The Mental Load: How to Build a Truly Equal Marriage (with Mika Ross)

Follow the show:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Everywhere else

The hardest part isn't doing the laundry, packing the lunches, or remembering the appointments. It's feeling like you're the only one carrying the responsibility. In this episode, I sit down with relationship therapist and coach Mika Ross to explore why so many women end up carrying the invisible mental load, how society quietly reinforces those patterns, and what it really takes to build a more equal partnership at home. If you've ever thought, "Why do I have to ask?" this conversation is for you.  

In this episode, we unpack:

  • Why the mental load isn't a personal failure—it's a systemic issue 

  • How to divide household responsibilities without creating more conflict 

  • The hidden cost of overfunctioning and how to stop doing it 

  • Practical ways to build a more equal partnership at home 

  • Why communication, accountability, and letting go are the keys to lasting change  

Work with me:

Connect with Mika:

Transcript

Working moms. Today I have a very special treat for you. I am interviewing Mika Ross, who specializes in helping couples find more equality in how household tasks get distributed. But she has a real heart for women, so they stop asking themselves, do I really have to ask you to do that?

This is a conversation you are not going to want to miss. We dig into what it actually looks like, the real steps it takes to move from a household where you as the woman and mom, are not only doing most of the tasks, but carrying most of the mental load to one that feels equal in all things.

And let me just say this. We get honest about the challenges women face, particularly in America, where the systems and the culture built around motherhood and the inequality that is baked into them. Then we help you build something different, a system that shifts that dynamic in your marriage for good. Are you ready? Let's get to it.

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, your go to resource for integrating your career ambitions with life as a mom, I'm distilling down thousands of coaching conversations I've had with working moms just like you, along with my own personal experience as a mom of two and sharing the most effective tools and strategies to help you quickly feel calm, confident, and in control of your ambitious working mom life. You ready? Let's get to it.

Rebecca: Working moms. I am so excited for our guest today. We have Mika Ross on the podcast. Say hi, Mika

Mika: Hi.

Rebecca: So excited that she's here. I'm going to have her introduce herself, and I'm going to tell y'all why I'm excited and what really drew me to have her on this podcast. So tell us a little bit about yourself first Mika.

Mika: So I am a therapist and relationship coach. I mostly work with couples, but I feel like my top secret mission is to help moms say, why do I have to tell you what to do? Why can't you just know less in your household and family?

I feel like it's a win, win, win, win, when we can figure out how to do that in a sustainable and meaningful way. So it's directly tied, of course, to, you know, being ambitious or wanting to work outside the home. And so I'm, like, just happy to be here.

Why Working Moms Struggle to “Do It All”: It’s Not Just a Personal Problem

Rebecca: Oh, so good. When I was kind of looking at you as a guest and some of the information that came my way, I think one of the things that really stuck out to me was talking about how so often we make the inability to, like, manage life well, whatever that means to you, right? That inability, like, we personalize it as if it's our fault and there's something wrong with us that we can't, quote, handle it all.

And we should be able to handle it all and we shouldn't have to ask for help and all of these kinds of things. And yet so much of what you have studied is how really the systems are not set up in our favor. And this is not an us. It's not a personal problem. This is a societal problem.

And while a lot of times on this podcast we do talk about what you, as the individual can do, I don't spend as much time because I'm not as versed in what some of these structural problems are.

And so I love, I love to get started on a little bit of that conversation and how the systems are stacked against us. What are your tell. Ah, me some of your thoughts as you hear that.

Mika: Yeah, so they're stacked against us in a lot of really insidious ways. I interviewed a motherhood sociologist, a couple years ago, which was a fascinating interview.

Rebecca: A motherhood sociologist?

Mika: Yeah, sociologist. So she studies motherhood across cultures and how it varies, culture to culture. And she had some really interesting things to say, one of which is, you know, in places, I'm sure there are pros and cons to living in other countries, but in places like Sweden, where the laws and policies still support equality in terms of working and parenting, so they get an extraordinary amount of time off when they have kids, both mom and dad. I mean, I'm talking months and months and months.

The joke at the time when she was, was in doing her studies in Sweden was that Americans would get off the plane, look around and be like, why are there so many male nannies? Because there were so many men pushing strollers with babies strapped to them because they had so much time off parental leave to spend with their children.

So, from the get-go, there are policies set up that encourage equality in terms of parenting and household. And household. And family, in ways that we just don't have here. And it's sort of insidious.

You know, everybody's. I think there's this caricature of marriage where, you know, women and moms are these, like, nagging, complaining, grumpy people, and men are these, like, bumbling idiots that don't know what's going on.

Rebecca: Yeah. particularly with the kids and like, the family and so forth. Or they're like, checked out. Right. Like, they're sitting on the couch and the three kids are, like, literally bouncing around them and they are oblivious to the situation.

Mika: Our first two are 21 months apart. And when we were about to have the second, I was starting to realize that a whole lot of the mental load was falling on me. It's not that my husband was not an active dad. He was. He was super involved, but he didn't know when things were supposed to happen.

