remembering school trips and dentist appointments. It’s the invisible emotional and cognitive labour that so many of us carry every day. Like the anticipating, the worrying, the planning, the organizing, the responsibility holding that so often goes unseen and that we’ve been perhaps even been made to feel was kind of in our heads and that we’re just kind of stressy or neurotic.

Nicky Lowe [00:03:20]:
We’re not.

Nicky Lowe [00:03:21]:
And today we’re going to talk about why. In this conversation, we explore actually what mental load is. And it’s far more than just about chores. The eight different types of mental load that we can carry, the exhausting cycle of shoulds, musts, and what ifs, why women often become the default managers of family life, and what Leah’s research reveals about social judgment, gender expectations, and workplace cultures. We talk about how to have healthier conversations with partners, the idea of mental load with purpose, and what we owe the next generation, especially our daughters. This episode is, I hope, deeply validating, eye opening and full of practical wisdom for any woman who feels mentally overloaded while trying to succeed at work and at home. So if you’ve ever felt like you’re carrying a relentless responsibility for your family, this conversation is for you. And I hope you love Leah as much as I do, and I won’t keep you any longer.

Nicky Lowe [00:04:28]:
Let’s welcome her.

Nicky Lowe [00:04:30]:
So welcome, Leah. It’s an absolute joy to have you on the podcast.

Leah Ruppanner [00:04:34]:
Thank you for having me.

Nicky Lowe [00:04:35]:
So we met probably just over a month ago for the first time. So we got introduced by a mutual colleague and friend, Kate Mangino, that we’ve had on the podcast at the Mental Load Collaborative in Europe, where you were coming across from the US at the time and introducing your new book.

Leah Ruppanner [00:04:54]:
Yes, what a gift that was too right. Everybody in the room talking about the mental load. Incredible.

Nicky Lowe [00:05:00]:
And I was like, when you were sharing about your book, I was like, I’ve got to get my hands on this, which I have. And yeah, it’s just brilliant. So I can’t wait to dive into this with you. But we’re starting off because when I was reading about your work, there’s a really important part of your book where you talk about the superpower of being a sociologist. And I was like, do you know what? I don’t think I’ve come across many sociologists in my life. And your perspective on this is so powerful. So for those that might go, I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know what one is, would you mind describing and why you say that is a super power.

Leah Ruppanner [00:05:35]:
Okay, I love this question because I do think one of my purposes right now is to reintroduce the world to sociology in part because in my home country of the U.S. sociology is a little bit under attack. Sociology, basically. And no one knows what often people are like, oh, you’re a psychologist. Or, you know, it’s a little bit confusing what it is. So if you don’t know what it is, you’re definitely not alone. Sociologists are interested in how we as individuals move through the world. Like, we’re not interested in like you as your brain chemistry or anything like that, but we’re interested in how you move or talk or operate in the world and what happens.

Leah Ruppanner [00:06:11]:
What are the kind of social norms that surround you? So thinking about, we think a lot about agency, like what can you actually do versus what are you socialized into doing? And we are some of the people that coined things like role models, like who are we trying to model our behavior after? And so one of the powers I talk about using sociology as your superpower. But one of the ways in which you can use sociology or superpower is you can start to see we all actually have sociology inside of us. And when you teach the undergraduates, it’s like one of the best courses because everyone’s like, oh, now I see the world, right? Like I’m moving in this world and now I understand why this thing happens to me, or I say something. But starting to think about, as you move through the world, things you do because either you were socialized to do that from a young age, you operate in a family system that actually requires that your workplace hasn’t shifted in the ways it’s stuck in old norms, or it doesn’t allow you to self actualize or be exactly as you want or need to be because of penalties. And even when we think about our policies, so we think a lot about a kind of you embedded within these structures. And then to the extent to which that allows you to do what you want, when you want, or when you face a social penalty because you think someone’s going to judge you or someone’s going to punish you because of the ways in which you’re acting. Can I give one study? This is. Okay, so one, one of the studies that has been like making the rounds and we published in 2019 or 2020, but just keeps showing back up because I think it must be powerful in terms of illuminating this.

Leah Ruppanner [00:07:44]:
It’s a study with myself, Sabino Cornrich at nyu, and Sarah Thabeau at UC Santa Barbara. And one of the things we were interested in is like this norm or this kind of myth that men are dirt blind, that part of the reason why women stress clean or, you know, care about the house is because men just can’t see the message. And so we set out to test this with data because this is a norm, right? Like it’s either a fact, it’s either true that men’s eyes don’t work, or it’s a norm that we’ve integrated and we need to drop it. And so we ran the study where we had the same room and we had one that was messy and one was clean. And the first thing we did was we just asked people to rate the messy room as messy and the clean room is clean. And the answer was men and women rated them the same. So this idea that men would see a clean room as more. The messy room is more clean.

