Challenging Cliches

The Mental Load of Masculine Leadership Earlier today, I saw a benign thread on being a good husband from Tyler Todt (@tyromper). Somewhere in the middle he offered the wives a tip: men can’t read minds, so make a list of stuff he can take off your plate. The internet exploded. The post has 16 million rage views already. Women were pissed! “Why should we have to make a list? Just notice what needs to be done, you worthless man-child!” One of the guys joked that Tyler’s sacrifice isn’t in vain: now he knows to never get his wife to make a list of things to help her. But here’s the thing: the women are right. And in a weird way, they’re calling for the patriarchy. Hear me out. My wife says her Instagram feed is full of women complaining about “mental load.” She gets tired of it, “why should I want to read about ‘‘how to teach your kids about mental load’ - as if I want to add to their stress?” Still, the idea makes sense: management is the hardest thing about running a household. You gotta plan ahead, look at the big picture, notice what’s wrong, make priorities, get buy-in, and delegate tasks. If all he’s doing is grunt work, then she’s left with the stress of always being in charge. When wives talk about “mental load,” they’re talking about “leadership.” One time, back when I first started getting my act together around family leadership, I was driving home the night before a trip. I remember thinking, “I need to call my wife and ask if I should fill the van up now, or tomorrow on the way out.” And it finally clicked: “why do I need to bother her with this? I can just decide and do it!” After that, I saw it everywhere. There were tons of ways I was expecting her to make the call on things I could easily handle. When I started taking initiative, she got more relaxed, she started to trust me, and sex got more frequent and way better. It wasn’t just that she had less stress. Rather, relaxing into me outside of the bedroom made it feel natural to do it inside the bedroom. A lot of egalitarian types will say, “we don’t want leadership, we only want an equal partner.” But I’m not sure. If it’s just a colleague not pulling his full weight, why the rage? It seems deeper. There’s an air of betrayal, of “how dare you!” It’s not just that this guy should be generally competent, it’s that “I’m stuck mothering the man who should take care of me!” What about the guys who say, “I work all day and she stays home - why should I do her job too?” But masculine leadership isn’t about “his job, her job.” A captain of a ship is responsible for everything. He doesn’t pull the ropes himself, but he knows how, and in an emergency he’d jump right in. If you’re the sole breadwinner, it makes sense that you delegate a lot of household leadership to her. But that means you notice it, appreciate it, and jump in when it’s obvious that she’s overloaded. Be the man of the house. Take on the mental load. And when you embrace the suck, you’ll find the yoke is easy, and the burden is light.