The System for Escaping the Default Adult Role with Paige Connell

Julie Fried (00:01.5)
Welcome back to the System for Everything podcast. Today’s system tip, if everyone in your house is asking you where things are.

Congratulations on your promotion to Director of Existing Nearby Objects! Welcome back to the podcast for everyone. This is the podcast where we unpack the systems behind business, life, relationships, routines, and occasionally why one person in every household somehow becomes the keeper of the batteries, appointments, and extra snacks. Today’s episode is one that I think is going to make a lot of people feel very deeply seen. We’re talking about the default adult role. You know the one.

Remembers the birthday gift, notices the form needs to be signed, realizes there’s no milk left, mentally tracks everyone’s schedule, and somehow becomes responsible for things simply because they noticed them first. And the exhausting part is that so much of this labor is invisible until it stops happening. Today’s guest is Paige Connell, a leading voice on the mental load of modern motherhood known for her relatable, incisive content that captures the realities of modern marriage, parenting, and work. A working mother of four, her honest storytelling and practical language have resonated with millions across TikTok, Instagram, and beyond. Paige’s work has been featured on major platforms, including The Today Show, Good Morning America, and Scary Mommy, where her insights continue to shape the national conversation on the invisible labor carried by women. Through her advocacy, Paige pushes for systemic change, championing affordable and accessible child care, paid parental leave, reproductive rights, and truly equitable partnerships at home and in the workplace. She empowers women and men to challenge outdated norms, build more balanced relationships, and create supportive environments where all families can thrive. What I love personally about Paige’s work is that it doesn’t just point out the problem, it really gives language to things people have struggled to explain for years. Welcome, Paige.

Julie Fried (02:07.722)
Thank you so much for being here. We’re gonna start our episode as we always do with the system reboot, a quick reset to start our episode with some humor and humanity. What is a completely normal thing you have to do that somehow turns you into an absolute Victorian orphan emotionally?

Paige (02:08.92)
Thanks for having me.

Paige (02:28.057)
Oh, I, yeah, I don’t love to take the trash out. We just have an annoying trash can. Our trash can’s annoying. So I should probably just get a new one, but it’s annoying enough where I just try not to do it.

Julie Fried (02:31.972)
same. No, not doing it. Yeah.

Julie Fried (02:41.48)
Alright, you are notorious for getting called out on Instagram about wearing jeans, aka hard pants, to relax in the evening. Please take a moment and defend yourself against the haters.

Paige (02:46.978)
Mmm.

Paige (02:52.526)
I am the laundry gal in our house. So first and foremost, if I change out of my jeans, that just means I have more laundry. So what’s the point, I think? I also think I just have, it’s just something deeply ingrained in me where I think like the clothes you put on in the morning or the clothes you wear until bedtime, like that’s your outfit, right? So that’s like the fit. You gotta wear that. But also I’m a big advocate for buying pants that are comfortable. Like my jeans aren’t uncomfortable. I have a few pairs that are uncomfortable like for lounging on the couch, but the majority of them,

Julie Fried (03:01.096)
That makes total sense, then.

Paige (03:21.942)
I feel quite comfortable. don’t know that I feel much better in my leggings. So yeah, I can defend it all day long.

Julie Fried (03:29.722)
Alright, and finally, which store has the strongest, ugh, but I only came in for one thing curse for you? Nice.

Paige (03:37.13)
Marshall’s, yeah. I was there this morning. We have a good one in town. So I pop in. If I’m there, I’ll pop in.

Julie Fried (03:45.864)
you

Everyone, you have met the personality, now meet the powerhouse. If you have ever felt like your brain is functioning as the operating system for your entire household while everyone else is simply logging in as guests, this episode’s probably gonna hit home. We’re talking about invisible labor, mental load, why just ask for help is often not actually helpful, and the systems that make responsibility visible enough to redistribute. Here’s my conversation with Paige on the system for escaping the default adult role.

Okay, so I would love to start with how you personally began noticing this dynamic in your own life. Was there a specific moment, were there many moments where you just realized, okay, I am carrying way more than just tasks here.

Paige (04:31.694)
Hmm, no, you know, I think it slowly happened over time. It was kind of like an awakening. And the thing about it is it also piles on over time, right? It doesn’t usually happen overnight that you kind of take on this work and it becomes unsustainable. That happens over time, right? And so by the time it happens, you kind of like open your eyes and think like, how did we get here? I don’t even know, like when did this happen, right? And so for me, I think it was probably like a year where I slowly was thinking to myself like, I need more help.

