Crisis Talks: Sharing the load (in theory!)

Welcome to Crisis Talks—where we attempt to solve the problems we created in Monday’s episode… and immediately get distracted again.

After diving into the mental load earlier this week, we’re back with actual solutions (well… sort of). From juggling work, kids, and a million invisible tasks to figuring out how to actually share the load, this episode is all about making life feel a little less overwhelming.

We chat about:

• Why decision fatigue hits HARD after a full workday
• Practical ways to reduce mental load at home
• Teaching kids independence (and letting things go wrong 👀)
• Shared calendars, meal planning & the magic of writing things down
• Whether you should just… let things fail sometimes
• Why mums struggle to switch off (even for a weekend away)
• The reality of balancing career, motherhood, and everything in between

Plus: school life skills we definitely should’ve been taught, dishwasher rage, and the ongoing battle of “just put it IN the dishwasher, not next to it.”

It’s honest, funny, and packed with small, realistic ways to make family life run a bit smoother—without losing your mind in the process.

Don't forget to subscribe and share with your friends.

Keep in touch, follow our socials or send an email to hellomidlife@icloud.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Hi. Hello. Oh I have to I have to apologize because I didn't have my microphone plugged in. And now I can special podcaster.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

We were segue into the Macs as well. Oh we were doing so well.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Oh well.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Hope you can hear me anyway. I can hear you. Welcome to Crisis Talks, everybody. I'll get it in within one minute this time as opposed to 20 minutes into the podcast in on Monday's episode. You're moaning. Moaning. Moan. Well, we weren't moaning. We were just chatting, weren't we? And we just got carried away with the chat.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

I think we've got that was a very serious podcast on Monday.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

It was a serious podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Yeah, it was. For once.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

I do, I do think it's a serious. So we talked about um mental load on Monday, and we talked about whether it sits primarily with women and why it's primarily with women. And I I just think it's something that like when you've been at work all day, and particularly like as you get a bit older in your career, and you're in more advanced career, and your your job's more serious, and the you're responsible for people, and you're making decisions about everything, and then you get home from work, the last thing you want to do is then make another 10 million decisions about what we're eating, making sure it's healthy, making sure everyone's had enough to eat, making sure everyone's done their homework, making sure that um you've got stuff ready for tomorrow, that there's enough uniform, that everyone's got what they need, lunch is made, that you've thought about tea for tomorrow night, just in case you need to buy anything. Like it's like this never-ending to-do list, isn't it? You can't, you feel like you never get to the bottom to it of it. And I've definitely found that by the end of the week on a Friday, I am exhausted. Like Friday night's my just want to do nothing night, because you've just and and do you switch you know because then you do the podcast on a Friday. I know, but that's that's a nice thing to do. Well, no, it's a nice thing to do, isn't it? And that's that's just a chat on a on on the screen with you. It's not it's not hardship. And all of our listeners, and all of our listeners. I know that that listener number keeps going up at the moment. I don't know what's going on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Oh, there you go. See, it's because we're TikTok famous.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

It is, it's those viral videos we keep making.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Yeah. Moaning about litter.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah, maybe we maybe we'd How did you get famous?

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Well, we just moaned about litter. We're like litter on TikTok. Oh, I don't know. The mental load you go on and on and on about it, really. But like I was saying before, it definitely, definitely lifts when you haven't got kids.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Yeah. I just don't have it the same. Yeah. Um, I mean you do still have stuff, but I think you've probably just got a bit more capacity in your brain to think about it, because it's not as much.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

So I suppose if you tick off like what some of those jobs are, the majority of the jobs are related to children, aren't they? And and that that kind of and I suppose that's why it probably does sit with the woman more than the man, because yeah naturally, and I don't know whether this is the right thing or not, the caring of the children falls to the woman, regardless of whether you're both working or not. Um maybe not always. Yeah. It'd be really interesting to speak to people who've reversed the roles or you've had a stay-at-home dad to see whether Well, I did. Well, yeah, of course you did, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Dave stayed at home. It was three years when they were young. And perhaps that helped with our with our with sharing it out. In fact, it definitely did. It definitely did because I didn't do anything when I went to work. Came home and he'd done it all cooking, sorting out the kids stuff. Like he did it. I mean, they weren't at school then. I do think I do think school brings a lot of extra just admin. It just does, doesn't it? Because you've got uniform lunch clubs.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

