MFP 338: Sharing the "Mental Load"?
Messy Family Podcast : Catholic Conversations on Marriage and Family
Mike and Alicia Hernon : Catholic Marriage Parent and Family
4.9 • 841 Ratings
🗓️ 23 June 2025
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Motherhood changes you because it literally alters a woman's brain—structurally, functionally, and in many ways, irreversibly. - Louann Brizendine, The Female Brain
Summary
Women are gifted in a way that men are not. Women can hold many different tasks in their mind at the same time, see the needs of others, and know the needs of the household and balance them all. Sometimes this can feel empowering, but sometimes it's overwhelming, especially in times of great stress. In some circles, there is a call for men to share the "mental load", but is that even possible? What is the appropriate role of fathers and husbands and how can they support their wives in this burden that they carry? Listen in as we tackle this tricky topic giving both perspective and advice on rejoicing in our differences.
Key Takeaways
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Women are gifted in a way that men are not. Embrace it and appreciate that.
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Reject a spirit of comparison and envy.
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Live a balanced life - you are not a victim and you always have a choice.
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Appreciate your husband's mental load
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Create space for him to be needed.
Couple Discussion Questions
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How does the mental load affect each of us?
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Have we fallen into a pattern of comparison or envy? How can we learn to be more grateful for our spouse and their contributions?
Resources
Download For-Women-Only-Survey
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Family, all in this together. |
| 0:08.2 | Family, we're taking a chance. |
| 0:10.8 | Family, like birds of a feather. |
| 0:13.3 | Family, get off my shoes and dance. |
| 0:15.4 | Hey, we are Mike and Alicia Hernin. |
| 0:17.4 | We have 10 kids and grandkids too, and we are here for every parent. |
| 0:21.4 | Because we are on a mission to empower moms and dads to embrace their sacred calling. |
| 0:25.6 | So join the conversation. |
| 0:32.2 | Welcome to the podcast. |
| 0:33.7 | We're so glad that you joined us today. |
| 0:36.3 | And I think this is a, it's a popular, trending topic out there. |
| 0:42.8 | I hope it doesn't get us in trouble. So what are we talking about? Okay. So I was talking to some young |
| 0:47.9 | moms and I was like, I want to have some good issues for the podcast. Like what, what's the word on the street? |
| 0:54.0 | And, and the one thing that |
| 0:57.4 | came up that they wanted us to talk about was the mental load. So the mental load of mothers. |
| 1:02.9 | And so I found, and there's lots of different Instagram and social media, reals and videos and |
| 1:09.6 | blogs and things like that. |
| 1:12.0 | And so I just want to, I'm just, I'm just going to read this one post that I found |
| 1:16.1 | that, um, I'm just going to kind of use it as to kind of set up the issue and the conversation |
| 1:22.8 | will have and the conversation that we're going to have. Okay. So, so if you're wondering, |
| 1:27.3 | like, what are you talking |
| 1:28.0 | about? So this is what we're talking about. The mental load is real and it's exhausting. |
... |
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