I recently posted something in a local parenting forum about how heavy the mental load is for me as a working mom. I didn’t ask for suggestions for resolving it. I just stated that it is heavy.
Well-meaning community members quickly jumped in. While plenty of comments reflected on the shared struggle, and several suggestions were helpful, most of the responses centered around one solution…spend money to fix it.
Worse yet, several individuals implied it was ridiculous that anyone in my shoes would fail to do these things, as they are “really quite affordable,” “incredibly cheap,” or some other derivative of that.
Hey Westchester, this is a reminder that not everyone has the disposable income for hired help.
Maybe I do. Maybe the mental load of trying to coordinate people to clean the house and deliver my meals and then doing everything else I do as a mom is still too much. Maybe I do, but only on occasion rather than regularly. Maybe I only have the money for a few things, and the rest continues to fall on my shoulders.
Maybe I’ve been in the position of having and not having. Or maybe I’ve been in neither.
Maybe the 25% rise in the cost of groceries over the last four years has put a dent in my bank account. Maybe my family has cut back dramatically, but it doesn’t make much difference when the cost of essentials has increased so dramatically. What about the cost of summer camp for the kids? Taxes? Childcare? Healthcare?
Maybe student loans are too much. Maybe my partner was out of work due to a recent nearly year-long strike. Maybe we just had a medical crisis in the family that wiped out our savings, or I just separated from my spouse, or I’m a single parent. Maybe I launched a business during a pandemic because everything else was closed, and it was better to take my family’s future into my own hands. Maybe my partner got injured on a job that once paid more than six figures, leaving all financial responsibility to me. Maybe housing costs are so high that we can’t afford much other than keeping a roof over our heads.
But your mental health is worth it, they say! But it isn’t that expensive! But you deserve free time! But these are tiny changes; surely you can find the money in your budget!
Money in the budget for the price of a cup of coffee every day, or eating out once a week, or whatever other comparison they make, suggesting that it would be better for someone’s mental health to have no social life or to enjoy no other pleasures because affording hired help is a priority and will fix it all. Does that mean you don’t deserve a weight off if you can’t afford those things? Is the assumption that we didn’t work hard enough if we can’t? Or that we are financially irresponsible? Maybe it’s true that if you aren’t wealthy, you don’t deserve to live in a good school district, a safe community, or a home of your own. That sure seems to be the belief of many folks around here.
Are we really those people with those beliefs? Are we really that out of touch? Have we forgotten that it is a privilege even to be able to complain about mental load because, for many people, there isn’t the time or energy to stop and think about the family dynamic origins of their stress levels?
My family may struggle financially. Or, we may not. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether these are my experiences now, as a child, or my husband’s experiences when he was little. Or they are those of a friend, or a family member, a neighbor, or some combination thereof.
What does matter, or at least should matter, is that, as a community, we have lost sight of how most Americans live. So much so that, by and large, our neighbors automatically assume everyone can afford to hire people and services to care for our every need without a second thought. This is the bubble we raise our kids in.
What message does that send them when they enter the wider world, where the things we take for granted are not just luxuries; they are absolutely unattainable? What will our children think of the college roommate who can’t afford to eat regular meals, or go out on Friday night, or travel home for break, or pay for medicine, menstrual products, or clothing? Or if our children encounter struggles and can’t afford to attain what we have?
Has it come down to either drowning or paying someone to take the load off? Apparently, in Westchester, it has. But it shouldn’t. Check your privilege, Westchester. Because it is showing, and it isn’t pretty.
Resources
While my post discusses affording what most of us probably can agree are luxuries (i.e., hired help), many in our community can’t meet their basic needs. Food insecurity, homelessness, and economic struggles are problems facing communities across the United States, including our own. Below are a few of the many resources available to learn more about these issues and organizations working to provide desperately needed support:
Resources in our community supporting people facing food insecurity:
A select few additional organizations offering support for those facing economic challenges:
