Cognitive labour, primarily shouldered by women, has left many feeling stressed and burned out. Despite some progress since the 1970s, gender inequality in domestic responsibilities persists. Experts suggest tracking, communicating, and redistributing cognitive tasks to achieve a more balanced partnership.
When I found myself thoroughly burned out seven months into parenthood, I first thought I needed to change my attitude and get better organised. My husband and I, both immigrants with full-time work, were lucky to have family members come from overseas to help with our baby during the first year of his life. So a lot of childcare and light housework were taken care of.
And yet, the ceaseless anticipating of everyone’s needs, identifying options for filling them, planning, organising, scheduling , monitoring progress and everything else that goes into managing a household – what is now called “cognitive labour” – left me depleted. My husband promised he would “try to help” but didn’t. As I tried to concentrate on my research job, my mind jumped from “Did I leave enough cream soup for my son’s lunch and, if not, should I contact my aunt-in-law [who was caring for him at the time] to suggest how she could supplement it?” and “I better buy that baby walker while it’s on sale even though we won’t need it for a while”, to “I need to invite friends who speak our native language next weekend so my aunt-in-law doesn’t end up isolated”.
I was overw.
