Blog | Resources
Understanding the Mental Load: Why One Clothes Airer Was My Breaking Point
The Day a Clothes Airer Became My Breaking Point: The Mental Load Explained by One Tracksuit – By Kirsty Lancaster
Earlier this week, a clothes airer ruined my day. Which is slightly embarrassing to admit, given that it’s literally a device designed to make my life easier.
But let’s take it back to the morning before where it all started…
Before my partner left for work, he mentioned that he needed a particular tracksuit washing and had just put it in the machine.
“But don’t feel you need to deal with it,” he said. “I’ll hang it out when I get home.”
See, I was working from home that day. So he was just giving me the heads-up. Sweet, right?
Except the washing cycle was due to finish at about 8:30am and he wasn’t due home until the evening. Granted, it’s been an unusually cold June, but not so cold that I’m willing to chance leaving a tracksuit marinating in a washing machine all day and then discovering what new species of bacteria has evolved by the time he hangs it out!
“Don’t worry, I’ll sort it,” I replied. I know, I know – I practically volunteered for this one. But it’s only a load of washing, right?
So at 8:30am, I hung the tracksuit carefully on the clothes airer because he prefers it air-dried. Apparently tumble drying “dulls” it. So, onto the airer it went.
Around this task, I’m getting on with the rest of the morning routine (including cleaning up what I can only describe as a culinary crime scene left from my partner’s breakfast). By the time I’d done this and the usual jobs downstairs, I had about fifteen minutes left before work started. Not fifteen minutes to sit down with a coffee and ease into my day. Fifteen minutes to get dressed, brush my teeth and, if I moved quickly enough, maybe even moisturise my face. No breakfast for me!
The thing about household jobs is that people often talk about them as though they only cost the time it takes to physically do them. Hanging out a load of washing only takes a few minutes. Wiping the kitchen counters takes a matter of seconds. But those minutes and seconds come from somewhere, and more often than not, they come from me.
The following morning, I walked downstairs and saw the clothes airer standing exactly where I’d left it. Empty. The tracksuit had been taken upstairs and put away, but the airer was still occupying the middle of the room.
And I won’t sugar-coat it – I was fuming. Not because of the airer itself. An airer takes all of ten seconds to fold up. If I told my partner this story, he’d probably think I’d finally lost the plot. “It’s just an airer.”
And yes, it is just an airer. Nobody is getting divorced over an airer. But that’s what makes conversations about the mental load so difficult. The individual examples sound ridiculous when you say them out loud.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realised the airer wasn’t actually the problem.
It was never about the airer. It was the quiet pressure to solve problems that aren’t mine, and squeeze them into mornings where I rarely even have time for breakfast. Sound familiar?
Now, if you were expecting a blog that contained the secret formula for mastering the mental load, I’m afraid I don’t have one. There are no productivity hacks, no patronising advice about getting up an hour earlier, and no affiliate links to the latest product that will supposedly transform your life.
The Springboard programme can’t make your partner notice the rogue toast crumbs on your kitchen counter. It can’t magically redistribute responsibilities at home. And it certainly can’t promise that you’ll never find yourself irrationally angry at a clothes airer again.
What our programme can do is create space to talk about it.
Because one of the most powerful things that happens on a Springboard programme is the moment a woman shares a story she worries sounds petty, unreasonable or embarrassingly small, only to be met with a room full of nodding heads.
Springboard offers an opportunity to explore where your time and energy are going, consider what boundaries might help, and support with the communication skills that will help you set them. Just as importantly, it connects you with a community of women who understand that sometimes that sinking feeling isn’t really about an airer, a poorly stacked dishwasher or a forgotten school mufti day.
It’s about carrying more than your fair share for longer than you realised. On almost every Springboard programme, or even on our interactive bitesize workshops, some version of this conversation appears. Different details. Different lives. Different challenges. But the same sense of recognition.
The question is: if you joined us on one of our upcoming workhops or programmes, what would your clothes airer story be?