So, what do you think? So, this is this is going taking us down um perhaps a path that I hadn't intended to go down, and I perhaps need to get more um research and understanding. So, shared parental leave. So, when you look at um the way the laws change, particularly recently, I think it's just changed in the last um weeks, hasn't it, around shared parental leave and what's available to people. And I know that the government's doing that in an effort to try and improve the situation for women so that it's a more fair split, so that men can be at home with the kids as much as the women can if they wanted to do it like that, or they can split it. And I know someone in my team, she did that. She took the first, I think she took the first nine months of the leave, and then uh her partner took the three months, then added a think he got another couple of months on top of that. So that that is a possibility, but it's not happening yet, is it? Like, if you look at my industry in particular, I can't see that happening for a long time. I can't see that split ever really happening because I just think the I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

It's a really interesting topic though, isn't it? It'd be great to like get a bit of a don't know, like a study on it, wouldn't it? Yeah, and get everyone's opinions on it. Because you're gonna have men who think, oh brilliant, I'm gonna have five months off. I mean, it's definitely not five months off anything. No, but I think sometimes some some people do see it like that. Yeah, like men probably just think, oh, this is gonna be a breeze. Um yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

But I do and I do think that there's still an opinion, and I'm not sure what I think either, so I'm not like stating my opinion that it should be the woman who stays at home.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

I don't think it should be the woman who stays at home. Definitely not. No, I I don't think it needs to be. I think if it's shared and you did it half and half, so you had like say you had the mum at home six months, the dad at home six months, whatever, then if you start off like that and you share out those tasks and all that stuff from the start, it should continue, shouldn't it? Yeah. And there's no doubt that that would make your relationship better.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Because you're sharing it.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

And there's that mutual kind of understanding. Like, why should the mum have to do it all? Why when you're then going to work full time? There's just no way, you shouldn't have to. No. But you know, I do think like to kind of go back to the point of like coming up with solutions to it, you also have to have those conversations about it and about sharing it out. And you do say, right, this is I can't do this. This is your job, this is your job. And I and what I used to do, um, I did used to, and that this is a very difficult thing to do, don't get me wrong, but I used to leave the kids. So when they were like probably in the last year, year six, last year of primary, they were in charge of making their lunch, packing their bag and going to school. They had to know what day it was if they needed a peak it, and I did not get involved. Imagine. And I'd be sat there and I'd be thinking, This is all something's gonna be forgotten. But they they probably did forget it a couple of times, but they didn't they didn't, they didn't, and after a while, after a few months, I was like, Oh, actually, this this it's not actually my responsibility now, it's theirs. Um and I it don't get me wrong, I know that that's not an easy thing to do, but I don't know. See my speculate or accumulate.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Mine have been quite independent themselves, like and then probably not probably not year six, but year seven, definitely. Both. I mean, Freya's always been really independent at the doing her own thing. And Lottie has wanted it more in year seven, so she gets a bag ready, she knows when she's got P, she does a snack because she gets lunch at school, so she does a bus snack. Um, and she's wanted to do that, like she started to ask to do that. I didn't kind of put it on her. Um, and yeah, and I think that is a good little independence thing, isn't it? Because they've got to look ahead and their school's really good at teaching them to do that as well and kind of getting them to think about things themselves.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Yeah. So I mean, just general, well, good even that's a subject in itself, what schools should be teaching. I mean, you could teach that that kind of thing should be taught. Yeah, it should how to do things.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Well, also, I mean, all sorts of life skills. I was talking to Freya's boyfriend, um, is going for an apprenticeship, so he's not gonna do A levels, he's gonna go through an apprenticeship. And he's got his second interview, and he was on the phone to her, and he came down and said, Oh, he's trying to try to work out what his salary will be, what he'll get taxed, what he'll come out with at the end. And I said, Does he know how to do it like a dead basic budget? You know, this is what's coming in, this is what's going out, and this is what I'm gonna get left with. And uh, she went, No, I don't think he does. And I was like, No, they probably don't know, do they? Why would they know? Because no one's taught them. Like, but do you not think that's a massive life skill that should be taught in school? Do you know what's a really big skill? Salary maths, like understanding what you're being paid and what you're being. I mean, yeah, because it's really complicated to get your head around it, isn't it? And it's like the first your first ever pay packet where you are taxed, it's understanding, right? So this is your national insurance, this is your PAYE, it's different. This is yeah, and it's this is the reason you're paying it. Yeah, and it's like it's it's something that I think is it's all these little things that are independents, really, and and that they should be learning.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