Leah Ruppanner [00:08:35]:
It’s the opposite. Was just not true. Then our question was like, we have science. Science shows that men are not dirt blind. Then we were curious, if it’s not that men aren’t dirt blind, if that’s not it, if they can see the mess, why do women care more than men? Why do they stress clean? Why do they worry? Why when someone drops in unannounced, are they apologizing? Why will they not invite people over? Because, you know, they think that they will be judged or they think that the house is too messy. And so what we did was we told people this room either belonged to Jennifer or John and they didn’t see the same room. And then we asked, like, what would happen if someone dropped in unannounced? What if your co worker dropped in? What if your relative dropped in? What if a friend dropped in? How would they view Jennifer or how would they view John based on the status of the room? And so one of the things that we found was in, even in that relatively clean room, they saw Jennifer as less capable, competent, hard working and likable. And they thought other people were going to judge her in that way.

Leah Ruppanner [00:09:34]:
Right. Like they thought, like if they’re, if her boss shows up unexpectedly, he will view her as less. And so this is a social norm that we’ve, we’ve socialized women into. Oh, no, sorry, everyone. Into believing that actually the cleanliness of the house is a reflection of women. And one of the things about having sociology as your superpower is once you know, know, okay, wait a minute. This is a social norm. Do I believe it? Well, first is that then you shouldn’t be undermining women when they say, I’m worried about this penalty.

Leah Ruppanner [00:10:07]:
Don’t, don’t gaslight them. This is true. Like I talk about sociology as your reverse gaslighting. Like, no, no, no. They. Right, they are, they are not lying to you. This is actually they are anticipating a penalty that we have shown other people anticipate. They will get, don’t gaslight them.

Leah Ruppanner [00:10:23]:
But we also get to decide whether we care. We decide whether this social norm is something that we believe or don’t. And if we don’t believe it, we get to decide whether we reject it. We can say we don’t want to do this anymore. And the truth of the matter is our houses are messier now than ever before. This is what the research shows, right? Like, we spend less time cleaning because we are working and we are invested with our children. And so my goal or my gift for you is that you will start, you all will start to use sociology as your superpower and decide when you actually care about this stuff and when you just are worried someone will judge you or someone will penalize you. And if we can all agree, let’s stop judging and penalizing and we can all be a little brave and open our lives up in more authentic and open ways.

Leah Ruppanner [00:11:09]:
Maybe the norm will shift and then we’ll just. Our norm will be everyone’s messy and let’s move through the world with that.

Nicky Lowe [00:11:16]:
And I loved that because I think before we hit record, I said that this really spoke to me and will speak to my audience about this fact that we tend to be high achieving women with strong personal power. Like, I’ve always thought of myself as like fiercely independent. I’m like, the reason I’m my own boss is I don’t want to work and conform to other people. And then I was like, oh, but oh my God. Like, I am not as independent and free willed as I thought. Like, you’ve almost taken my blinkers off. It’s almost like I’ve got a set of snorkeling goggles and above the water it’s all clear. And I’m like, oh, I’m this free willed person.

Nicky Lowe [00:11:59]:
And then you’ve put this mask on me and I can see like the murkiness of all of like the social norms and all of the expectations. And I think that’s what your book does brilliantly. And I love, I think there’s a quote where you were, you go, I will no longer participate in my own kind of self. Is it self destruction around this? And I’m like, oh, I love that.

Leah Ruppanner [00:12:21]:
Yes. One of the things I ask you to do is start to implement a good is good enough mentality. Like, sorry, well, let me clarify that. I’ll do two things. One I. One thing. Two things I ask you to do is like, get crystal clear on your goals. Like, I have a mental load audit.

Leah Ruppanner [00:12:36]:
Right. So I talked to you about here’s what your mental load looks like. You don’t actually have a clear definition of it. It’s not your fault. It’s just that the research is just emerging and I’m sharing it with you, right, that there’s eight different types of it’s emotional thinking work. You do it in seven different stages and there’s unpredictability around it. So you are carrying a heavy load and you probably can’t even see it yet. You know, I’m trying to.

Leah Ruppanner [00:12:59]:
You don’t even yet have the language and hopefully this book will give you the language. But I also ask you in the mental load audit to get crystal clear on your goals, to start to figure out where do you want to go in one, three and five years and then figure out what’s getting in the way. And sometimes what I think is will find is that the things that we’re told to care about, the things that we think we’re going to get penalties for, we really don’t care if we are kind of conscious about it because it’s not aligning to my goals. So if my goal is to be an influencer and to have my or interior designer and have a beautiful home so that people will, it will grow my business, then it makes sense to have a house that is perfect for when people show up. Because I want to make money or I want to have status or I want to show that I’m good at my job. But if my, my goal is to just, you know, write books or be with my family or which would be mine, right? Like do this work well then that’s not where my all my energy needs to go. And it’s not that you go to zero, right? It’s not that you like just you go, you do nothing. But how do we get really strategic in where our thoughts are going, where our mental loads going, where our energy is going, where our time’s going, where our resources going.

Leah Ruppanner [00:14:09]:
Because what you’re being asked to do now is care about everything, all the time you’re being asked to spend to give mental load energy and your physical energy to everything. Because if you don’t, you’re not achieving, you’re not, you’re not doing what you should be doing. You need to give your children more of everything because they won’t be successful. What a bunch of nonsense we’ve told women, right like that you are solely responsible for keeping this whole thing going. Even if there’s global warming, even if there’s generative AI that’s going to wipe out jobs and change education. You better figure out how to overcome that. Like, in no other job do we ask women to be the CEO of everything. Like, we don’t say, like, you’re in charge of that now.