I need you to do more. I can’t keep carrying all these things. Why am I the only person who knows the answer to this question? Why am I the only person who ever buys, I don’t know, diapers at the time? Why am I the keeper of the keys to everything? I don’t understand. And I have a very, my partner is very present and active and willing. And if I say we need diapers, he’s like, I’ll grab the diapers. It’s not like…

He wasn’t involved. think people always have this idea that if somebody is a default or takes on a disproportionate amount of work that the other person has dumped it on them. I don’t think that’s what happened in most instances. I think a lot of this is societal conditioning, gendered expectations we put on people, how we feel like we provide value, right? And like how we show up within relationships, both as men, women, or whatever your dynamic looks like. And so for me, it was slowly happening over time. I did have like one day that was kind of the breaking point where I said like, this has to change. Like I can’t keep having the same.

conversation over and over and over and over again, which is what I think a lot of couples get into this like hamster wheel of just having the same conversation and having things change for a week and then go back to the default setting. And I had been in that cycle for probably six months and I had one day that was like my breaking point where I was like, I will not keep doing this. This is the end of the road for me. We are changing this or I am, you know, I’m out of here. Like I cannot keep doing this. And so it was both.

Julie Fried (06:04.315)
Yes.

Paige (06:21.378)
for was both like a combination of a lot of things and then a breaking point.

Julie Fried (06:26.257)
How do you define that invisible labor in a way that people can immediately understand?

Paige (06:32.664)
The way I like to think about it is, you know, there are a lot of, you know, clinical ways of describing this, but I think the way I like to describe it and the way I think a lot of people feel it is it’s a never-ending to-do list in your brain of everything you need to know, do, remember, plan for, anticipate, and manage. So it is the never-ending list. It is this list that is invisible to everyone else that lives in your brain, and the second you check something off, you add more things to it, and so it never gets shorter, it only gets longer. And so…

I think a lot of, I say women for a reason because the data and research suggests and shows that women carry a disproportionate amount of this work. A lot of women have a hard time articulating what it is because it’s just this ever present, relentless, never ending list of things that they have to do and think about and plan for and manage and delegate. And that is what makes it so hard to tell somebody else about because it’s just, it’s so big.

Julie Fried (07:25.595)
Yes, and I think that.

That’s also what makes this conversation so powerful because once you finally have that language for it, you kind of start realizing how much of it happens like automatically and silently. And I also think this is where a lot of couples and families get stuck because often the issue, like you said, isn’t the willingness, it’s ownership. So I want to talk about the difference between like helping and like actually carrying responsibility for something from start to finish, like something I see

Paige (07:37.678)
Mm-hmm.

Julie Fried (07:57.236)
a lot coming up in these conversations or you know the terrible comment section is always well can’t you just tell me what to do can’t you just give me a list like why do you think that phrase feels so frustrating to so many people

Paige (08:02.403)
Yeah.

Paige (08:11.736)
think everybody has a different reason because this is very nuanced, but I also think because when somebody asks for a list, that makes it a one-time task for them. They don’t become the owner of it. They don’t become the person who has to manage it and track it and pay attention to it all the time. It’s a list. They do that list one time and then they don’t have to do it again or think about it again. Whereas the person who carries the mental load or the managing of that invisible labor is always monitoring it, right? So for example, maybe it’s the grocery shopping. I can give you a list to go grocery shopping and you can go grocery shopping.

But I’m the person paying attention to when we’re running out of things. I’m the person meal planning. I’m the person who knows that our kids don’t like cheddar right now. I’m the person who is tasked with always paying attention, right? So one person is constantly dedicating mental real estate to it. The other person gets to do a one-off task and be done. So that’s why a list is not helpful and or telling somebody like, just ask for help and I’ll help. That means that person gets to check in and out of that work. The other person has to constantly be in the work. And so…

The other layer of this, think that can be really difficult is when somebody says, like, just tell me what to do or make me a list. I can give you a list, but oftentimes that list has 10 other things attached to it, right? So like, it can be very hard to say, like, okay, can you fold the laundry? But also when you fold the laundry, I need you to notice that the lint has to be cleaned out and that we’re running low on laundry pods and that our son has ripped three of his pants and I need to buy three new pairs of pants.

Julie Fried (09:22.375)
Mm-hmm.