They should be learning it, and then like equally, then if they're learning it from being young, like as in, I mean, I'm not saying like you know, not that young, 10 or whatever. Um, they if they're picking up these little skills, these independents, it will automatically relieve pressure off the mum, because they will then trust them to be able to do it themselves. They won't be looking over their shoulder all the time and wanting to fix it and like you automatically that's your default. Because they've been taught they've been taught that skill. Yeah, they could say that about lots of things, couldn't you? I mean, it's like teaching them how to iron, I mean, you know, all that kind of thing. Yeah, washing.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Teach them not to buy clothes that need ironing. Um so one of the things that we do if we're gonna talk about solutions that we started doing probably, and I think a lot of people do this, but we started doing it, I guess, I think before Frey went to high school, so we've been doing it for quite a long time. Um, and it I can't remember why we started doing it, but we'd got I think maybe it was just I used to have a little spreadsheet of where the kids were and during during the school holidays because they'd do this club one week, this club the other week, la la, and I used to keep it on a spreadsheet because it was the only way that my head could work it all out and know what was going on with everything. And at some point, me and Neil just carried on that kind of concept of planning it all out, and every Sunday night now, and I hate it some nights, some Sundays I absolutely hate it, but we always do it is we sit down and we get our diary out for the week ahead. Yeah, there's no point doing it any sooner than that because for both of us our diary changes so much during a week. Yeah, we sit down on the Sunday night and we look at where the kids are each day. So if it's school, it's school, if it's after school clubs, if they've got something on in the evenings, yeah. We look at where we are, and then we say, right, you drop off that day, you pick up that day, you drop off that day, you pick up that day. I can't do that, I can't do that, right? Shit, what we're gonna do, ring my mum. My mum comes and sorts me. Yeah, yeah. And um we used to just do it and then put it in our own individual diaries, but I've now got like one diary where I write it all in. So shared, yeah. Getting to the point where we one of us wasn't writing it down correctly. Oh, I wonder who that would be, listeners. And there would be where that's not in my diary, I didn't know I was doing that, was happening. So um, so yeah, we now I now write it down in one central place. And we actually found an app. Um and you know I love an app anyway, but this one has been brilliant, and we've had this for a few years now. It's called Family Wall. So there's my little advertisement for Family Wall, if anyone's not seen it. It's an app on your iPhone, or I think you can get it anywhere, you can get it on um just on a web, you can do a web version of it. So it's got a shared calendar. Yeah. So we all have access to it, we can all put stuff in. Um, and the girls quite like putting stuff in now, so they'll if they've got like a social thing or a party, they'll put it in. Um, it's also got within the same app, it's got a meal planner because that's the biggest thing, like people wanting to know what we're having for tea during the week. Oh god. So we put the meal planner in it so you can see what it what we see each night. Um, and then it's got shopping list. So if you need something going on the shopping list, chuck it in there. It's literally got everything in one place. It's like there's no room for spontaneity in this little uh app. But there's no room for spontaneity in our life. No, I know, not at the moment. Oh god, and I think that's probably true. Anyone who's got children of an early high school age, there's no that's what we were like now. You can't like you can't be spontaneous, you've got to be you've everything's got to be planned for. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Oh, I remember it well. Oh dear, but you have got to be planned. You have you're right, because we used to do it on a Sunday night because it sounds a bit like banal, doesn't it? But it makes you weak a lot easier, yeah. It does.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Yeah, it really does. And then you're not like each because we were getting to the point where every day, who's picking up today? Well, I can't, well, I can't either. I've got a meeting, and it was like Yeah, I know, I know. It just got stress, yeah, stressful. And yeah, sometimes when we do the diary sit-down, or when we we call it doing diaries, when we do diaries, like I feel stressed as we're doing it because it irritates me sometimes when neither of us can do something because we've both got work plans, and I'm thinking, why are we so stupid that we've got both done organise something when we know like it's very dance night or something like that? But I think just talking it through, just planning something helps, doesn't it? And then yeah, at least you've talked it through and worked out what what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