Leah Ruppanner [00:14:47]:
Also, you’re in charge of compliance. And now you’re in charge of the hr and you’re also in charge of the finances. And wait, there’s unpredictability. You need to anticipate that. It’s too much. It’s too much to put on one person. And, and it feels, I think this is why it feels so heavy, because it’s like, but I’m high achieving, I’m high competent, I can do it, but yet I don’t feel good in it. And I’m telling you, the reason you don’t is because the expectations on you are so high and unfair.

Leah Ruppanner [00:15:14]:
And those are socially driven, right? We’ve said, like, mothers are solely responsible for keeping their families running, which is bullshit. And then in addition to that, we’ve sold you a big fat lie too, that you’re better at multitasking. Multitasking is your superpower. You’re really good at that. You’re not. No one can. Men can’t multitask, women can’t multitask, kids can’t. No one can multitask effectively.

Leah Ruppanner [00:15:35]:
And all we’re doing is burning people out. So if we start to see that, like, we’ve been a little bit scared, set up like the. We’ve, like, we’ve moved into a system that has set us up to feel terrible in this thing that is actually really beautiful. And we’ve been told we can never mess up, mistakes are serious. We’re going to ruin our children for life. We’re going to ruin our family for life. That is so unfair. It’s so untrue.

Leah Ruppanner [00:16:01]:
It’s so unfair. And all we’re doing is burning ourselves out with social expectations and systems that are broken. That actually if we look a little bit closer, like, if you had care infrastructure around you, you probably would feel a lot lighter, a lot better, like women do in other countries. I just went on a rant, but how did it.

Nicky Lowe [00:16:24]:
And I love that. And I’m going to unpick so much of this. So you have given a beautiful arc of what’s driving this, what the mental load is. You’ve alluded to a number of things that we’re going to dive down into in more detail. But just like, the first thing I want to say is thank you for doing the work that you do. Because you are shining a light on. I think the lived experience is so many women listening to this podcast that are deep in it and going, I am, like, burning myself out, and I still don’t feel like I’m doing it well. And you are shining a light on that paradox.

Nicky Lowe [00:17:02]:
And you get down into the research, and you’ve really dedicated the last. Is it 20 years to diving deep into this. And we were saying the references in the back of your book around all of the research that you’ve done, I’m like, oh, you’ve studied, like, the inside of my mind, like, the struggle. So I love this. So if we go back, then we’ve already talked about the mental load, and I love your definition of it. So if you wouldn’t mind sharing that again, because I think you layer on some uniqueness that we may not have heard. Like, normally we think about it of just managing the household tasks, but you’ve gone into all of the nuance around this. So can you give your definition and then go on to the eight different kind of factors that you look at?

Leah Ruppanner [00:17:44]:
You bet. So the mental load is emotional thinking work that we do to keep our work, life and family running. I’ll do that one more time. It’s emotional thinking work. And so for many people, it might look something like this. Okay, do we have enough milk for breakfast? Breakfast for tomorrow. That is kind of like cognitive labor, right? And the simplest thing would be like, okay, do we have enough milk for breakfast tomorrow? No, let’s put it on the list. Who’s gonna buy it? And then it would just be ticked off the list.

Leah Ruppanner [00:18:15]:
And sometimes our mental loads work very straight cognitive labor. And they are simple and they don’t drain us that significantly. But oftentimes our mental load looks something like this. Do we not have enough milk for breakfast tomorrow? Oh, my gosh. If we don’t have enough milk for breakfast tomorrow, the kids will actually get up and then they won’t have breakfast and they’ll start their day off wrong and they’ll go to school and they won’t be able to concentrate. If the kids can’t concentrate, what does that mean for their test scores? And in fact, do you have enough calcium in their diet in the first place? If they don’t, are they going to have osteoporosis? Wait, do I have osteoporosis? I haven’t been to the doctor for 14, 14 years. Right. Like, I haven’t checked it.

Leah Ruppanner [00:18:49]:
Actually, there is something wrong, maybe a little bit with my back or my bones, but I don’t know. Do I need to go? No, we can’t possibly because I have too much going on at work. Wait, what’s happening at work? Is work actually okay? My boss seemed kind of upset the other day. Is it, Are they upset with me? Are we not producing? But what does this mean? If actually generative AI is coming in, am I even going to have a job? Will my kids have a job? And this is where the mental load starts to go to the eight different types. So this is emotional thinking work and it’s tied to the people we love the most. So it can be like kind of never ending or it feels heavy because you’re thinking about is everyone okay or is everyone achieving or is everyone doing what they need to do? And I have this little, I have a quiz, not a little. A very important, powerful, wonderful, giant, life changing assessment on lightandlab.com. so I have a lightin lab.com where you can go.

Leah Ruppanner [00:19:38]:
It’s free. I don’t want your email address. I’m not selling your information. I just want you to start thinking about where is your mental load during the day? Because it’ll be different in the morning than it will be in the evening. It’ll be different on Monday than it is on Friday. It’ll be different in December than it is in June. But to start understanding like, whoa, my mental load to achievement is really high today. Is that good or bad? Is that useful or not? You’re going to have to carry a mental load.

