The Mental Load: The Job No One Pays Career Mums For
Let’s talk about the invisible job description that no recruiter will ever put on LinkedIn, but career mums know all too well: The Mental Load.
It’s the 24/7 role where you’re Chief Executive of remembering everything, from booking the dentist to sourcing the birthday gift for your child’s best friend (who you secretly suspect doesn’t even like your child that much). It’s the unpaid, unacknowledged, yet utterly exhausting spreadsheet running in your head while you’re smashing it at work and trying not to forget your own birthday.
Here’s the kicker: the mental load isn’t about the physical chores. It’s about the thinking, planning, anticipating, and remembering that keep the whole show running. It’s the kind of work that never ends because it lives in your head rent-free, even when you’re on a Zoom call trying to look like you’re fully focused on quarterly targets.
The Silent Weight Career Mums Carry
Career mums carry a triple-stacked plate. On one side is their professional identity: the deadlines, the deliverables, the PowerPoint slides that simply must look like they’ve been sprinkled with corporate fairy dust. On another side sits their home life: the meals, the school runs, the laundry mountain. And then, balanced precariously in the middle, is the mental load, the invisible string tying it all together.
It’s remembering to sign the school trip form before 9 a.m. while prepping for a leadership meeting. It’s mentally calculating whether you’ve got enough fish fingers in the freezer while drafting a project budget. It’s tracking who’s had a growth spurt and needs new shoes while negotiating a client contract.
You don’t just carry the weight of tasks, you carry the emotional responsibility of making sure nothing (and no one) falls through the cracks. And heaven forbid you drop the ball, because society has a way of whispering (or sometimes shouting) that it’s your fault.
Why It’s More Than “Just Being Organised”
Let’s be clear: this isn’t about being scatter-brained or needing a better planner. You could have the most colour-coded Notion board in the land, and the load would still exist. Because the mental load is systemic. It falls disproportionately on women, especially working mothers, because the world still expects us to be both boardroom-ready and bedtime-story-ready at all times.
And the effect? Burnout. Exhaustion. That nagging sense of failing everywhere, even when you’re objectively smashing it. It chips away at confidence, wellbeing, and joy. It can make you doubt yourself, your abilities, even your worth, because you’re auditioning for an impossible role: Perfect Professional, Perfect Parent, Perfect Person. Spoiler alert: the role doesn’t exist.
The Wake-Up Call
Here’s the truth we don’t say enough: you don’t have to carry it all.
You’re not failing because you can’t keep the plates spinning, you’re failing because no one should be spinning that many plates in the first place.
The mental load thrives in silence. It thrives when we shrug and say “that’s just the way it is.” But the minute you start naming it, the minute you start setting boundaries around it, you take some of its power back.
Sometimes that looks like sharing the load at home (shocking idea: let someone else remember when the dog’s vaccinations are due). Sometimes it’s about systems that genuinely lighten your brain’s burden. And sometimes it’s about admitting, loudly and unapologetically, that the invisible job you’re doing is, in fact, work.
Because Here’s the Thing
Career mums deserve to flourish, not just function. We deserve to bring our full selves to work and home without feeling like the rope in a never-ending tug of war. And the first step? Shedding the weight of the mental load that we’ve been tricked into carrying solo.
P.S. I’ve created something to help: The Mental Load Offload. It’s simple, practical, and mum-tested, your shortcut to stop carrying the whole invisible circus in your head. Think of it as your permission slip to hand over some of that weight and finally breathe again.
P.P.S. If you are a career mum and want to find out how to have it all (and yes you should have it all) without burning out, let’s chat here.