He was often checking in with me, like, is it bath night tonight? And I lost it on him one night when he asked that question, which, from his perspective, I looked like a lunatic. But from my perspective, with this invisible to-do list that hadn't ever even occurred to him, that had sort of slid into my lap because I had taken more parental leave because I was breastfeeding. I had more time with the kiddos.

You know, I realized that we had to, like, change something in a big way if I was going to do the things that I wanted to do outside of the home.

Why Moms Carry More of the Mental Load in Parenting

Rebecca: I recently, I think this was on the podcast, actually, I said this. I don't even know when, though. But I know it's been recent where I talked about how, like, women, at least in America, are just more practiced at remembering these things and tracking these things because we tend to be the ones that spend so much more time with our kids.

And so we. We literally get into the practice of this. It's not that our spouses or partners can't be capable of this or aren't smart or don't want to. It's like, it takes practice to have to track things and remember things in this way.

And because of the way the system is set up in America and our laws and things like that, like, we just literally don't give both the father and the mother and, whomever, we don't give them enough equal time to, like, practice what it takes to, like, be a parent and structure time, you know?

The Double Standard Between What Makes a “Good Mom” and a “Good Dad”

Mika: Yes, I think, you know, yeah, that time is important also. And I don't. Sometimes I don't know which comes first, the chicken or the egg. Like, if we change the policies, would that change, you know, if we change how we think about gender roles, would that change the policy? Like, I don't. I don't have all the answers, but I do know that we have really different standards and expectations for what is a good mom and what is a good dad.

And I think that really fuels, you know, what our behavior is to a large degree, and it fuels what we see and what we don't see and what's on our radar. And what's not on our radar?

Once my husband, and we were well into our journey of parenting. We had three kids, probably a toddler and two elementary school kids, and he had just taken the kids to the park. Of course, when my husband would take any amount of kids anywhere, he would get praised in amazement by, like, seven strangers and a, you know, couple elderly women. And I…

Rebecca: Whenever I sit at my favorite coffee shop and I see the dad that comes in, you could just feel the collective, like, what a great dad.

The Unequal Standards of Motherhood

Mika: Such a good dad. They're getting this messaging. You're doing so much. You're incredible. You're doing amazing. And I'm going out into the world getting messages of, you're not doing enough. You're not doing it right. That birthday party didn't measure up to that other birthday party that you saw on Pinterest.

And so we're just coming at things really differently. And he came home from having all three kids at the park, and I was grumpy that he didn't complete a task that I had asked him and asked him and asked him to do. And his response was, I do more than every other dad I know, which is saying, you shouldn't feel this way. You should feel grateful.

And I looked at him and I said, yes, that is true, but you don't do more than any other mom I know. And that is the problem. And there was something that, like, cracked in his brain. It was like he couldn't see it. Couldn't see it. Couldn't see it.

Rebecca: Because he was measuring himself up to other American dads, basically.

The Invisible Gender Expectations That Keep Household Labor Unequal

Mika: Yeah. And he was killing it. You know, I'd have a. I remember having a little bonfire with some of my neighbor friends, and my husband. My husband has no problem being the only guy with a bunch of women. Like, he kind of shines in that environment.

And they found out he did the laundry in our household, and they collectively gasped, you're so lucky he does the laundry. My husband would never. I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We do not give cookies to men for things we would never give cookies to women for.

Like, if the roles were reversed and my husband were sitting in a group of men, that this would never. They would never go, oh, my God. Mika does the laundry. That's incredible. Like, there's all of this stuff that's, like, just under the surface and so insidious and keeps us seeing things so differently and operating so differently. So there's in my mind, there's so much working against us. And it's not necessarily. It's not personal, but if you don't see it and examine it and you're not conscious of it, it can really feel personal.

It can feel like you're up on a boat, you're drowning in the ocean and your husband is up on a boat with plenty of life preservers, unwilling to throw one to you. But I, I just. I don't think that's the best analogy.

When Your Husband Is an Amazing Dad but You Still Carry the Mental Load

Rebecca: And, you know, I'm. I can relate to a lot of what you're saying in, in the sense of, of having a husband that's very, part of the. The household and does, a lot of. Lot of things and is a great dad and has no problem with the kids.

And there's no, like, I'm. I'm. I have no problem when I leave. It's one of the things that I am always struck by is when, a mom isn't going to be home for whatever reason, whether it's they're going on a trip or they're going to be gone with the, you know, the girls or whatever, and then they make dinner, or they like prep dinner and put it all in the freezer, or they set out the kids clothes or they pack the kids lunch because I'm like, whoa. Like, I just leave. Like, I know and I know and I know that my, my husband's going to carry. Carry all of that through.

And yet for sure, if I step back, I'm still carrying the majority of what I would consider the kind of invisible load and the mental load. And in an American standard, he's doing amazing and he's a rock star, but not in the equality sense that we're talking about.

