Whinypaluza: Mom's Carry The Mental Load

No need to whine. That's why I need to lose.

Well, before that, I have a very important question to ask.

What?

Are those Hanukkah jammies? These are Hanukkah jammies and the matching pants. And Mench on the bench is not on the bench, she's with us.

The girls had pajama day at school, so I decided to go change and match them. And then Seth decided to copy me and change into his.

I did not decide. I asked you why you were wearing— putting pajamas on, and you told me, so I got my pajamas.

Yeah, we're all wearing our Hanukkah jammies.

It just isn't Hanukkah anymore.

So happy Winey Palooza Wednesday, Lily.

No need to whine, it's Winey Palooza Wednesday. Grab some wine and join us on Winey Palooza Wednesday with the Green family. Cha-cha chicken!

Cha-cha chicken indeed.

I forgot the wine.

You did.

Bummer.

No wining for you.

Shoot, I was too busy changing into my Hanukkah jammies.

You forgot about the wine.

Oh my goodness. Lily wants to show you Mensch. Um, Larry Latka is our Mensch. He's been traveling the house and doing adventures. Please comment below and tell us what your elves have been up to. We would love to hear.

Or if you have a Mensch on the Bench, you could tell us. Yes, or a Festivus Fairy or something.

We have so many— um, has collected friends. Yeah, so you have a couple days till Christmas. So we did Hanukkah already. Um, I am going to admit that I'm still buying presents. Not for my family, for principals and teachers and neighbors and friends. Um, so I'm buying Christmas presents. I'm gonna call them Christmas presents because all the people that I've been buying for recently celebrate Christmas. So I am not quite done. Are you done? How are you doing? Are you sane? Are you gonna get through Christmas okay? I'm checking on you. And as I was thinking about the many, many, many conversations that I've had with women over the last few weeks, the topic that came to me is that moms carry the mental load. And I'm not discounting dads. Dads are wonderful. Honey, you are wonderful. And I forgot to tell you today that I noticed that you did the dishes. And, um, you do that every week.

Every week. Oh, you mean forgetting to turn my volume off?

Yes, yes. Um, you did a bunch of stuff last night.

I did.

Um, it's all a blur. Yes, but you helped me a lot and I appreciate you.

I appreciate you too. Thank you.

So dads do a lot too. Yes, I'm not discounting dads, but would you say, Seth, that moms carry more of the mental load? Most of it. Okay, so you agree with this topic?

Oh, completely. You worry and think about stuff that I don't even think to think about.

Um, after I did this list, and I'm gonna read through it real quick, I thought of more stuff. So this is—

you're thinking about more stuff.

So this is just— this is just some of the stuff that I had heard from myself and women. I'm just gonna list a few of them. So I'm— I was started to write the mental load, and I was like, oh my gosh, I want to make this holiday magical. I have to wrap all the gifts. I'm not finished shopping. Where is my package? Why is it late? I have to address the cards and send them out. I am way behind on laundry. The dishes are all piled up. What are we going to have for dinner? I didn't bake yet. I forgot someone. I better run to the store. I didn't put up all the decorations. I need to work less. I can sleep after Christmas is over. The house is a mess. What time does the store close? I need to make it in time. Why are they out of what I wanted to buy? Did I buy enough gifts? Are they going to like my gifts? How did my cookies turn out? I need help. I need some me time. Why are the holidays so stressful? I better plan my Christmas menu. Can I take a nap? And there's more.

Take a nap after that list. That list is a mental load, just processing the list. And I know it's— you can come up with more stuff.

There's more on the next page. I'm not gonna keep listing it, but After I published this blog, I realized I didn't even mention COVID. I didn't even mention it. I'm so proud of myself that I did a blog and I don't think COVID is mentioned once in the blog.

So that is progress.

Yay me!

Yay you!

But that is—

talk about it—

that is part of the mental load.