Paige (09:37.638)
And like all of that, right, like happens with something. So when you’re the person who’s kind of mentally keeping track of all of those things, somebody can fold the laundry, but they haven’t taken away all of those other pieces. So they’re just doing one simple thing. And I think that’s why that question is so grating for a lot of people. I also think the other reason it’s grating is because you’re asking me to do one more thing. You’re asking me to make the list. And I already have this never ending to do list. What a lot of people get stuck in is this trap of like, it’s just easier if I do it myself.

Julie Fried (09:49.211)
Yeah.

Paige (10:07.394)
Like, I don’t want to have to make a list. I don’t want to have to explain the list. I don’t want to have to teach this person how to do it correctly or fix it when they do it wrong. I don’t want to have to get 10 calls from the grocery store. Yeah, exactly. So it’s like, it’s, it’s, that’s why that question is, it seems simple, but it’s so layered and so frustrating for so many.

Julie Fried (10:14.533)
Yeah, I get into that cycle.

Julie Fried (10:24.699)
I think a lot of people generally want to contribute more fairly but don’t even know how to step into that proactive ownership. So what does that actually look like in practice?

Paige (10:28.846)
Yeah.

Paige (10:32.91)
Mmm.

Paige (10:37.57)
Yeah, so I think it takes a long time, unfortunately. Like if you have fallen into this dynamic where it’s really disproportionate, where one person’s carrying a bulk of this invisible mental labor, it takes a really long time to hand it back off. I don’t think it has to take like years, but it can take time and effort. And it’s a layered thing because I think you can hand over chores or tasks to someone pretty quickly and easily. You can even hand over the mental load of those tasks in a pretty short amount of time.

What’s very difficult is to unlearn these dynamics and expectations within a relationship. And there are always new responsibilities coming at us and new work coming at us. And it’s very, very easy to slip into default positions and expectations if you are not consciously unlearning them and constantly working on it. So I always tell people for my husband and I, know, it probably takes us like 18 months to really get into a place where this wasn’t.

really a big conversation in our house anymore that we really got into a great place and repaired some of the damage that happens when it is inequitable, because that’s also a part of this conversation. But I think if you’re talking about the work and ownership over the work, it really starts with kind of reframing the narrative. One, being able to articulate what’s happening, having productive conversations, having intentional conversations. Like you cannot keep having these conversations in passing, like, you never take out the trash or, you never empty the dishwasher.

Julie Fried (11:42.182)
Yeah.

Paige (12:02.314)
those are never productive really. Like we don’t really get anywhere meaningful in those conversations. I really encourage couples to sit down with two hours to really talk about it. And then once a week sitting down to revisit the conversation. Like this is a practice that you’re gonna have to keep doing. And then when it comes to the actual work, you have to make this labor as visible as possible. I tried the fair play game. The card deck didn’t work for me. If you’re not familiar, it’s a deck of cards with a hundred tasks that typically happen in a house.

Julie Fried (12:30.865)
Didn’t work for us either.

Paige (12:32.46)
didn’t work for me. I had to turn that, like a version of that into a spreadsheet. That’s how I work. So I have a spreadsheet and in one column is my name and one column is my husband’s name and another column is outsource. Another column is, you know, whatever. it’s a babysitter, you know, a nanny at the time we had a nanny. We went through and we looked at it in a spreadsheet and we could kind of go back and forth. And the thing I loved about that is it made the accountabilities very, very clear. And I always tell people like, it’s not a bad thing to run your home, like a business.

Like when I used to work at a company, we had a sauna or monday.com and we would have clear accountabilities and people’s names attached to those tasks and it was very clear who was responsible for what. And if a ball got dropped, it was very obvious who dropped it, right? And we would have a conversation about, like why didn’t this deliverable meet its deadline? Like what was the issue? Like what was the roadblock? You have these conversations in a workplace, we don’t at home. We just assume that we’ll be able to run our home really efficiently.

Julie Fried (13:02.289)
Yeah.

Julie Fried (13:15.077)
Yeah.

Paige (13:30.764)
based off of gut instinct and like, can’t, like, that’s, that’s, think it’s a silly way of thinking. think our marriages and our partnerships and our relationship to our children can all operate more effectively and be, you know, I don’t know, like much more joyful when we have systems that we can build for the work that is not joyful, like the laundry and the cooking and the cleaning. Like, we can have systems for those things and that creates space.

Julie Fried (13:51.236)
Yes.

Paige (13:56.194)
so that way we can enjoy our lives with each other and not have to worry about the laundry and the dishes and the cooking and the cleaning and all of the things.