So I'm not where you're at. And I'm sure there's still. You guys still fight a lot of the American culture as well, within some of this as well.

Creating Equality at Home Is an Ongoing Conversation, Not a One-Time Fix

Mika: Well, and I think, and this is what I mean, like, I've. I've had to kind of drag us into equality. And I have this. The communication skills to do that, you know, in a way that doesn't elicit defensiveness in the listener. That last example. Yeah, that. That last example maybe wasn't the best, but it did work.

But yeah, it's like there's. I don't. It's, I have no. I see a lot of couples. I've. I have just no judgment for anybody who lands in my office like this stuff. It's hard, it's hard to navigate. And so, yeah, I think we're, we've gotten to a really great place.

I think, you know, it's sort of like the sex talk. This is not a one-time talk. This is an ongoing, never-ending negotiation. Kids developmentally change, their needs change. Things are always changing.

And we actually, a couple of years ago I did a podcast interview with my husband where we talked about some of this stuff. And I said, you know, I think the tables have kind of turned and you're carrying more than I am. And I'm like, that's kind of cool, but sucks to be you. But.

How to Talk About the Mental Load Without Starting a Fight

Rebecca: Well, what I want to. I mean, the reason I, I say that is because I know so many of the listeners want to get, I mean, not only to where I'm at, but where I want to get to where you're at. Right. And so what, as you start to think about literally, you know, if there was almost, and I'm sure it's not that linear, but if there was almost like a linear process here, tell, like, walk us through a little bit of what that looks like.

Mika: Yeah. So I, well, let's start off with how most people try to engage in this conversation. And, you know, I know that there's the Fair Play book and the Fair Play cards and that, I'm sure it is helpful for some. Many people who it is not helpful for end up in my office because it has started a fight. Because it doesn't come with the skills needed to move through a conversation about change and differences. And so a lot of what happens in a conversation like this is it starts as you're not doing enough and therefore you suck. Whether it's said that way directly, indirectly,

Rebecca: Probably not the right approach, if anybody is listening.

Mika: Clearly, insidiously, or even if there's a history of criticism about this and you say it totally cleanly, your partner might still get defensive, it may still not be easy to hear.

So it’s, you know, this conversation, I think it's very emotionally laden. I think that, you know, nobody likes to hear that they're not doing enough or that things aren't fair.

Rebecca: So hold on. We got like money, sex, and household management is like our top three. That, that is the problem for most.

Mika: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And then they're all interrelated. Like, you know, the number two predictor of a woman's marital satisfaction is perceived fairness in household and family-related tasks.

Rebecca: Wow. Wait, wait, Say that one more time.

Mika: The number two predictor of a woman's marital satisfaction study in 2015 or 16.

Rebecca: Wow, that's huge. 

Mika: Was found to be perceived fairness in distribution of household and family related tasks, only second to, faithfulness, like not cheating.

Rebecca: Wow.

How the Mental Load, Stress, and Caregiving Can Affect Sex Drive

Mika: And so, yeah, if a woman doesn't perceive things unfair, therefore doesn't feel respected, is stressed and, or overwhelmed, those things are going to get in the way of drive, sex drive. And, and so one of the things I'm often, like, trying to help men understand is, like, if she's tired, stressed, or has been in a caregiving role for most of her day, that's gonna bury sex drive super fast.

Those are the top three things that get in the way of our testosterone levels. So if you want to have a fun time this evening, you better figure out how she's going to get more sleep. And maybe not this evening, maybe it's in the next few days. How she's going to get more sleep over the next few days. Is she overwhelmed? What could you take off her plate and can she get a break in terms of the caregiving department? Now we're getting somewhere. Right?

Rebecca: Right. Oh, wow. Okay, so we're talking about starting point really is, not just around. It's not. You can't just start at the even distribution. Right. Which is where we all kind of start. Like, let me make a list of all of the things. You take this part, I'll take this part. It can't start there. There's a whole nother, like, undercurrent level of communication and that's a part of this.

How Overfunctioning Creates an Unequal Mental Load at Home

Mika: So what I try to help people understand is that. So, you know, I studied family systems theory, which basically the short version of that is, every family system, you know, we're all just sort of like interconnected pieces, like, like an ecosystem. If you ever learned about an ecosystem in school, you change any part of the ecosystem or, you know, any species becomes extinct, it has an impact on the rest of the ecosystem.

I take every member of your family and I put them in a chair. If I tie a string around every chair and tie them together and then pull one chair back six feet, all of the chairs in that system are going to shift and change. So in terms of somebody doing a lot and somebody doing less or somebody seeing a lot and somebody seeing less, there's a lot at play.

So I think one where to start is how are we not going to take this personally? Because that's going to give you the best chance at having this conversation. We already talked about how society isn't really helpful here. It has set women up to see certain things. It has set men up to see certain things. It has given women more time and men less time. Women more practice, men less practice. That's one big pile of things that are getting in our way.