It is completely part of the mental load. And you can make a whole separate list about that. How— where are we going? Who are we going to see? Who are we exposed to? Does everybody have whatever everybody thinks they should be getting? What are our parents doing? Are they trying to get us to do things that we may or may not want to do? All that stuff.

Okay, stop. You're tail spinning too.

So Lily wants to tell us—

what do you want to say?

That when it comes up to any holiday or like birthdays or Christmas or Hanukkah, everybody always starts going crazy and overworking themselves.

I'm done. I've never been sane. We'll see.

Then you—

there you go. That's the solution right there, is to never be sane in the first place, and then you don't notice.

I feel like moms already have too much on their plates, and then just add holiday stuff onto it. And my friends like Tayton are texting me that they're done, and I'm giggling because I'll be done eventually. Yes, I will talk to Seth about that after this.

Oh, that doesn't sound good.

So I did, in my blog Managing Holiday Chaos, I did give tips, but to reduce our mental load, I thought of more stuff that I want to share.

Stuff to reduce the stuff.

Stuff to reduce the mental load, because we do it to ourselves. Yes. I don't want to be blaming. I'm taking accountability too. Yes, but can we talk about perfectionism for a second? Lily knows all about perfectionism. So we want things to be perfect. We want the house decorated perfect. We want the house to be clean. We want, you know, the gifts wrapped perfectly. Like, there's all this, like, perfectionism going on, and it's making us do things ourselves. Instead of allowing someone else to do it. So if Seth isn't going to decorate the way that I want the house decorated, then I'm going to do it myself.

That's the limiting belief you have that is causing you more work and more stress. Just like Amazon sent it in a box, doesn't the box count as wrapping paper? See? No, we gotta wrap the box.

Who doesn't like to unwrap a gift?

Doesn't opening the box count?

Unwrapping? No.

Okay, so Lily, You get the Amazon box. Is that as exciting as wrapping paper?

No.

So you want me to wrap the box?

Exactly. It's so much more fun unwrapping it because then you can see the tag that says fairy lights. We're like, fine.

Are you finished wrapping? I wrapped every single day of Hanukkah.

You did because you were like, wait, you can't open presents yet.

I have to go wrap them so you can rip the paper off in half a second and throw it out. But we have to— where did the tradition of paper around boxes come from?

We're just making it— we're making it pretty.

Unboxing is not unwrapping.

See, see what is Joette saying?

Joette says she's been done.

Oh, Joette, she's very efficient. Joette, did you like that you saw me in the store on Hanukkah buying Max gifts for that night? I never have enough because Seth is gonna argue with me.

Yes, I am.

We bought him big presents. She left.

We were gone for so long that you didn't have time to wrap.

Um, I bought— we bought Max expensive presents, but it— there's so much joy in watching him run down the stairs to unwrap something. So I want him to have something to unwrap every night, even if we spent a ton of money on 3 presents. You You know, right?

You gotta get 5 little things. We have something every night from us.

Yes. And he was excited to even get a hoodie, so I'm happy to buy him a hoodie, right?

Yes.

So let's move from perfectionism to being too controlling. They're very similar. Yeah, they're very similar. And we all need to loosen up, and I'm talking to myself. So Seth might not put the dishes away where I want him to put the dishes away, but did it get done?

It's a conspiracy to terrorize you by getting you to not find it and go on a hunt, because I know how much you love looking for things. So I'm trying to keep things spiced up and interesting by you never knowing where the dishes go.

You know that I have called him at work frustrated that I can't find something.

He's going, where did you put that?

And I'm like, no, seriously, I get so annoyed.

Oh, today she lost her phone.

I'm wearing my menorahs, Tayton. We're not talking about the phone. Let's talk about being too controlling. I was being controlling.

I had nothing to do with the phone.

Okay, I was busy.

He might order the wrong present, but he ordered the present. And he might—

in my defense, I was not given a 'do you want the first, second, or third generation of this thing?' I was just told to go get the thing and then was told, 'Oh, the second generation is the wrong one. The third generation that just came out is even better. We gotta go buy that one.' You gotta send it back, get the new one.

