22. Mental Load: 'I'm Just Tired of Being the Only Adult.' When the Kids Start Paying For It.

The mental load starts as the thing you can laugh about — the admin, the medal for mowing the lawn. And then, somewhere underneath it, it stops being funny. It's the sentence that comes out of your mouth before you can stop it: 'would you mind having the kids on Saturday so I can get a haircut' — asking the other parent for their own children like you're lodging annual leave with HR. It's 'they were so good while you were gone,' and knowing 'good' meant nobody got fed. It's being so tired of being the only adult in the building that you stop being angry and just go quiet.

This is Part 3, the last in the series, and it's the heavy one. It begins with a laugh and then it lets that laugh go. This one is for you, on your own, with your headphones in — and if you're right on the edge of exasperation today, Jane's honest recommendation is that you save this one for another day. Built entirely from what you wrote in. Support links are in the notes below.

CHAPTERS00:00 — The last one. It starts funny, then it doesn't.

00:44 — 'I shouldn't have to book my own kids in like it's annual leave'

01:37 — Watch where the school emails go — and the 11-day anaphylaxis email

03:37 — 'It was so easy while you were gone.' Was it though?

05:41 — The 7am text from Cassie, and what Jane wrote back without thinking

07:32 — 'I'm not even angry anymore. I'm just so tired of being the only adult.'

07:46 — The nine-year-old asked to regulate himself while the 39-year-old isn't

11:33 — The question underneath all of it: are these women still with them?

12:37 — 'Supportive of what?' — when the pat on the back keeps you carrying it

14:39 — The economy of gratitude — his effort is a gift, yours is the weather