The next is there's this, in terms of a family system, I think about everything everybody's, everybody's clear about. In terms of addiction. We don't want to enable an addict. So family systems theory is at play here. We change all the pieces in that family system to not enable. Now the addict changes, right? I'm not saying men are addicts.

I'm saying underneath. Underneath that concept is this thing called overfunctioning, underfunctioning reciprocity. So I think about the word overfunctioning on top, put a line and then underfunctioning on the bottom. And then I draw like a reciprocal arrow on both sides. So there's a relationship between the overfunctioning and the underfunctioning.

So what I encourage people to do to slowly back their way out of overfunctioning in their household and family is to start giving away one thing at a time and to take ownership of your role of having been an overfunctioner in what has gotten you to this place of overwhelm and resentment.

So I came to my husband and I said, I don't think I've been doing this well. And I think I've played a big part in me inadvertently, in me being overwhelmed and kind of hating your guts. So I…

Rebecca: Or in other words, like, not allowing you to do your equal part. Right.

How Letting Go of Control Can Reduce the Mental Load at Home

Mika: Yeah, I'm not. I haven't been seeing him as competent and capable. I sort of, like, take over and need things to be my way because I'm attached to how the outcome looks. Because that's what society is telling me.

So some of that backing off had to do with me thinking really critically about, is this really important to me in terms of my bigger goals of having a happy and healthy family.

So sometimes we have people over and the baseboards are not dusted. It kind of hurts. Like, it. I kind of hurt on the inside. I have to, like, actively ignore it and talk to myself and be like, this is not important. Like, yelling at your family is not worth it over the baseboards being not dusted.

So in terms of when overfunctioning, underfunctioning reciprocity exists within a system, the power to create the change. The person who holds the most power to create change is always the overfunctioner. Refusing to overfunction.

Rebecca: Yep.

How to Stop Overfunctioning and Start Sharing the Mental Load

Mika: And to get out of the way of the person who is underfunctioning. So there's some stuff happening and everybody's playing their part. And I think as long as we're in blame and criticism mode and not saying, you know, maybe society's part or our part, it's hard to get out of blame and criticism mode.

So I think that wrapping your brain around that first so that you can have a really calm. The first thing I said to my husband when I realized all this, I just had a session with a couple who was dealing with an alcoholic relative. And when I started educating them on overfunctioning, underfunctioning reciprocity and enabling and how that impacts an addict and what are the changes we need to make here, it hit me like a bag of bricks that I was overfunctioning in my household and family.

I came home and I looked at my husband and I just said, we didn't even have a big talk about everything. There was no big general overall. I just looked at him and said, I'm overwhelmed. I need all toenails and fingernails in this household that are not mine to be yours from here on out. I will no longer be clipping them.

Why Fully Owning Household Tasks Creates a Fairer Division of Labor

Did he immediately start doing that my way and on my schedule? No. The baby scratched his face off a couple of times. I would secretly put mittens on the baby when he wasn't home. I would take them off when he got home and go, oh, he's got a pretty bad scratch on his face. And he would run to get the clippers and clip his nails. One by one. We just started doing that. Things that could be all on his plate. I think that's important.

So the research on division of household and family labor says you're going to have the most success if things are all one person's and other things are all the other person's as much as possible.

So delineation in household and family-related tasks. Because that's what gets it on somebody's radar.

Letting Your Partner Fail Is Part of Sharing the Mental Load

Rebecca: Yeah, yeah. Because they're, because they're going to forget. And then it's actually in the failure forgetting process that we learn for the future. Right. Like we have to have the long game in mind here. It's not that they're going to get it right tomorrow or next week. It's that they are going to take ownership of this for the rest of our lives together. Right. And so we all, I mean, we all know that a part of that process is not doing it. And recognizing the consequences of that, and then our prefrontal cortex remembering it.

Stop Catching Every Ball: Let Natural Consequences Create Change

Mika: Right. Letting the natural consequence fall on them. So I talk about it like balls in the air. Like, we've got all these balls. We're all juggling these balls, but if somebody's ball is dropping to the ground and you're just constantly grabbing it before it hits, there's never any consequence to that that they feel, and it's now still on your plate.

So, there's a lot of people who have been a long time in, you know, in. In these roles. They're also like different personality types. Some personality types, their balls are way up here, and they catch them. And some people like to catch the balls one inch before they hit the ground.

And when those two people live together, the person who catches the balls way up here thinks that this person is, like, a total lazy bum. And the person who always catches them here, said, says, I had no problem functioning before we lived together. I was paying my bills, I was keeping my house clean. I was going grocery shopping. But the timing of it all is different. Our preferences.

Rebecca: Yeah. I'm thinking about one. One example of this in my own life, because I think examples are always good. And I laugh because it's the Christmas card.

So one year, several years ago, I. I had to get holiday stuff out of me, right. And off of my plate. And so I'm like, dude, the Christmas card, it's all on you. And so, he was all in for taking it over.