So he did send it back and get the right one. And I am too controlling, and I've loosened up. Would you give me credit? Do you think you can be honest?

Have you loosened up in the last 17 years? Yes.

You're gonna say you have a ways to go.

I was not gonna say that. I was gonna say I, I know Ken at the UPS store where you drop off Amazon returns very well. Why send you back with another one, huh?

Yeah, does he say that? Oh my God, I'm so sorry. Oopsies. I'm like, nope, you ordered the wrong thing. See, and I do accept the help. I accept help. And I have him do stuff. He doesn't always do it right.

No, no, there's no right. I don't do it your way.

I was just gonna say, but you were so happy the other day when you said you were gonna wipe the dog the right way. And I said there was no right way. I gave you a bunch of kisses for that. You were so happy. There isn't a right way. There's Rebecca's way. Okay, well, let's keep reducing our load. Enough is enough. So, Lily, we're not gonna fight with me when I say this, okay? You're gonna say, okay, Mommy. So Lily came home from school, and I love her heart, and I love that she wants to buy people gifts. She came home from school and she had 3 people that she wanted to buy gifts for, and I said, okay, no problem. I ran out I bought gifts, I gave them to her, she took them to school. I'll tell you about this later. I'll tell you about it later.

Okay.

And I said to myself, this was my conversation with myself, if she comes home tomorrow with a list of more people, enough is enough. You need to draw the line and say no. So I was prepared. And Lily, I'll explain more later, but I was prepared for Lily to come home from school and be like, well, we still have to buy for this person and this person and this person and this person. And I was gonna say, I love your heart and I love how giving you are, but we gotta draw the line somewhere, people.

What happened? Because a couple of years ago I decided to stop drawing the line and let you just have fun and do whatever you wanted for the holidays, and now, now it just keeps expanding.

Okay, but the problem is that there's 3 different schools. Okay, let me finish before you get mad.

I'm not gonna get mad, I'm just gonna disagree with you.

I, I know too many people at the elementary school.

That doesn't mean we have to buy all of them gifts.

I know a bunch of people in the middle school, and I didn't even— I didn't even ask Max about high school teachers. So enough is enough.

I could pay their salaries and their pensions. Recover.

I could buy gifts for the whole week. Hi! Oh, Linda's here! What? Oh, Joette says girls versus boys. Joette, Your boys probably don't care who they give gifts to at school, correct?

I never came home to my parents and said, I need gifts for all these teachers.

No, no, I don't think so.

You need to get into the habit.

I need to get into a habit.

So the good news is that next year, next year we reduce the school and we'll be down to 2 schools.

So that— you heard it here first. That doesn't mean— well, they're both— they have different— a whole bunch of different teachers at each school. We gotta double up the gifts at that school.

Yeah, we have to.

How about this means consolidation?

No, it means get more gifts.

No, it means— oh, Ella had that person 2 years ago, she doesn't need another present. That Starbucks gift card from 2 years ago, she's still using that for sure.

No. Oh my gosh, my friend is not watching, but we just did homeroom and guidance. Very smart. Oh, I forgot guidance, Emma.

Come on, Emma, you're not helping me.

Come on, Emma.

Dayton says start planning now. Um, Emma, I will text you privately. No, no, on the stress.

You signed our name to your gift, right? We're covered.

Uh, no, just give them my gift.

Yes, you better whenever you give something.

Well, so no, but an example is Ella went to school with a gift for her favorite teacher, and she's discriminating against all those other— and so then yesterday she was like, well, what about this teacher and this teacher? And I was like, enough is enough.

I'm proud of you that you were the one saying it and I didn't have to. That's progress.

I told you you're too dangerous.

I did. Oh honey, don't start listing. Don't start listing.

We'll talk about it later. I went into school with a big bag of gifts.