Julie Fried (14:04.505)
do you avoid becoming the manager of the system itself? I think that’s where I would get trapped up a lot. I think that’s where like resentment could sneak back in. Like because I worry like well I’ll create it but the other person is not going to keep up with it because like my husband’s brain doesn’t work the same way my brain works.

Paige (14:11.555)
Mmm.

Paige (14:24.682)
Mm-hmm. I think it’s important, like at the beginning, my husband and I had very clear accountabilities, right? So when we split up this work, we looked at that spreadsheet. I had an overwhelming amount of those tasks. My husband didn’t have as many. We started to rebalance and we had to slowly hand things over. So for example, I handed over dinner. That was not perfect right away, right? And I handed over groceries. That was not perfect right away. So we went one by one as we handed things over and it was like, hey, you did the grocery shopping fantastic. You didn’t get the yogurt that I eat.

Julie Fried (14:44.347)
Yeah.

Paige (14:53.312)
you didn’t get the cheese the kids eat. Like you didn’t, you bought food, like for sure, but not the food that the family’s eating. So let’s talk about it. And it very much has to be this mindset, like I said, that you two are a team working against the problem, which is this overwhelming amount of work. You are not fighting against each other. So if you’re partner, I say this also.

Before you can start any of this work, you have to know that your partner is a kind, thoughtful person who is willing and able to do this work and has your best interest in mind, wants you to be happy, all the things, right? So if you don’t have that and you have a partner who’s begrudgingly coming along just to quote unquote, meet the mark or make you happy or check a box, probably not gonna…

Julie Fried (15:35.587)
where we’re going to suggest some level of therapy for you guys. Like you guys need something else.

Paige (15:38.114)
Something else, yeah, you’re doing something else. You need something else. You can’t do this work with that person. I always knew that I had a husband who wanted to have a happy home and have me be happy and have it be fair. Like he never wanted it to be unfair, right? So I had that. Which meant we could have conversations without anger or assuming ill intent when it came to the groceries. I could say to him, like, hey, I know you didn’t intentionally not buy my yogurt.

But that yogurt is something that I eat for breakfast every day. And I know you’re not here when I have breakfast, so you’ve never seen me eat that yogurt, so you don’t know that I’m eating that yogurt. I need you to buy that yogurt, okay? And you have to be able to have those conversations with each other in a productive way without assuming that your partner was trying to mess it up or trying to not buy your, exactly. Again, knowing who your partner is. So you have to be able to have those conversations. I also think you have to build together.

Julie Fried (16:23.546)
Yeah, assume positive intent.

Julie Fried (16:29.737)
Yeah.

Paige (16:34.156)
So when we came up with, our home has a laundry system, when we came up with our laundry system, it was a conversation, which was, this is how we’re gonna do laundry. This is the day we assigned days to each person. So this is how we’re doing the days. Why are we doing the days this way? It cannot be, for some things maybe it can, but like overwhelmingly, I think it has to be a conversation of, okay, this is the, when my husband does dinner, like this is the meals I’m thinking about for the week. Does that work? And me maybe saying like, actually I’m traveling that night.

So like, you’re probably not gonna wanna make a four star meal. I’m not even gonna be home. You you’re gonna be by yourself with the four kids. Yeah, like let’s have a realistic conversation. So I think that’s the thing about like, who’s creating the system. In an ideal world, you create it together. If you’re not creating it together, you’re at least presenting it to each other and getting buy-in. And then you’re kind of going through what that looks like.

Julie Fried (17:07.792)
Yeah, we’re gonna bust out those dino nuggets.

Julie Fried (17:27.548)
think it’s very interesting because you kind of just look at these and on the surface all of these systems just sound like very, very logical, but they’re actually so emotional underneath because once people start talking about fairness and responsibility and exhaustion, I mean it stops being about the dishwasher pretty quickly. So I think it hits a lot of nerve for people and I think a part of that is because invisible labor is tied to

Paige (17:38.552)
Totally.

Paige (17:48.59)
Mm-hmm.

Julie Fried (17:57.494)
identity and worth and guilt and parenting and all of it so I want to talk about the emotional side of this because I don’t think we can separate the systems from the feelings attached to them. I think the topic brings up lot of defensiveness and resentment and burnout. Why do you think that hits such a nerve especially for women?

Paige (17:58.968)
Mm-hmm.

Paige (18:07.618)
Mm-mm.