Next thing I know, like, literally within 24 hours, he has created the Christmas card. He has written the message in it, and he has it printed, and it's gonna. And has picked it up. And then I get home, and I look at said Christmas card, and I went, there is no way in hell we are sending this card out.

And I, like, I could literally feel the, you know, my blood rushing to my face and the. Oh. Like, the absolute. I. How in the world would you ever think that this is what. We are going to send out a hundred of these cards? There was, like, judgment, there was frustration, so I had to let all that go.

Now, mind you, this was in the middle of COVID. Okay. This was one of our COVID Christmas cards. And, and we were not painted in the best, like, the pictures he chose, he thought was hilarious. And again, no. No way in hell I'm gonna send this Christmas card out.

But then I had to have a moment where I'm like, well, this is a great lesson. For me in letting go and a great one for him in rising up. Right. And like evening this out. If I redo the Christmas card, we are just going to undo all of what we're working towards in terms of equality. Like it was..phew, did I have days of talking to myself on if I was going to redo this fricking Christmas card or not.

Mika: Right. And I think what's really tough for me about situations like that is that I don't. I think from my perception the people who are opening this Christmas card assume I created it and I'm getting judged, not him. And so for things like that, I have made sure that people know that Eric did the Christmas card, made the Christmas card.

Rebecca: Oh, you better believe I sent out a bunch of texts.

Mika: I might write on the envelope made by Eric or I might in the future. Because we don't live in a society that's judging us the same. I might say yeah, m. Next year. Let's meet quickly about the rough draft.

Rebecca: Yes. Which is what we ended up doing in the end. I realized, we needed a pre-conversation about it. For sure. And it. Yeah. But really was such. I. And I use this example. It is. It is laughable. And if I can find. I know I have a picture of it somewhere. I should definitely post it with this episode.

But I bring it up because of the stuff I had to overcome to not be the. To not be the overfunctioning one in this. Right. Because that. It was a. It was such a good lesson for me. And it was more about me than it was about him creating a Christmas card that wasn't to my liking. Right. He did exactly what we decided to do. Exactly. Like there wasn't. That's okay. And I couldn't blame him for that. And I couldn't be upset about that. And I had to figure out how to let it go. And the more I have learned to do that, that obviously the easier it has become and the more he is he. We have evened out the over functioning and the under functioning. Right.

Letting Go of Society’s Expectations

Mika: I think I underestimated how much mental energy it would take to mentally untangle myself from society's expectations on a regular basis. You know, if. If it was my husband's job to get the kids ready and the girl's hair didn't look just. I'm getting judged for that. And I had to, like, let that go.

If they, you know. I work two nights a week. And I had to sort of train everyone in our orbit, all of our kids' friends' parents, that if you're mostly moms, all moms maybe, that if you're going to text about a play date, that text needs to go to both of us.

And, you know, I would have moms text me and I would text back and say, sorry, I didn't get this. You know, I worked till, you know, seven on Tuesdays and they would just go, oh gosh, your schedule's so confusing. I just never know when. And I'm like, please just text both of us all the time that you don't have to memorize my schedule. Just put us both on the text.

One Simple Way to Reduce the Mental Load of Family Communication

Rebecca: That actually has been something that I would say I've really increased over the last year. That's made the biggest difference. Small, little difference here, right, where I, if somebody texts about a play date or if I'm responding to the school, or if a grandparent is reaching out about something, I add my husband to the reply text.

So not only he may or may not have to actually do anything, but now I don't have to communicate the information to him either. And so it really does, just that simple task has alleviated a bunch of talking that is unnecessary and communicating and me being the one that holds all the communication for us. And, and then yes, beginning to start to train everyone around me to, to say, you text both of us.

Mika: Yeah, it's a lot of teaching people how to treat you.

Rebecca: It's amazing.

Mika: People assume it's me and I'm, you know, my, my husband was the dance dad in the dance mom text thread because I was like, I can't, I can't keep up with these last-minute changes if I'm back to back in sessions. So he was the lone and he did a great job and he actually became the parent leader of our group.

Rebecca: I love it. The only dude. Okay, I want to come back to something you said. Because I, I think I, I come up against this a lot with clients and with friends too.

We were talking about, like, the difference of personality. And there is, and whether we're talking about personality or we're talking about, like, the way our brains function, maybe one of you has ADHD and, like, it really is quite different and learning how to navigate equality with, with someone in that way that's different from you and how you think. I'm curious how you start to, how you start to, to coach others and guide other people in that process.

Use Your Personality Types to Divide Household Tasks More Equally

Mika: So I think it can be incredibly helpful to know about your personality type and to know about your partner's personality type before you're figuring out who's doing what. Because people are. Everyone is born to be great at things. Everyone is born to kind of suck at some things.

I use a free personality type inventory. I'm trained in administering the Myers-Briggs. It's kind of expensive, but there's a free version online called 16personalities.com, 1 6 personalities.com. It's fun to take. Takes 10 minutes and it spits out a pretty decent summary. A professional might, you know, be helpful in helping you play with the results if they don't feel quite right. But it's a great place to start.

