In today’s episode of Best of Both Worlds, Sarah and I share 7 strategies for lightening the “mental load,” defined as the cognitive and emotional effort it takes to manage life. From writing things down to batching, automation, embracing vertical ownership, encouraging kid independence, and spending out, we’ve got lots of ideas. And of course our favorite: care less. It’s not always possible, but when it is, it can definitely help!

In the Q&A we address a listener question about the best jobs that are high paying and also flexible. It’s not a question with a straightforward answer. Lots of jobs can be made more flexible once you’ve built up seniority and experience. Even “flexible” jobs usually aren’t 100 percent flexible once time has been spoken for. But we give some ideas for thinking through this question.

Please give the episode a listen, and as always we welcome ratings and reviews. Our Patreon community will be meeting next Tuesday (Nov 26th) to discuss all things holidays, so if you’re interested in that Zoom discussion, you can join us here. Membership is $9/month.

The longtime blogger behind Design Mom, Blair is also a mother of 6. In this episode, she shares with Sarah her perspective on worrying less, especially as kids grow up and make their own choices.

Then in the Q&A, we tackle a question from a listener who wonders if it’s true that you need to develop a child’s soccer talents as a toddler in order for the kid to play in high school. Do we wish we’d pushed kids more in activities?

Please give the episode a listen! As always, we welcome ratings and reviews. We also welcome folks to our Patreon community, where we discuss these topics in our very fun forum. Our next Zoom meet-up will be 11/26, when we’ll discuss all things holidays, and then we’ll have our annual goal-setting workshop in December. Membership is $9/month.

I find this all fascinating. First, there is survey design. Was “get to the gym, call a friend or have sex with my spouse” all listed as one option? Otherwise, how do you get a neat figure like 62%? If separated out, presumably, you’d find that some number were too stressed to get to the gym, but were fine with sex, and vice versa.

But beyond that… oh, where do I start. Hey, where’s my favorite chart from the American Time Use Survey? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, married mothers who are employed full-time spend 0.66 hours per day socializing. That’s a solid 40 minutes. Dads spend just a minute or two less. Seems like there may be a few phone calls to friends going on in there. We don’t spend much time exercising, but I don’t think that’s because we lack time. Working moms do spend close to 90 minutes watching TV, daily, after all. Married fathers who work full time spend close to 2 hours per day watching TV! We don’t exercise because we don’t want to exercise. Stress is convenient to blame. So is the monster under the bed, or capitalism, if you want to throw that in there. (Actually, dads who work full time spend 0.30 hours per day on exercise and recreation, or a little over 2 hours per week. It’s below the guidelines — 2.5 hours per week — but not much below).

As for sex, people generally do not mention this on time use surveys (they don’t tell researchers when they went to the bathroom either). But… come on. The average mom with a full time job works 36 hours per week. The average dad works about 42.5. If we sleep 8 hours per night (and the ATUS shows we actually sleep a bit more) that leaves 76 hours and 69.5 hours, respectively. Presumably, we could find time for two short romps in there if we wanted.

We have plenty of time for anything that really matters to us. However, we have this cultural narrative that working parents are starved for time. We have no time for fun things in our lives. Our time diaries reveal otherwise, but that’s not the picture we like to create of ourselves.

On one level, so what? We all like to complain. But here’s the problem. All these stories inevitably create an impression for young people that combining work and family is just going to be incredibly difficult. You’ll never get to the gym, call a friend, or have sex again! (Though somehow many of us manage to have more children, so go figure). And so people feel they need to put off having children until the perfect time when they’ve done all the things they want to do, or that if they want a relaxed life they have to work part-time, or that having children is a valid excuse for letting your body and your health go. None of this needs to be true. A big part of my mission with 168 Hours is changing the narrative. As you can see by this Care.com number, it’s a big mission.

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