Paige (18:18.03)
Well, think when you carry a disproportionate amount of the invisible labor, it can feel like the work that you do isn’t valued, right? When we say invisible, it doesn’t mean it’s not actually visible. Like lot of invisible labor is something you can see. Like you can see me do it if you were home, right? But like if you’re not here or you’re not the one paying attention to it, it’s not actually necessarily invisible. Some of it is, right? It’s the planning and the thinking and the anticipating, like that’s invisible. But a lot of what we view as invisible labor can also maybe like interchangeably be unpaid labor.

Julie Fried (18:24.709)
Yes.

Julie Fried (18:30.597)
Yeah.

Julie Fried (18:38.011)
Yeah.

Paige (18:48.084)
is labor that is not valued, right? It’s not valued. And I remember actually my crash out, my breakdown moment was over the dishwasher. It was over several things, but the dishwasher was one of them. And I remember thinking to myself, like, he doesn’t see me. He doesn’t care. Like, it felt like, I know to him, it’s just the dishwasher. To me, it’s him not caring about me or my time or valuing me. That’s really what it felt like in the moment. I was like, he literally does not care.

Julie Fried (18:59.015)
Yeah.

Julie Fried (19:17.031)
100 % yeah, I can recall my husband and I having a conversation about the mental load and about this and I was like it feels very mean like what you’re doing like because it feels like you’re saying this and he was like oh my god that’s not at all in my head and I was like I know but that’s what it feels like so you have to understand that’s why I need and he was like okay okay I got it I got it and that was a very helpful conversation

Paige (19:27.394)
Mm-hmm.

Paige (19:42.572)
Yeah, yeah. It can be if you’re able to, that’s why I say like articulating it is really important or like finding a way to have these conversations that is productive and being able to share these things. Totally, because I could have yelled at him about the dishwasher, but like he wasn’t gonna be able to hear me. Like I had to say like, when you do that, it makes me feel like you don’t see me, that you don’t care that when you didn’t do that, it means I had to, which means it made me late for work, which means the kids were crying and like it was a whole, like I need you to see.

Julie Fried (19:50.607)
Yeah, know how each of you communicate for sure.

Paige (20:11.852)
the ecosystem, right, that I’m operating with. And I think the reason resentment, frustration, burnout, know, exhaustion, it’s just, it’s repeated feelings of not being valued. And when you don’t feel valued, you start to feel resentful and you feel taken advantage of. And it’s really hard to feel, I remember saying to my husband, like, I, it also feels like a lack of capacity. I don’t have capacity to care about your feelings right now because I’m so burnt out and so exhausted.

Julie Fried (20:13.564)
Yeah.

Julie Fried (20:38.216)
Yeah.

Paige (20:40.972)
and I’m not only managing our life, but I’m also managing our kids and their feelings and what they need. And you, I don’t have capacity for you because you don’t even see me, right? So like if there’s one person I don’t have capacity for that I feel resentful towards, it is you because also you create so much of the work that I’m taking on. Like you’ve, and so I think it can be really frustrating. think there’s many reasons people feel resentment. I remember the time.

feeling like, I didn’t have the word resentment. It can feel like hatred. It can feel like really content for this person that you love and it can feel really confusing because you’re like on surface level. I like this person. I have fun with this person. I can laugh with this person. But today, the sight of them is infuriating to me and their laundry makes me angry. And that feels.

Julie Fried (21:26.461)
Yeah.

Paige (21:27.094)
That doesn’t feel good. Like I didn’t feel good when I felt it. Like I was like this, and I remember feeling like this is irrational. Like in my brain I’d like, Paige, this is irrational. Like you’re angry about the dishwasher. And until I could realize it like it has nothing to do with the dishwasher. It has to do with the fact that I am taking on so much work and I’m feeling unseen. And to your point, it’s inherently unfair. And I can tell he’s trying. So why is this so hard? Like.

Julie Fried (21:53.565)
Yeah.

Paige (21:54.092)
You know, I think that’s the thing that a lot of us come up against is like you’re married to a good person who wants good things for you and yet you’re so incredibly angry in the moment and that can feel like very contradictory.

Julie Fried (21:59.004)
Yeah.

Julie Fried (22:08.197)
Have you seen, obviously, know, Fair Play came about and kind of made a big name for itself and then you see all these other Instagrams pop up and things like that. Have you started to see cultural expectations around motherhood and partnership start to shift?