So I'm a real, I'm a real big picture thinker. My husband is very detailed. So I'm seeing the forest and the trees and he's just seeing the one, the one next thing that's right in front of him. So I've really thought about that in terms of, like, how we divide things up.

I hate laundry with a burning passion. And he is terrible at, like, scanning an environment and seeing what needs to be cleaned or picked up. Like, he just doesn't see it. And so the, so I was like, okay, you from the beginning, I was like, you got laundry? I'll do deep cleaning.

And we have. He's in charge of. I thought about my kids' emails. Like their school and sports were so overwhelming to me. And I thought it's all these details flying at me. I think of big picture thinkers. Like we're on a, in a plane up in the sky and that's where we do best. We're looking down, everything's calm. We're figuring things out from 500 miles up in the sky.

I'm planning vacations, I'm figuring out what, what, what kids need in the future. You know, different doctor changes. Like, and he's great in the trees, just dealing with the next. And I was like this, these emails are tree. These are little detailed. I can't be down here. It's like I'm going 500 miles an hour just getting smacked by trees. And that's where he thrives. So yeah, I said one day, I said, can you be in charge of all kid-related email? He was like, yeah, sure. What? Okay. I'm like, so your job is to like read it and calendarize it and make sure it's on everybody's Schedule. Yeah, yeah, I got it. Okay.

Rebecca: I'll just remove myself from sending those.

Mika: Was there a learning curve? Yeah. Did I have to figure out how to get things on my calendar in a way that I would see them? Yeah.

Rebecca: Yeah, yeah. I'm hearing some of my clients who are like, my husband is not good at any household task, like, household chore. To your point, like, they don't see it and their ability to anticipate the need for that or, like, their level of cleanliness is so filthy. Like, I could never live with that. And so there's just this pile of, like, there's no way, you know, that we could ever find equality here in this.

Mika: Maybe I would challenge that with, maybe there might be some things that genuinely one person is better at or that they will just, they care about more. And if the things that I care about more, I take. If I really care about how this is done, I take it. If I can let go of some of it or I don't care, this is up for grabs.And then we just rework the rest of it to make that fair. 

Why Clear Ownership of Household Tasks Reduces the Mental Load for Women

Mika: However, I do think that if there's no delineation, if you notice this, just get it, and everybody's eyes are supposed to be on it, it sort of becomes every group project I was ever in in school. I end up doing all the work and hating everybody else's guts. And when we make something all somebody else's, it gives it a chance to get on their radar. And there's just so much working against us that has things on women's radar and not on men's radar.

And there are also, you know, if we lose our house tomorrow, my husband's getting judged for that. Like, there's also, you know, some not great things going the other way, but in terms of household and family-related tasks, it's really stacked up against women, for sure. Yeah.

Your Partner Isn’t Incapable: They May Just Need More Practice

Rebecca: Yeah. Again, we come back to the point we were making earlier, which is that women are more practiced at seeing these things because we just keep doing them. And so until we stop doing them, until we stop letting some of these things go, we're not going to let our partner develop this literal skill set and practice and rehearsal of noticing that and then doing something about it. Right.

Like, that takes time, and it takes rehearsal. And I think that I like thinking about it that way because it leads me away from feeling like my partner or our partners are inept in some way, right? Or incapable in some way.

It's like, no, no. They just literally can't. They've never rehearsed it because I've always done it. And so I got to give them some chance to do that.

Stop Managing Your Partner: Build in Accountability Instead

Mika: Yes. I think a tough role for the overfunctioner to not slide into is now the prefrontal cortex of the other person. Did you do it yet? Did you do it yet? Did you do it yet? When are you going to do it?

And for that, I'm encouraging couples to set up a weekly date where we talk about what's working, what's not working, what needs to shift and change, what's upcoming, who's doing what. Which also serves as this, like, point of accountability, I think.

And I think some brains just genuinely thrive with deadlines and accountability. And so building that in, in a way that’s…

Rebecca: Like on a Sunday we're going to check in on all of these things that we said we were going to do.

Mika: And, like, here's your checklist. Here's my checklist. I love for these meetings to feel collaborative, not like manager, employee, and I think that takes some skill. But yeah, yeah, so. And everybody has this stuff and we're going to check back next week. So it keeps people from remaining in that, is it done yet? Is it done yet? Is it done yet? role, which then keeps it from fully getting on somebody else's radar. So kind of building that in, in a way that.

And I, I do. I have a daughter who has ADHD. And I'm constantly trying to figure out how to get her prefrontal cortex on the outside because it's not living in here, in a way that's not me.

Rebecca: Yeah, yeah. I'm reminded of that book. Man, I can't think of her name right now. Drop the Ball. I think it's called Drop the Ball. Have you read that book?

Mika: No, I haven't, but it sounds like it's right up my alley.