Leah Ruppanner [00:20:01]:
So you want to start thinking about where is it going and what does it look like. But it isn’t bad if it’s high, if it’s aligned with where you need to be going and your goals and your ambitions. If it’s high and it’s actually just draining in ways that are unproductive, then you need to start to reflect and think about how to like your blood pressure, right? Like, okay, I need to start doing some things to calm this down. But when I give you that example where it goes between, you know, the milk, goes to your children’s dreams, goes to generative AI, goes to your health. These are the eight different types, so I’ll do them quickly. But the first one is life organization. It’s that kind of standard mental load of like, is everything happening as it should? Do we have enough milk? Does every. Are my answering the emails at work? Am I meeting deadlines? It’s kind of that like keeping our lives organized.

Leah Ruppanner [00:20:48]:
You’re also doing emotional support. Mental load about, is everyone in my life okay, co workers, what’s going on? And it’s when you’re, like, looking at the subtle facial expressions of people on Zoom, or you’re scanning the family dinner table to see are my kids okay or what’s going on? Are they teenagers? And I can’t quite tell if they’re upset or they’re just hormonal. Relationship hygiene. Are you building the networks that you need to build? At work, we would just think about this at networking, but at home, we think about this a little more complexly. Like, is grandma invited to dinner? Do the kids have the right networks around them? Do I have to be friends with someone who I don’t really want to be friends with just so that my kids can have a play date? Which is sometimes the worst emotional magic making. Do we make events feel special? This could be things like Elf on the Shelf, but it also could be, are the weekends interesting and dynamic? This leads to dream building. Does everyone have what they need to live big, bold, ambitious dreams? And what I heard a lot was that mothers often put their dreams to the bottom of the list to make sure everyone else had everything they needed. For fathers, dream building was a way to support the family.

Leah Ruppanner [00:22:00]:
It was a way to build more into the family. And for mothers, it felt like at the expense of their family, which was unfortunate. Right? Then there’s individual upkeep. Am I doing everything to keep myself fit and healthy? Doctor’s appointments, personal maintenance, safety. Is everyone okay in the family? Or, you know, are. Do we have everything we need in an emergency? Or, you know, looking forward into the world? As people move through the world, are they safe? Which I think now is a heightened question. And then the final one is kind of this meta like, am I, am I, am I creating the world I want? Am I being a good parent? Am I, you know, living aligned with my values? Like, what is the world going in the direction I want it to go in? And so you can see, once I say this to you, as I add these up, I would imagine you’re thinking, wow, that actually I do that all day long, or I do that a portion of my day. And it’s the stacking of these or it’s the combination of these.

Leah Ruppanner [00:22:59]:
And you’re doing it, I hope, or my goal is for this book to. To give you the language to start to describe it, and then once you start to describe it, you can start to see it, and then you can decide whether it’s worth it. And right now, I think what’s going on is we’re just Kind of passively burning through our mental load. Energy with everything. But it might not all deserve our energy, our time and attention.

Nicky Lowe [00:23:22]:
And your book has brilliant stories about couples and about kind of women you know, or you come across that brings these alive. And I, and I, as you were sharing them in the book, I could relate to so many of them. And there was one way you talk about, and I can’t remember the couple’s name, where you say that he actually holds some of the load, but he can hold it a lot lighter for a number of different reasons. And it got me thinking about the magic making. And I. In your book, you talk about that you live in Australia and that you will often have a Christmas Day lasagna in the pool. And you’re like, I don’t give a. Now I’m about the norms around magic making, which I love because I’ve twisted myself in knots, particularly my 20s and into my 30s where I was like, oh, I’m now this homemaker and I’ve brought woman and home and I meant to do this beautiful table spread and make my own crackers and like all this stuff.

Nicky Lowe [00:24:19]:
That one, I didn’t enjoy to it drained and I’d end up on Christmas Day like this burnt out, resentful. Like, this is not Christmas joy. And it was interesting. I. I mentioned to you I had a big operation in January and my husband had actually said to me, why don’t you have it in December and you can kind of use the Christmas break to, to recover. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. There is far too much Christmas stuff to be doing. And he was like, well, don’t worry, I’ll pick it up.

Nicky Lowe [00:24:50]:
And I laughed at him. And I was like, you are shitting me, aren’t you? And he was like, why? And I was like, because, like, you have no idea what I do to make Christmas magic for the kids. And he got really, like, upset with me because he was like, are you saying that I’m incompetent? And I was like, no, no, I’m not. I’m like, you are perfectly capable, but you just wouldn’t do some of the stuff that I do because you would go, we don’t need to do that. We don’t need to. Like, you would be like, we don’t need you to wrap presents. They, you know, it only goes straight in the bin. We don’t need to, like, we don’t need to do any of this stuff that you do because anybody wouldn’t felt the social expectation.

Nicky Lowe [00:25:28]:
And I Was like, I get that, but we would have lost so much of the magic. I was like, no, no, well, let’s do it in January. But it was really interesting seeing that, like, he genuinely has no idea what goes into the magic making and probably wouldn’t give it the same weighting as I would. And. And your book speaks to that, like, that invisible dynamic that keeps all of this, like, swirling and tie us up in knots.