Paige (22:24.012)
I think women have started to shift what they expect in partnership. don’t think culturally we have seen a significant shift, unfortunately. I think we’re living in a point in time where there’s a huge push towards traditional gender roles. And I think we’re seeing a rollback. You know, I always tell people, I think it’s important to zoom out when we have these conversations. Like, yes, we feel these things in our home, but chances are you ended up in a position.

Julie Fried (22:27.312)
Yup.

Paige (22:52.696)
where you’re carrying a disproportionate amount of this work, not because you married this awful person who like plopped it on your lap, even though that’s true for some people, but you’ve ended up here because of societal conditioning and expectations we have of men and women. You’ve ended up here because of systemic barriers, like the lack of paid parental leave, the lack of affordable childcare, the gender wage gap in the workplace. like, we end up here almost by design, right? Like if you didn’t end up in this position, chances are you were incredibly intentional.

at making sure that didn’t happen because for the majority of people, it happens very slowly over time because this is how our system was designed. It was designed for women to take on a disproportionate amount of this work. And so in order for that not to happen, you have to work really, really hard at it. And so unfortunately, I think women are waking up to the fact. I have young girls who message me all the time, which I love, who are in their 20s and they’re like, I refuse to have this happen to me.

Julie Fried (23:46.19)
Yay!

Good!

Paige (23:51.168)
It is amazing. think unfortunately on the flip side of that, we’re not seeing that same. I think the messaging is not meeting the men, which is something women are still the ones tasked with educating their partners and changing these expectations with their partners. And I think unfortunately right now we’re in this moment in time where if we want these changes in our homes, we have to make these changes in our homes. I do feel

Julie Fried (24:15.259)
Yeah.

Paige (24:17.558)
I do feel hopeful that over time that will ripple out into the world, right? Like if my home is like this and your home is like this and my son grows up and his home is like this, it’s like that will ripple out. More and more children will grow up expecting that, seeing that.

Julie Fried (24:32.763)
That is the hope I have. I know you’ve got four kids. I’ve got just the one. I’ve got a 17-month-old as of recording this. And I hope that she grows up and sees, like, well, the man should help because he, like, my dad loves my mom so much and wants to make things easier for her. Like, that’s just why. Like, of course he should. Of course everything should be equal. And I hope that…

Paige (24:34.786)
Yeah, I do.

Paige (24:43.864)
Mm-hmm.

Julie Fried (25:01.787)
that she sees that and that she feels that and that her generation expects it.

Paige (25:05.055)
Yeah. Yeah, I actually think I hope it goes even further than that. You you just mentioned like he does it to make my mom’s life easier. I think in general in partnership, we should always be making each other’s lives easier. Like that’s the goal, right? It’s like your partner shouldn’t make your life harder. Life is hard. Parenting is hard. Work is hard. Everything’s hard. But your partner shouldn’t be the reason your life is harder, right? But the thing that I hope for is almost like a second layer to that, which is it’s so…

Julie Fried (25:16.369)
Yeah.

Paige (25:30.03)
normal and natural, they don’t even think that we’re doing it to make each other’s lives easier. We’re just doing it because that’s what you do. That’s like what it is to be in a home, right? Like my husband doesn’t fold the laundry to make my life easier. That’s just what you do. There’s laundry. Like we have to do laundry. so we all, know, dad cooks dinner because we have to eat dinner, right? So it becomes very much like, you know, I’m trying to teach my kids, my kids are much older than yours at this point. My oldest is gonna be nine soon.

Julie Fried (25:38.311)
to be a part of the family.

Julie Fried (25:44.785)
Yeah.

Paige (25:56.32)
We’re having conversations about, you the other day he’s like, you forgot my baseball belt. And I said, well, mom brings your baseball belt, you know, sometimes because I’m trying to be helpful. But like at the end of the day, I’m not playing baseball. know, I’m not playing baseball. So we’re having these conversations. I remember my son too once being like, why do I have to put my plate in the dishwasher? He’s like, you used to do that for me. And I’m like, yeah, I did used to do that for you because you were little and.

Julie Fried (26:10.216)
That’s your responsibility.

Paige (26:23.896)
When you’re little, I’m teaching you what it looks like, but that’s your plate, right? This is our house. You can put your plate in the dishwasher, right? So we’re having these conversations about like what it looks like to be responsible for yourself and how you show up in a home. it just is an expectation in our home. It’s like you wear clothes, you put your laundry away. Like that’s just what it’s like. Not because you’re helping me, but because that’s.

Julie Fried (26:42.182)
Yes.