What Happens When You Stop Rescuing Your Partner From Their Responsibilities

Rebecca: Yeah, totally. You should. She's great. You know, I'll come up with her name, but there's a great story in there where she talked. This is her own journey of, like, equality within her marriage and so forth, and kind of told more through her own lens.

And so there's this great story of the weird in-between stage where she's, like, letting her husband rise to the occasion of being, you know, functioning equally, and he gets a job and moves to Africa, and he's gone for, like, six weeks at a time, and then he'll be back for, like, three weeks, and then he'll go for six weeks, and he'll be back for three weeks. And it was all during this time that they were starting to, like, equally divide things and, like, really be clear on who was doing what.

One of his jobs was the mail. Like, get the mail, sort the mail, deal with the mail. And so he owned that. And then he moved for six weeks and, like, went away for the first time. And she had this moment with herself, and she was like, that's his job. Am I gonna do it? I'm the only one here. Like, it feels like I should do it. And she's like, no, I'm not gonna do it. So she didn't for, like, six weeks.

And so the mail piled up and the mail piled up, and the mail piled up and all. Like, it literally took over the counter to the point where the nanny was like, do you want me to, like, start handling this? And she's like, nope, he's gonna take care of it.

So he comes home from his first time away. I want to. I'm saying it's six weeks. It's something like that. Comes back and was like, babe, what's up with the mail? She was like, oh, that. That was you?

Mika: Yes. The same thing with baby scratching his face. I'm like, oh, baby scratch. I don't know what.

Letting Natural Consequences Build Real Ownership at Home

Rebecca: You're right. It was me. And it took everything to, like, watch the mail pile up, to know. To see things in there that she knew needed to be taken care of.

And so he took, like, three. Three days for him to go through the mail to sort it. There were parking tickets that needed to get paid that now was double. There was, like, parties they never got the invitation to that they just didn't go to. There was, like, all these stuff in there. Right. But sure enough, the next time he left on a trip, he figured out how to handle all of the mail even when he was gone.

Mika: I'm wondering how he did that.

Rebecca: I don't really know, but. But it was, like. It was such a great story to me about how we just have to let it be and let them take ownership and they will just figure it out. Even if it wasn't to her liking, six weeks of watching the mail pile up would not be the thing I would want to watch either.

But it was such an important moment for both of them to. To. To function at a higher level together as a couple.

Why Moms Become the Default Parent Without Ever Agreeing to It

Mika: Well, and I think that that's, you know, there's this. I feel like there's this assumption that women will be the go-to or the fallback without any discussion.

And so, like, when my husband would go out of town for work, or I would go out of town to visit a friend, sometimes it was for work. If I would go out of town and I knew it was like there were going to be hours that were mine that weren't accounted for, I would be saying, do you want me to get a babysitter? Like, should I, you know, should we. What should we do? How are we going to move through this?

When he would go out of town, he would just leave. And I'm like, I teach on Wednesday. Who? That's your night. Who's watching the kids? He's like, well, I don't know. I'm not there. I'm like, but it's.

So the degree to which we have to be clear sometimes feels, like, insane. As somebody who is, you know, it's probably partially because I'm a woman, but I also just think I'm weirdly good at scanning an environment and knowing what needs to happen and reverse engineering things and seeing things from 500 miles up in the sky that, you know, the fact that I had to say, okay, from here on out, I need. If you're going to be out of town, I need you to figure out coverage for your time.

Rebecca: Yeah, yeah.

Mika: Was like, I have to say that out loud? Like, I don't. I would never. I would never just be like, bye. I mean, now that our kids are older, I would. But they don't require a whole lot. But yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's. There's a lot of assuming.

I hear women say a lot, like, he can just go get a haircut. And I have to ask, like, does it work for you at this time for me to go get my hair done? And there's this, like, lack of definition of who's on, who's off, when both people are on. And so there's just this constant assumption that she is on.

Rebecca: I got the name of the book. It's Drop the Ball by Tiffany Dufu. Super worth it. I actually listened to it. She was great to listen to. I highly recommend it.

Mika: So I wanted to say the name of the motherhood sociologist. Her name is Caitlin Collins. She wrote a book. It's great. It's. It's a phenomenal read. Cool. great.

Rebecca: Thank you so. Oh, man, we have talked about lots of things here. So kind of recapping a little bit for us in thinking through how does somebody get from where they're at today to closer to where you're at? In particular, and I'm hearing, I'm hearing a lot of really important things.

One is recognizing that this is not just a conversation about logistics. It's also a conversation about assumptions and communication skills and coming to a place that there's nothing is taken personally and there's no judgment.

We've talked a bit about the need for clear delineation, that if there isn't a. This is you, this is me. Literal. Like, we could write it on two different, you know, separate things. Which is… What's that?

Mika: As much as you can.

Rebecca: We can do it with everything. Yeah, yeah. Which is something that Fair Play does provide, if you need structure for that. We're just kind of saying it's not, it's not. It doesn't do the whole thing justice if you're only doing that. Right.