Leah Ruppanner [00:25:55]:
It’s funny you say that about the magic making, because it was like, it was the category that women either loved or they loathed, right? Like, there was kind of no in between on it. It was like, oh, I love to do that. So fun. Blah, blah, blah, I love to create magic. Or like, I hate this. It’s a social obligation. I don’t want to do it. And it was often the work that men didn’t do.

Leah Ruppanner [00:26:13]:
They would say, like, it’s exactly what you’re describing. Like, this is unimportant work. Why are we doing it this way? The pressure is too high and the standards are too high, and I don’t think we should do it this way. But she wants to, so I will. But, like, if I. If it was up to me, I would not wrap the presents.

Nicky Lowe [00:26:30]:
I would not.

Leah Ruppanner [00:26:30]:
And one of the things I want women to do is, like, let sometimes. Let it all fall apart. Like sometimes. Like maybe, like sometimes, maybe you see what he does, right? Maybe he’ll impress. He will surprise you, or the kids will surprise you, or, or people will feel the work that you do. It’s almost like in both directions. Like, it. Either you will be surprised that actually maybe some of the magic making could be dropped and it ends up being a beautiful experience, or they will be surprised at how bad it is, how terrible it is, and then everyone can kind of understand the work that goes in behind making this a great experience.

Leah Ruppanner [00:27:06]:
But often what happens is women step in pre, proactively. Like they. They step in and go, no, no, no, it’s going to be a disaster. So let me come in and fix. And I’m saying to you all, don’t stop doing that so much. Don’t fix so much. Take. Take the surgery in December and let.

Leah Ruppanner [00:27:24]:
Let everyone either pleasantly surprise you. Let everything work a little differently. Now, I know some women are like, excuse me, like, I’ve done this enough. And I know that the problems are going to come my way, but maybe not all the time, right? So there is some lesson in that they might not always. And what I heard a lot was a lot of mental Loads being spent between one and a million contingency plans. Like, I am thinking through 8 million things that could go wrong and making sure we are prepared. But then how often do those things go wrong? And so that can be reduced. You know, that might, that might not lead to your goals and your dreams and your ambitions, and it might be at the expense of, of.

Leah Ruppanner [00:28:05]:
So how do we get clear on that our mental load is finite and incredibly valuable and then start to spend it like you would your money in very strategic ways.

Nicky Lowe [00:28:15]:
And I think what your book continues, just to layer in is rather than like, it’s so easy to go, oh, women are just neurotic, or women are just over controlling or oh, it’s just us women. You kind of go, no, no, no, no, there’s a reason why we do this. But we can, can choicefully and intentionally let go of some of this stuff if it doesn’t align. So you talk about this mental load with purpose rather than, oh, just let it all go. And like, we’ll, we’ll just sit in a field and meditate. Like, it’s not that, it’s, let’s just be really conscious about what’s serving us, what’s draining us. And I think some of the things you, you mentioned them there about these three myths. So you talked about women are better multitask us and just that’s just not true.

Nicky Lowe [00:29:00]:
And in your book, again, I hadn’t heard it reflected back to me like this. And you were talking about like, we’re often at work thinking about what needs to be done at home, but in that moment we can’t do it. So there’s additional mental load of not forgetting to do it.

Leah Ruppanner [00:29:17]:
And I’m like, oh, yes.

Nicky Lowe [00:29:21]:
And then you also talked about women are better household managers and that we bear the weight of the mental load without negotiation or discussion, not because we’re better at it. And I was like, that is exactly what happened to me. Before I had children. I had what I thought was a really equitable relationship. And then all of a sudden I found myself in these kind of social norms. At the time I didn’t know I was in. I was just like, oh, I’ve just, I feel really disempowered. Like what’s happened? And again, you speak to that dynamic and then you talk about your relationship is equal if everybody does the dishes.

Nicky Lowe [00:29:57]:
And what I love is that social norms put women at a power disadvantage in marriages. And I’m like, oh God, yeah, I felt that, but never had the language for it and felt Frustrated at my husband before realizing, oh, this isn’t about my husband. Like, yes, he plays a part in this. It’s not like he has no responsibility, but it’s not just about him and me. So I love how you talk about that. So we’ve covered the eight types, We’ve talked about the myths, and then you talk about, like, the mental load of energy spending. So can you talk a bit about that? Because you talk about there’s a burnout scale in your book, also talked about the audit. So can you tell us a bit more about this kind of mental loader’s energy?

Leah Ruppanner [00:30:43]:
Okay, so one of the things, after I tell you that you’re spending it in eight different ways with seven different stages, and it’s all wrapped around the fact that it’s unpredictable, I ask you to start to think about, are you running in mental load burnout? And so I have this burnout scale again. If you go to lightandlab.com, it’s on there as well. It’s in the book. And I want this to stop you there a second.

Nicky Lowe [00:31:05]:
I. When I went to go on to it, I. When I’d heard you talk about this before, I thought it was lightning, as in thunder and lightning. And then I was like, oh, right. That was really naive of me. So it’s lighten as enlightened the load.