Okay, let's, let's talk about that later. So find shortcuts, reduce your load. I want to tell you something that you all probably know that I did not know, so forgive me. We did gingerbread houses for Girl Scouts. Oh God, I am so thankful that I was posting about it and I was saying stuff because the mother started talking and it came out that they all bought pre-built gingerbread houses.

Wait a second, wait, so you mean all the times that I have struggled with this frosting and the stuff to try and get stuff to stay upright, you're telling me there's a cheat code and they're already assembled and I could just pay $20 or whatever? I don't have to sit there for hours?

I didn't know, I didn't know.

What the heck is going on here?

A heartfelt thank you note. Oh, that's a good idea, Tayton.

Might be better than stuff.

Yes, that's a great idea.

And buy a box of them for $5.

They're $10, but close.

Dollar Tree, um, Five Below.

Okay, so anyways, I get a squishmallow with the money. So shortcuts. Yes, Erica, I went to— I, I went to—

Wait, how much we wasted on all the extra frosting to try and get them?

I didn't know.

Lacking, woman. Increase your mental load.

You should know this stuff. We're decreasing my load because I hate trying to get the gingerbread houses to stay. So from now on— so Erica, my friends sent me to Wegmans. I bought the pre-made gingerbread house, but I didn't know that was a thing.

I can't believe you got to do the pre-made one where I slave and they're over the, the other ones. I see how you set me up.

So Erica says she gets it. Oh, yep, yep. Um, you're missing comments. You're slow, you're slow.

Erica gets a pre-built one every year, Wilton brand. Tayton says hot glue. Yeah, but then you can't eat it.

Well, I don't want to eat it. I never eat it.

Why are we doing it in the first place?

Because it's fun.

Oh, so that's fun.

So it's not fun to try to get it to stick together. One of the mothers did use hot glue, Tayton. Um, and the box comes with the frosting and the candy. I did get extra frosting and extra candy.

Can't be enough.

And gumdrops.

I did get extra stuff, and the Girl Scouts had so much fun. And, um, most of them had a pre-built house, and I'm gonna do that from now on. My point is, do the shortcut, make your life easier. I don't, I don't know all the shortcuts. I will, I will tell you that, um, I do get inspired walking through stores, but a lot of my friends ordered stuff online And I feel like that's a shortcut because I can do it on my couch in my pajamas in 2 seconds, right?

Yes.

So we need to ask ourselves, what is important and what can I cut out? And I'm telling you that because we do things because we think we have to do things. Like, you don't have to— you don't have to do holiday cards. You don't have to bake cookies. You don't have to make a huge Christmas dinner. Like, do what you enjoy and stop with the rules and the shoulds and the shitting all over you. What do you want to do? Talk to your kids, talk to your family. What, what do people enjoy? What does your family want to do? My family doesn't necessarily want to go look at Christmas lights, but I'm going to make them anyway because I do. Okay, so the two of us, 2 out of 5, 2 out of 5. Um, but you know, like, I have had friends say I don't like sending out holiday cards, it's too much work.

I mail merch, print the labels.

Sure.

Oh yeah, I tell you that every year and you handwrite them. Oh yeah, maybe next year you'll let me.

So that's a good shortcut. I'll do that next year. But I like to send out cards because it's like my way of sending out like a little hug. So I like to bake the cookies, but I don't— but I'm trying to, um, I'm trying to do some shortcuts like We had gotten home from Virginia and I wanted to make latkes and I didn't want to start shredding the potatoes, which I love to do. I bought shredded potatoes. Like, oh my God, I did a shortcut. Yes, go to Stony Brook for Christmas lights.

Yes, we love Stony Brook.

So that's where I dragged America. I love— does anyone have any other places for Christmas lights?

Because New York—

because this Jewish lady loves Christmas lights.

Yes, Lily. Here are our holiday lights.

Um, Seth showed up with a fabulous unicorn. My unicorn broke. No, no, my unicorn broke, so he showed up with a unicorn that changes colors, a light-up inflatable color.

Oh, I didn't know they had lights.

