Fresh Take: Leah Ruppanner on "DRAINED" and What the 'Mental Load' Really Means

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood | Parenting Tips From Funny Moms

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood

Kids & Family, Comedy, Parenting

4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2026

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are women really better at all the things we do? Or are we just used to doing more? Amy talks with sociologist and author Leah Ruppanner, author of the new book DRAINED, about her definition of the "mental load" and why so many women feel constantly overwhelmed. Leah defines the mental load as much more than keeping track of tasks. It’s deeply emotional work tied to caring for others, anticipating needs, and managing relationships. In this interview Leah breaks down the different types of mental load, from organizing daily life to providing emotional support, maintaining relationships, creating special moments for families, and supporting everyone else’s goals. While many partners contribute in visible ways, much of this broader, invisible work still falls to women. Leah also shares a practical framework for evaluating your mental load: understanding where your energy is going, who you’re carrying, and what you can delegate, drop, or rebalance. When reducing the load isn’t possible, rest and recovery become essential. Think of yourself as the family MVP. This episode is a reminder that the mental load is real, complex, and worth examining—and that making it visible is the first step toward meaningful change. Here's where you can find Leah: @prof.leahruppanner on Instagram, TikTok The Miss Perceived Podcast https://www.leahruppanner.com Buy DRAINED: https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9780593850909 What Fresh Hell is co-hosted by Amy Wilson and Margaret Ables. We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: ⁠https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Inspired by jet engine silences.
0:03.0	The Dyson Hushjet Purify powerfully purifies the entire room, quietly.
0:10.0	Capturing pollen, allergens and pet dander, removing odours and harmful gases such as NO2, day and night.
0:28.5	Ashjet, powerful, compact purification, that's quiet.
0:36.3	Hey, everybody, welcome to Fresh Take from What Fresh Hell laughing in the face of motherhood.
0:41.8	This is Amy. I am so excited today to be talking to Leah Rupanar, PhD.
0:57.8	Leah is a professor of sociology at the University of Melbourne, one of the founding directors of the Future of Work Lab, and the host of seriously one of my very favorite podcasts, the misperceived podcast. Leah has a PhD in sociology from UC Irvine and has spent the last decade researching gender, work, and family.
1:04.8	Today we're going to be talking about Leah's new book, Drain, to reduce your mental load to do less and be more.
1:10.1	Welcome, Leah. Thank you so much for having me.
1:12.6	I really have been a fan of your work for so long. I wrote a book that came out last year called Happy to Help that came at women's lives from a very personal humorous and personal lens. And I talked about your research in an essay that I wrote about multitasking
1:29.3	because I really did go through a lot of my early parenting years thinking, well, it's just how it is.
1:36.7	Women are just better at multitasking. And so, oh well, and found your research, which indicated that that was a complete myth. So tell us a
1:45.9	little bit about that before we get started. Okay. So one of the biggest myths or traps, like one of the
1:50.8	things I'm very much interested in, and I'll tell you that one, then I'll tell you another one that
1:54.1	seems to be resonating quite seriously with the world. One of my purposes in this world, I think,
1:59.6	as a researcher, is to think about the things
2:01.7	that are not true, misperceptions, hence the name of my podcast, and bring research so that as you're
2:08.7	working through your lives, you have the best tools, information, research, and empirics. And then you can
2:14.6	make good decisions, right? You may make the same decision, but at least you
2:17.7	make informed decisions. And so one of the things that was so clearly holding many of us back,
2:24.3	women, mothers specifically, was this idea that we can multitask, this idea that we are inherently
2:30.8	better at doing multiple things at the same time, that our brains are just somehow
	...

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