Mika: Right.

Rebecca: Then you need places of accountability. How are you coming back together to evaluate it, to talk about it? We've talked about how active this conversation is. This is never a one and done deal.

There's different personalities and taking that into account and figuring out what each of us are good at and being. Take on the things that you really actually care about and figure out how to let go of the things that you don't care about.

Is there any. I mean, there's so much more we can. This is, this is not a simple process. I have no doubt you would say it's. This is not simple. Or maybe it is simple. It's not easy, on some level. But what is, if there was one kind of last thing to add into this process, what, what would you say?

Don’t Wait Until Your Relationship Is in Crisis to Get Support

Mika: Ooh, you know, I think I would encourage people to, like, get some help around this early. Early, in a proactive, like we're taking our car to get an oil change kind of way. Not like waiting to be broken down on the side of the road steaming.

I think if we could put a few hundred dollars into our relationships early on when we're figuring out how to run a household and family together and how to get on the same page with that, which will help us get on the same page with parenting, which will help us get on the same page about the thing. It's like the skills that it takes to get on the same page are so usable in so many different areas of a relationship.

Not. It just, I feel like really starts with, you know, like, figuring out who's doing what.

So, so yeah, I have all kinds of online workshops, one of which is called Well, Mama, where I go over a lot of what we've talked about today in depth and offer skills and tools and steps and some strategy on how to move in this regard.

It also comes with all my other workshops, like regarding sex drive and communication and, like, how to fight. So if you go to mikaross.com/workshops, a lot of it all lives there.

Rebecca: Yeah. Great. And we're. Obviously, we'll put that in the show notes for everybody to grab that as well. That's a fabulous resource for sure. As well as, that's everything. That's kind of a DIY approach to it all the way to working with you or working with somebody like me in some of this work as well.

So if people wanted to get in touch with you, to follow you, what's the best way to be doing that?

Mika: Yeah. So I mostly hang out on Instagram. And so I'm Mika Ross, M I K A R O S S.therapist on Instagram. I think I'm the same thing on TikTok. I think there's also. I think my things transfer to TikTok automatically. I just don't hang out there very much. I don't. It's a scarier place. I feel like it is.

Rebecca: So we're kind of that generation too. Yeah.

Mika: And from there you can, you know, get to my website, and find all my workshops and, and see what I have to say and give some tips on a regular basis regarding relationships with the people that you love the most. So yeah.

“Never Mind, I’ll Just Do It” Is a Dangerous Pattern in Relationships

Rebecca: So good. If you were to leave with one final kind of charge to the listener or one kind of final piece of advice, thoughts, what would you say?

Mika: I think probably one of the most dangerous things we can do or say in our relationship, to me, it's. I'm going to say two things, but they're the same thing to me, is, never mind, I'll just do it and, oh, I guess this is just how it is. I feel like there's a real, like we're kind of giving up…

Rebecca: Like complacency and disempowerment in both of those. It feels awful. Feels awful.

Mika: Yeah. So from my perspective, if you're having that thought or that feeling, there's always something we could do and shift to change that. What you're intuitively doing to shift and change it might not be working. That doesn't mean that there's nothing.

Sometimes you, like, I tell people, it's like if I'm decorating my Christmas tree and I'm two inches away from it, that's gonna be really hard. And sometimes it takes somebody from across the room to go, okay, just move this thing. It looks so good.

Rebecca: Let's try again.

Mika: It might not be super difficult.

Rebecca: Not so sure about that tinsel. Yeah.

Mika: All your tinsel is in 11 spot, 16 inch.

Rebecca: Like a three year old decorating for you. And puts everything within his range of like what he can put up on your Christmas tree.

Mika: Yeah. And so I think that, you know, marriage and family has changed, if we really think about it, so much in the last hundred years that it's hard to do really well. And it probably deserves some care and attention if that's what you want. And most of us, including me, did not grow up with good examples.

Rebecca: Yeah. Thank you so much for your time, for bringing your thoughts here. What a fun conversation. We will put all of those things in the show notes, and working moms, until next week. Let's get to it.

Start Your Day with More Calm, Focus, and Confidence

If you wake up most days spinning with a hundred different priorities vying for your attention, then the Daily Kickstart is exactly what you need.

It's a simple, six-step process that helps you get your thoughts out of your head, reset your mindset, and refocus on what actually matters.

It's designed to help shift you out of overwhelm and into calm, confident action before the chaos hits.

This daily practice is the same tool I offer to all my clients, and it's going to show you exactly how to lead your day instead of react to it. It takes just 10 minutes a day, and the impact will ripple through everything, your mood, your energy, your presence with your kids, and how you lead at work.

My clients indicate time and time again that this tool was the one that made the biggest difference for them. And I'm offering it to you totally free.

You can download it by going to www.ambitiousandbalanced.com/daily-kickstart.  And of course, I'll have that for you in the show notes as well. All right, working moms, let's get to it.

Daniel Roth