Leah Ruppanner [00:31:19]:
Exactly.

Nicky Lowe [00:31:19]:
And I was like, brilliant.

Leah Ruppanner [00:31:21]:
Name T E N. That’s so funny. Although I like the idea of, like, it’s so bold. It’s so bold. It’s gonna take down thunder and lightning. Like, this is coming for you. I love that. So it could be both y’, all, but the website will be L I G H T E N.

Leah Ruppanner [00:31:37]:
But this might feel like thunder and lightning for you, so if it does, I understand. And so what I asked them to do is, like, kind of have this as your barometer. Like, have this as your mental load burnout scale. And I’ve collected data on thousands and thousands of people, and I do find that this is a really good predictor of mental health outcomes and all sorts of other things. It’s kind of the precursor to, like, you know, I’m feeling these things, and now I have these physiological responses or these kind of mental health responses as a result. But I want you to think, like, are you spending more energy than you have? Like, do you wake up in the morning and think, oh, I can’t tackle today because I don’t have the energy to do it? Do you feel exhausted by your mental load? Are you finding it difficult to Enjoy life’s moments because you’re always thinking about what comes next. The first story in my book is about a mom who is finally at her kids play. Kristen, she’s there and she’s at the play and she keeps thinking like this is where I’m supposed to be enjoying this.

Leah Ruppanner [00:32:37]:
This is the moment I’ve been working towards. But there’s so many demands on her, there’s so much mental load pinging of, you know, where should I sit? And have you contacted the grandparents and who’s getting picking up the other child and what’s going on at home? And do we have enough flowers so she can do we have flowers so she can feel special? And there’s this constant mental load where in this moment she can’t enjoy the moment. And her husband talks to her and says like, just be where your feet are, right? Like just relax. And it feels so dismissive. And this is I think what is kind of maybe men and women can’t understand. You’re carrying different loads. And so in this moment it does feel overwhelming. I also asked, do you have enough energy for opportunities or emergencies? What I heard a lot was men would say yes, I have enough energy for emergencies and opportunities.

Leah Ruppanner [00:33:22]:
And women would say I am only holding a little bit of mental load energy in case something goes wrong. I’m burnt out, I can’t concentrate, I don’t enjoy life’s moments. I. I’m always thinking about other stuff. I can’t respond to opportunities at work or in life because I’m just moving every day. I’m not even forward thinking, right? I’m just surviving with the onslaught of stuff that is coming my way. And the result of that is if something goes wrong, yes, I have just enough to respond, but not enough. And this is where I think the problem is, right? This is where I’m saying to you that’s not good enough.

Leah Ruppanner [00:33:55]:
That’s not good enough for you to only have enough capacity for things going wrong. What I want you to have at the end of this is enough capacity so you can enjoy life’s moment so that you can actually step into opportunities as you emerge, so that you can even see them. And this is where I get into the audit of like, let’s start thinking about your mental load as finite. Let’s start thinking about it as a resource. Let’s start thinking about it like you would your money and let’s start to figure out what’s in your account right now. Are you like negative a million dollars or are you in a surplus when you do stuff, you’re not going to get a zero mental load. When you do stuff, does it bring you energy? Is it crediting to you or is it debiting to you? Are you giving it to too many people? Do you have a list of about a hundred people that you care, you give a little bit of your mental load energy to? And do you feel bad when you let them down? I have one example of a woman who’s in a book club, right? And she never, she never opens the book, she doesn’t care, but she feels so guilty about this. Like, I’m letting these people down.

Leah Ruppanner [00:34:58]:
Who cares, right? They might not be your core people. Who are your core people? And if it’s not aligned with your goals, if your goal is to be the top, if your goal is to spend more time reading and connecting to people, well, then, yeah, your book club’s probably pretty important. But if your goal is to, I don’t know, learn the guitar or spend more time at work or get a promotion or become prime minister, well, then the book club actually, honestly is down on the list. And so that’s the amount of energy, energy you should give it. So, and then I asked the ways in which social norms make it heavy. And so once we start to kind of deconstruct, where is your energy going? What is the most draining? Where are you duplicating? Who’s getting it but really shouldn’t get it? Then I ask you to realign, I ask you to start thinking about what are your. Where do you want to be? What are the things you love? So one of the comments that came from our time together actually, which I loved, is like, we think of the mental load as being bad, heavy, depleting, overwhelming. And sometimes it is.

Leah Ruppanner [00:35:56]:
But we often can do things in our mental load that we love. So what are your mental load loves? What are the things that bring you energy? What are the things that, after, you know, they might cost you something cognitively, but you think about them long term. And to get to some of that, I gave women a hundred dollars a week. I give them money. I give them $100 a week for four weeks to start to lighten their mental load. What do they do? And one woman said, like, I go on a trip with my girlfriend and it always feels a little bit expensive. And I feel bad, I feel guilty about taking money from the family. I don’t know if this is the right investment.