Paige (26:46.626)
That’s just what it looks like. And my son now, it’s funny, comes home with them, they get stickers at school for good behavior, for certain things. They have certain things that they can get seen for and excited about. They get to call home. And three times this year, he’s gotten them and every single time it’s because he’s been helping other friends clean up or helping put chairs away or helping. And he very much sees it as work that is normal and expected for him to do. It is not someone else’s job. It is his job.

Julie Fried (27:14.141)
Yeah.

Paige (27:15.82)
And it’s so natural for him at this point, you know, at nine years old. And so that is what I hope is that it becomes just not even something they think about. It’s just like, yeah, of course. Like, yeah, that’s what everybody does, right? I know we won’t get there overnight, but I do hope we do. I hope we do.

Julie Fried (27:29.774)
Yeah. For someone who’s listening and just feels completely overwhelmed and so stuck in that default adult role, where is the best place to start?

Paige (27:35.832)
Mm.

Paige (27:42.85)
I think first and foremost, you know, that making the invisible visible part can be really helpful just because it can feel really validating, right? So when you’re feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, a lot of times like we have this like blame function where we feel shame and blame. We’re like, this is my fault. I chose the wrong husband. I didn’t set up good enough systems. I’m not optimizing my time enough. I should wake up at 5 a.m. Like we reflect and look at ourselves and we say we’re doing it wrong.

Julie Fried (28:00.221)
Yeah.

Paige (28:10.382)
I’m doing something wrong. Something here is a mess, but it’s my fault. I encourage people to like make that invisible labor very visible. Write it down. I always put mine in a reminders app, always. sometimes it’s very overwhelming to look at, right? I’m looking at my reminders app right now. I have 11 due at the moment, 36 total, 12 for today. I do that though, because when I’m feeling moments of overwhelm, I can look at it and be like, okay.

Like obviously I’m feeling overwhelmed. have 25 things on my to-do list today. I can’t get all that done. What do I need to put off? What doesn’t have to get done? What can my partner help with? What can I outsource? Like what, what, you know, I think one that can be really validating cause it shows you, you’re not exhausted and overwhelmed for no reason. It’s not because you’re not doing a good enough job. So again, this is kind like that zoom out feature where it’s like zoom out. Like if you were a fly on the wall watching this happen, would you think that the solution to this is that that person had to get up at 4 a.m.?

Julie Fried (28:44.081)
Yeah.

Paige (29:07.8)
to make that all happen and sacrifice their sleep? Or would it be that there’s just too much on their plate, right? So I think if you’re in that position, like taking that zoom out feature, and then I think secondarily to that, getting comfortable having conversations about this, I think for really long time, I know I did this, I know many women who have done this, I kept it all very close to the chest. I didn’t tell anybody that I was struggling, I didn’t tell anybody I was unhappy, I didn’t tell anybody I was drowning and exhausted and resentful, and I didn’t say it to my sister or my mom, I didn’t tell anybody, like I was like,

Julie Fried (29:09.713)
No.

Julie Fried (29:29.8)
Mm-hmm.

Paige (29:36.608)
I was just like suffering in silence. And yeah, and I think that makes it even harder.

Julie Fried (29:39.47)
same. And I can remember a dinner where I sat with my girlfriends and I was just like, you know what’s something really annoying that happened? And then they all had a story. And I thought, why aren’t we talking about this? Like, this is not to bash our husbands. We all have lovely partners. But like, we need to be talking about this.

Paige (29:51.886)
Of course, of course.

Paige (29:56.718)
Mm-hmm.

Paige (30:04.854)
Yes, we tell women in particular, I don’t think we actually tell men this as much as we tell women, marriage is hard. Marriage is hard. We don’t often tell women what that hard looks like. We don’t often tell women how to manage the hard stuff. We actually tell women to be quiet, like don’t speak up about that. Don’t talk about that. Don’t complain about your husband. Like don’t talk poorly about your husband because then everybody will remember that you said that and then they’ll think about your husband that way.

Julie Fried (30:17.937)
Yeah.

Julie Fried (30:32.584)
Yeah.

Paige (30:34.326)
And I don’t actually view this as talking badly about your husband. I think it’s one of those things where it’s like, if you are struggling in a relationship, chances are there’s somebody who’s walked through that. There’s somebody who resonates with that. There’s somebody you can talk to. And for me, the first person I ended up actually having these conversations with was my therapist. And now I’ve become the person who like everybody tells me like what they’re going through, which is great. I’m happy to be that person.