What are your thoughts on like setting things up to fail? You know, like we were saying before about birthdays and or everything, being on uh about like just turning around and going, Oh, did you forget that, did you? Yeah, it was you know do you know what I mean? But I'm the person who can't let things fail though, so I just wonder sometimes whether whether that would be better in the long run. I don't know. Or would it cause a row or would it I don't know, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

I don't think it would cause a row, no, and I think I would I don't know. I mean I could never I couldn't let it happen with the kids. So I would never No, I know what you mean. Yeah I would never set it up so that someone's not picking the kids up, and then it's like No, I wouldn't know. That's that would be awful. And and that's always been a real like that's always been a real stress for me. And I think it stems from having when I had Lottie and I worked in Bloody Chester and I went back to work so quickly and I would come home from work and it would take me an hour and a half to get home, and the whole half an hour and a half journey, the stress that I used to feel because I just wanted to get home to her, and the guilt that I would feel because I was so far away from her, and it was like um I think I could never not be there for them because I feel like not that I let her down when she was a baby, but I just because I've always worked and I've I've never I've always done a job that's taken quite a lot of time off of my time and of my headspace. It's been a real thing for me that I'm always there to pick them up, I'm always there to drop them off, but at least one or the other, at least. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

And that's the same. I had to be there to pick them up. I wonder what it is, what is it? It's just that mum failing. It's just your mum, it's your instinct though, yeah, isn't it? It's just an instinct. I don't think you're gonna ever get away from that really with mums. No, no, it it it it's protecting, fixing things for them. Yeah, it's just an instinct.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Yeah. But then it's funny, isn't it? Because we were laughing. I have to be careful now, but I don't think my mum will listen to this, but we were laughing the other day because um my parents ne their social life didn't really change that much when they had us. So they would still go out every Saturday night, and so my brother basically spent every weekend at my grandma's, yeah. Um, and like both of us were really close to my gram as a result of that. And um my mum was saying the other day we were around at their house and she was talking about how when my brother was six months old, her and my dad had a week in I don't know whether it was like Corfu or they they went on holiday for a week, and I was shook. I was like, when he was six months old, like I can't believe I can't and she was very like not like there was nothing, there was no like guilt or awful at the time. I was like, it was just such a different era, wasn't it? Like it was Yeah, it was why is that now then? Why do we I wouldn't dream of that? No couldn't dream of it. Not even I remember going away for the first time when Freya was like like a toddler or something. Oh, it was awful.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Like I think I went away. I think I I did I definitely went away when James was a baby because I went on your Hendu.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

And he was only nine months, I think then. But it was only a day, it was only a weekend, wasn't it? Yeah. And Dave was at home, wasn't he? And he was at home, yeah. Oh yeah, it wasn't the but the pair of us.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

I can't I don't remember the pair of us going away, really. No, I mean I we went to Vegas, but Lottie was four, I think, when we went to Vegas. Yeah. And you felt guilty about that. Oh yeah, I didn't. Yeah. That's why I had to get so drunk every night. It was. Numb the pain of the guilt being a bad parent. No, it's funny, isn't it? It is. I think that that that instinct of a mum is so strong. It is so strong.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Yeah, it is, and I don't know, there's nothing wrong with it. I just think I think nowadays you've just got so much pressure from everything because you you've got to have well, you we have to have it all, don't we?