Leah Ruppanner [00:36:32]:
But I come back feeling so energized, right? And I come back and my mental load is lighter. And I feel like I can move through work easier and I’m kinder and I’m. I just. It’s a credit, right, to be with the people who fill our cups. How do you figure out who. What is filling your cup and what is draining your cup? I’ll say one last thing, and then how do you start to align and spend? And it helps you to have this kind of filter to go, oh, I’m spending mental load energy thinking about whether I’m going to be judged for this. Is that actually aligned with where I’m trying to go? If the answer is no, then you have to drop it and you have to stop. I’ll say one last thing and then I’ll stop blabbing.

Leah Ruppanner [00:37:07]:
But the other thing too is that if you are in this and you’re listening and you’re like, I can’t do it. I can’t drop anything. I have children who are living with severe food allergies. I have an aging parent who’s really unwell. And actually, if I drop something, people will seriously suffer or something will go very wrong. We have a paper where we heard this, that the mental load process was heavier, that the monitoring is more stressful, that the, that the surveillance of what has to happen and the making sure everything’s happening is more emotionally draining. But the stakes are high, right? Like your stakes are high in this. And you’re going in and there’s stakeholders in there, like doctors, that you’re trying to get them to give good care.

Leah Ruppanner [00:37:49]:
You’re going into workplaces and schools and you’re trying to, you’re. You’re just spending your energy to make sure the people you love are taken care of. If you are in this moment and you’re thinking, to me, I can’t draw. I can’t do it. That’s unfair to ask. I can’t. What I want to say to you is then you need and deserve that recovery time. Your time, or you are, whatever it is that you do to bring yourself more energy to rest, recover, and recuperate.

Leah Ruppanner [00:38:16]:
You cannot spend that time guilty that you’re doing it and. Or with a mental load that is running about all of the things you need to do because you are a key linchpin and you are such a, a buffer for these people in your life. What you’re doing is so valuable. What you’re doing is so valuable for all of us. I. And I see you. And that’s important work that you need the recovery time, like unpolluted, un, like clear and do not feel guilty or do not feel bad about taking that because you deserve it and you need it. And that is the other little piece about when women would say, I feel so guilty about doing this.

Leah Ruppanner [00:38:53]:
I feel guilty taking time out, I feel guilty taking money. I feel guilty, guilty, guilty because I should be giving to others. That’s a social norm that we’ve done that actually has just pushed women into burnout and made them feel awful when actually if we stop, we say stop that, stop it, we gotta stop that. And you deserve to take. Men don’t feel that way. They feel like they deserve the leisure, they deserve the money because they’re bringing that with they, if they are recovery, they deserve the sleep because they come back into the what they, they’ll bring it back into the family and women feel like it’s at the expense of the family and we have to have men come a little closer to women and women come a little closer to men and everyone is, that’s a little bit of a rebalance. So I hope this is a rebalance moment too.

Nicky Lowe [00:39:36]:
I love how you, you talked about Leo, because there are some, as you say, there’s some life practicalities that for some people, in some situations, they’re carrying even more than most. So we know that, you know, you speak to kind of 100 women, you’re going to get a high percentage of those that are feeling like they’re carrying a high mental load. But there are some that are carrying more. But I think what your book does brilliantly is allow you to kind of drop the guilt at your feet and look at it and go, which bit of this do I want to step over? Because most of this is dysfunctional guilt, it’s not functional guilt. And I, you know, as somebody that’s experienced burnout and the whole reason that I set up Wisdom for Working Mums was because I literally burnt myself out and was like, oh, how did that happen? And thought it was a psychobiological piece of I’m conscientious, I’m driven, I’m a people pleased, I’m a perfectionist. So I did a lot of the self blame of, oh, I put myself here. And it was only when I started to see some of the psychosocial side of this, all the stuff you’ve talked about, I’m like, oh, okay, like I’m swimming in water that’s really toxic and I can’t help but swallow some of that. But I, what your book does is kind of protect against some of that.

Nicky Lowe [00:40:52]:
It’s like, it is Toxic what we’re swimming in. And it’s not going to change overnight, but let’s just be really clear with ourselves and, and almost tolerate the discomfort of guilt. Like the world is going to make us feel guilty. And I’ve, I’ve learned this, like, I have gone on like a week’s retreat away from my family and like had to tolerate. I’m like, I need this for my recovery. And I came back a better person. I’m now the mum that apart from Christmas, I don’t do much magic making. I’m like, my parents didn’t and I quite like, we can make our own magic.

Nicky Lowe [00:41:25]:
Like they can, they can be creative. I don’t do like the whole Easter stuff. Like our Easter’s really boring and I don’t care. I don’t do Halloween and I don’t care. Like I, I just choose which bits of that magic making. So. And that’s what I think your book does. It gives us some of the power back in a world that will constantly make us feel disempowered if we’re not careful.

Nicky Lowe [00:41:46]:
So we’ve covered so much there and there is so much more that’s in your book that we haven’t had time to kind of dive into. So I would really suggest people get it because it is not only a brilliant kind of take on our modern world, but it is so practical as well about like, what can we actually do about it? As I say, you empower us so it’s drained. Reduce your mental load to do less and be more. And I was really struck by your final chapter where you talk about kind of the future of our children because your daughter’s called Ava. And I’ve got a daughter called Ava. And I was like, oh, 15 and she’s.