Oh, I didn't know that. Do you have to buy tickets for that? Is that like you walk through the zoo? Are you driving through or are you walking through?

She said through zoo.

No, she just says, doesn't answer yet.

I have been hearing lots of negative thoughts, and you know, you knew that I was going to talk about this. The, I don't like the holidays, the holidays are too much work, um, this is never ending, um, can you stop, stop, I don't like when you say that. So I was actually skipping through Target the other day And I was like, oh, your thoughts are good. That is why you're happy. I actually texted Seth. I'm like, I'm in such a good mood. I'm— part of it is he's not stressing me out about money. I love you.

I love you too.

Um, but I was literally skipping through Target buying gifts for people going, this is so much fun. Like, we we can think this is never-ending, this isn't fun, I don't like the holidays, or we can think I love to bake cookies with my families, I love to wrap the gifts, this is fun.

Yes.

So hopefully— Hamburg Fairgrounds.

Erica also says you can walk through the zoo.

Okay, such good tips.

More lights to go see.

I love Christmas lights, and I only have a few days. Like, we should be going right now. Tomorrow night. Tomorrow night. It's a date. You're gonna drive me around.

Yes, I am.

Nice.

Please and thank you. I mean, I'm good. There's things that I enjoy. You know what, make your kids do it anyway. You may think that they don't like things, but secretly they will remember. They'll remember.

It's a memory.

Um, I have one left who's lots of fun.

Tell the therapist couch. All about the Christmas lights when they're all there.

January 1st or January 2nd.

So what did you say?

She's reading Erica's comment. Okay, the Christmas lights stay up.

Oh yes, yes, I want to go, I want to go this weekend, hopefully tomorrow, because tomorrow is not a school night. I am so excited for break. Do you know what I am so excited for?

What are you so excited for?

Do you want to guess?

No.

What are you excited for?

I'm excited to sleep in. Ah, I don't like this 6 o'clock wake up. I don't like it. I get up at 6, and sometimes it's actually— sometimes it's 4:30 and I can't go back to sleep. Anyways, I'm excited for the break. I'm excited to sleep in. I'm excited to watch movies.

Gotta watch lots of Christmas movies. I hope that Candace Cameron falls in love and gets the guy.

Are you watching?

Very worried.

Oh my God, are you watching Hallmark movies with me? What do you want to say? Because we're going to wrap up.

Um, this book, um, Belle today, and she said, gosh, can't I wait till winter break?

Okay.

Oh no, well, I hope she's okay.

She's fine.

That's not good. So you needed to tell everybody that, right? No, I thought it had something to do with the topic, Lily.

Yes, it had to do with—

okay, yes, yes, do Emma's comment. I'm so excited, Emma.

Harry Potter Day, HBO, New Year's Day.

We are Harry Potter fans. I cannot wait. So what are you excited for about break? Um, how are you reducing your mental load? Are you ready for Christmas?

I'm ready.

All ready for Christmas. So our tradition for Christmas is movies and Chinese food.

Yes.

I think that's what most Jewish people do. Yes. I think that as a kid sometimes we went skiing. I wonder if skiing is opened. Anyways, um, I want to wish you A wonderful Christmas if you're celebrating. I want to wish you a fabulous New Year's, but I'll see you before New Year's. Um, no getting the boy out the door, biggest break. You don't have to get your kids out. I know, Tatum. I'm— why is it coming? Did you hear how I said her name? You were like, Tatum. Stop it. I feel like I had some wine. I definitely need to go ahead— stop it. I love her name. I just totally— I don't even know what I said. So anyways, no getting the kids out the door. We can sleep in. I'm so excited. So enjoy your break. I hope you get a break from work. Um, I hope you enjoy the break from school. I know that we will. And, um, thank you so much for watching with us.

Happy holidays, everybody.

Lily, thank you for watching Whiny Blues on Wednesday with the Green Family.

Chop chop chicken!

Oh my God, I like the little beatboxing you threw in.