Julie Fried (30:58.738)
Yeah.

Paige (31:02.008)
But I find that the second one of us opens up, the more normalized it becomes to have these conversations, the less alone we feel. And the more that we’re willing to share, like this morning I shared on my Instagram stories, like how I manage my mornings. it’s like, sometimes I remember sitting at a dinner, actually with my girlfriends, we were at a restaurant eating sushi. And one of them said, can we just talk about laundry for like a minute? And she’s like, how are we doing laundry? And it was like,

Julie Fried (31:08.808)
Peace.

Paige (31:28.632)
That’s not really what we wanna be talking about, but we talked about laundry probably for 45 minutes and it was funny and we still had fun and I was like, well, this is how I do it this is how you do it and why do you do it that way? And we all had our reasons, but we got to walk away and say, interesting, I kinda like what she does or I kinda like what they do or no, that doesn’t work for me. But even in just talking about something like laundry, we were able to learn from each other, feel less alone in it.

and go home and maybe assess what’s working, what’s not working. So I just think it’s one of those things where this is the kind of domain where we want everybody to be quiet, keep it private. When in reality, this is all consuming for us, so why wouldn’t we have conversations about it?

Julie Fried (32:09.04)
Yes. Ugh, Paige, this has been so eye-opening and incredible. Before we wrap, please tell everyone where they can find you online, how they can work with you. I know we’ve got a free guide. We’re gonna drop that in the show notes. You’ve got a sub stack. We’re gonna put that in the show notes. Tell us about your new podcast. Give me all the things.

Paige (32:21.624)
Mm-hmm.

Paige (32:26.892)
Yeah. Okay. You can find me on all social media at she is a page Turner. My sub stack is the same. My I’m on LinkedIn. So if you’re in the corporate world and that’s where you hang out, I’m a LinkedIn as well under my name page canal. And then yeah, I have a new podcast that just dropped last month. So we’re very excited. We officially just hit a month mark and

It’s really fun, it’s called the Just Us Girls podcast. It is with my friends, Katie and Sam, also moms, but it’s not a motherhood podcast and it’s not a mental load podcast. I always joke with people that I built an entire platform on the invisible labor and mental load that women carry, but day to day in my life, it’s not what I’m talking about, you know, every single day. And I have lots of things I care about, I have a full life and that podcast is meant to be like a fun.

Julie Fried (33:07.954)
Yeah.

Paige (33:15.352)
group chat with your girlfriend, like what you talk about over coffee with your friends and like just to be like talking about whatever it is you want to talk about, the book you read, the show you watched, the pants you bought, whatever. And so it’s been a lot of fun doing that and kind of departing from the mental load conversation, even though last week I think I talked a lot about, talked a lot about domestic labor.

Julie Fried (33:35.068)
Still it’s a different setting, it’s fun.

Paige (33:37.344)
It’s a different setting. It’s just deeply ingrained in me. It’s such a big part of my life. So, but yeah, so that podcast is really fun. So if you’re looking for a fun podcast, that is the Justice Girls podcast. And yeah, otherwise you can find me pretty much everywhere. I’m on all the platforms.

Julie Fried (33:53.448)
Alright everyone, before we wrap it is time for the system to shut down. Today we are assigning different kinds of mental load to Bravo shows because honestly the overlap is alarming. Alright, first up, Below Deck. Managing everyone else’s needs while quietly having a breakdown in a hallway while barefoot.

Paige (34:04.952)
Hehehe.

Mm.

Julie Fried (34:14.62)
The Real Housewives carrying mental, emotional tension, social calendars, and at least one passive aggressive text thread. Top Chef opening the fridge and entering a high-stakes psychological competition. Southern Charm watching grown adults create preventable problems in real time. And finally, Vanderpump Rules, one person doing all the actual work while everyone else spirals emotionally. And somewhere out there, one exhausted woman is loading the dishwasher

while whispering previously on.

I loved this conversation because it put language around something so many people experience but struggle to explain. The mental load is not just about tasks, it’s about anticipation and tracking, remembering, noticing, quietly carrying the responsibility for things before anyone else even realizes they matter. And honestly, sometimes the most powerful system isn’t becoming more efficient, it is making invisible work visible enough that it can finally be shared.

you feel seen, send it to someone else who might need it too, a friend, a partner, a fellow default adult quietly running an entire household off mental spreadsheets and caffeine. If you enjoyed today’s episode, make sure you are subscribed to the System for Everything wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss an episode. I’ll see you next week.