Leah Ruppanner [00:42:23]:
Yeah, she’s now 16. But yes, yes, and I’ve got a

Nicky Lowe [00:42:26]:
seven year old, Ava. So I was like, oh God, you know, thank you, thank you from me and thank you from her. But if there was just one thing that you would want somebody listening to this conversation and reading your book to take away. What, what is that?

Leah Ruppanner [00:42:41]:
Oh, interesting. My very good friend He Jiang Chung, who’s at King’s College, just invited me out and she said, your book is a love letter to mall to women. And I. It’s funny having people read your stuff and then they come back in and tell you how it hits them. And I thought, oh, that is what I was trying to do. I was trying to say, I see you, I understand what’s going on. It’s Hard. And I loved when you just said, like, I’m swimming in this dysfunction.

Leah Ruppanner [00:43:11]:
And of course I’m going to swallow some of the water. And that’s not my fault. But I also can, I can also decide maybe I don’t want to swim today. Right? Like, I’m gonna, I’m gonna step out of the pool. Today is not my day to be in the pool. Right. Like,

Nicky Lowe [00:43:23]:
and I think that metaphor that we said at the beginning, you’re giving us our snorkel to go. Right? We can see it now.

Leah Ruppanner [00:43:29]:
Yeah. And swim around it when you can. Right? Swim around it when you can. I love this. I love that metaphor. So thank you for your. Thank you for thinking about and your insights into it. I think the most thing I want women to start to think about or people, actually everyone in the world is that your mental load energy is finite.

Leah Ruppanner [00:43:47]:
It’s finite and you have a certain amount of it. And really where you’re spending it is going to determine your life. And what I. What I don’t want to have happen or what I’ve heard from women sometimes is like, wait a minute, the kids are gone now everything’s done. And where am I? How did I end up here? You know? Or I have other things to give to the world. I have things that are my. I’m good at, that I want to share with other people or I want to give to my. The future.

Leah Ruppanner [00:44:13]:
I can do things. And, And I think that would be my goal to start thinking about great. We want them like, yes, and so now what? Yes, and one step. And it doesn’t have to be, I say running for prime Minister. Right. But it doesn’t have to be. It could be as small as. Every day I want to go for a walk and connect in with nature.

Leah Ruppanner [00:44:33]:
Every day I want to have a. Every once a week I want to have a drink with my friend to who fills my cup. Or I want to learn guitar, I want to learn a new language. And then slowly, slowly little steps in towards our dreams, our goals, our ambitions and our passions. I think can lead to a very different world. I think we will end up with a different world if we start to stop spend mindlessly, we start to spend strategically and we start to get aligned. And I am not here to tell you what that alignment is. I’m not here saying, get your girl boss power on.

Leah Ruppanner [00:45:03]:
And might be, can be right, could be, but it could be something as small is like, God, I always wanted to learn French and go to France. Great. How do we do that? Right? Like what’s the first step? And then after you go to France, maybe you’ll be the diplomat of French. I’m just kidding. But how do you do that? And then what does that mean when you come back into the family with more energy and you start to see your dreams and ambitions and passions and capabilities are valuable. We need them all. Then what does our world look like? That’s my question. So let’s see if we can change the world.

Nicky Lowe [00:45:33]:
I love that. And, and I just want to leave you with this paragraph that really struck me and it says I’ve seen the data, I’ve collected it myself and I know that there is no evidence suggesting that stressed out, high mental load bearing women have happier, more successful children, more fulfilling careers or happier lives, partners, friends or loved one. That knowledge frees us up to invest our mental loads in what we actually care about and let go of what we don’t.

Leah Ruppanner [00:46:06]:
Who wrote that?

Nicky Lowe [00:46:10]:
And my nervous system just went, oh God, I needed to hear that more than you will know, Leah. So thank you for being you and putting your work out into the world. I wanna, I know people are gonna wanna find you and learn more about you and I’ll drop all of these into the like the show notes but can you kind of point us in the direction of you and your work?

Leah Ruppanner [00:46:31]:
Yes. I tell you how great I am everywhere so you can find me on Instagram. Like I’m at Prof. Leah Ropanner. Two Ps, two ends. I’m on Instagram, I’m on Facebook, I’m on TikTok, I’m on LinkedIn. I really am like monitoring this stuff. And you can email me, you can go to light and lab.com l I G H T E N L A B if you want to just look at some of the stuff that’s not just for mothers.

Leah Ruppanner [00:46:54]:
Right. This is bigger than just mother’s experiences. We have an assessment about, you know, what does your mental load look like at work? You can find me anywhere. And I do. I said this to you before we started recording too. Like one of the gifts that you, that of this experience is hearing what it, how it hits, what makes sense, what is resonating, what, what isn’t, or where you see the gaps. I’m a researcher at heart, so I want the feedback.

Nicky Lowe [00:47:20]:
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Wisdom for Working Mums, I’d love for you to share it on social media or with the amazing women in your life. I’d also love to connect with you. So head over to luminate co.uk where you’ll find ways to stay in touch and if this episode resonated with you, one of the best ways to support the show is by subscribing and leaving a review on itunes. Your review helps other women discover this resource, so together we can lift each other up as we rise. So thanks for listening until next time. Take care.