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

You've got to have the job. You can't be a stay-at-home mum anymore. Well no, I'm gonna be able to do that. Why can't we? Why not?

SPEAKER_01 21:16

You can't afford to. Is that all it is? Is it just that?

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Yeah, but do you not think that it is I'm not saying it's not that, but do you not think there is an element of women wanting their career and wanting that for themselves? Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with that either.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

I think it's no, I don't either. I I just think it's probably a combination of all of the above, really, isn't it? Yeah, it probably is. People want you want your job and taking, you know, at at worst five years out of your career to raise a child and get them into primary school, that's five years of it delays your career, doesn't it? And yeah. Yeah it's not I don't know. I think ultimately when we talk about solutions and that I suppose that why this app's quite good and why having the sit-down it's and and I know like Simone has they have a big blackboard in their kitchen and it's got everything written on it yeah we have some meals and all that kind of thing it's the the trick is to to relinquish the control by making it all visible isn't it so yeah it is yeah everyone can see yeah this is the plan this is what we're eating this week this we buy him yeah so on our blackboard we've got a blackboard in the kitchen anything like so I write it all on that on the for the week coming so any like like oh car needs M O T and by Thursday all of it someone's birthday on Tuesday it's all on that board yeah and everybody looks at it yeah and if somebody does it they just wipe it off yeah um like James used to quite like it because it would remind him of the chef's board god knows what that is in work and he likes like rubbing things off um but like even you know like oh we need dishwash tablets we've we've run out of rinse set you know it was we're just write it on there yeah I like to say everyone can see it then so that's not my responsibility solely yes for everyone to see if every if someone's in a shop or someone's popping to Tesco because they want a drink or whatever actually look on the board. Yeah yeah and did they would they yeah yeah I'm not sure my kids would necessarily do that yet I'm not sure they're quite no that I mean I'm on about when they're older like you know they're not going to do it at the old kid's age dishwasher tablets what are they they don't even know the dishwasher's there because everything just gets put next to the sink oh of course it does I said to them the other day I've made them lunch I worked at home and I was like right I've got a meeting I'm going back upstairs so can you put everything this is the dishwasher here it goes in the dishwasher not next to the sink in the dishwasher balancing on top of the work oh well the there was Lottie had tried to make chocolate melt some bloody chocolate Easter egg and burnt it and just put the whole thing in the dishwasher oh no yeah it's like oh god like wearing a pair of trousers like trying on a pair of trousers and then putting them in the wash yep oh yeah oh that used to make me furious get it all out you've not even worn this that's what I do put this back this has not been worn it has to be dirty to go in the basket if it's still vaguely clean it gets worn again you wash it yourself have we got enough solutions so making it visible we had anything we've had loads of solutions there making it visible and then I think um just keep talking to people I don't I think I just don't think people should carry the can on their own and worry about no and be open about it if you're feeling a bit like overwhelmed I what's wrong with sitting down to with your family and saying I've got so much on I'm feeling I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed I don't think I can deal with this can somebody please pick this up next week can somebody please do this can somebody please do that like there's nothing wrong with doing that is there no definitely not there just isn't and they should see you do that and go oh actually yeah that's a bit out of order I should probably try and I should probably try and help out a bit more like if you're constantly like like it's like what's it called the duck with the legs going underneath yeah but the duck's gliding along the water swam is it a duck is it a swan duck is it I don't know anyway I know what you mean a swan looks better I suppose a water bird whatever the legs go fast under the water but they're gliding along nice but they're gliding along that's it see yeah that's us but they need to see the legs yeah my god right we're getting into a dodgy world event analogies don't quite work it's time to go right it's time to go right alright then um now my microphone's working god I know um oh never mind right okay uh I will see you next week see you next week with how we've solved the world's problems topic TBC topic TBC TCP TCP have a lovely weekend with Dave and being your weekend away yeah we'll do I'll send you a picture of me in a field love it love it all right take care have a good weekend bye bye bye bye bye bye bye