What happens when caregiving never ends — when you cared for your siblings as a child, your own children as an adult, and now your grandchildren in older age?

In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner discusses Grandmothering While Black: A 21st Century Story of Love, Coercion, and Survival by Lashonda Pittman, a powerful book based on interviews with over 75 Black grandmothers in Chicago raising their grandchildren. Leah unpacks the historical legacy of racism and family separation that shapes these caregiving arrangements today, the difference between multi-generational and “skipped generation” families, and the immense mental load these grandmothers carry while navigating broken welfare, healthcare, and housing systems — sometimes even having to hide the fact that grandchildren live with them just to access resources.

Leah connects this research to a much bigger question about care in every country: what do we lose when caregiving is coerced rather than chosen, and what would it look like if systems — not individual women — carried more of that weight?

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — a book that stayed with Leah all weekend 

02:16 Who is Lashonda Pittman, and what is Grandmothering While Black? 

04:35 The historical legacy of removing children from Black and Indigenous families 

06:53 Multi-generational vs. “skipped generation” families 

08:56 Navigating broken systems: welfare, housing, and hidden caregiving 

11:07 “There’s no break in the care” — a lifetime of caregiving across generations 

13:00 Judy’s story: “I’m ready for a life” 

13:31 What we lose when care is coerced instead of chosen 

14:30 Sweden’s approach: care systems designed to free people, not trap them 

15:30 A bigger question: why do we force caregivers to trade their ambitions?

Resources Mentioned:

📘 Grandmothering While Black: A 21st Century Story of Love, Coercion, and Survival by Lashonda Pittman 

📘 Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More by Professor Leah Ruppanner 

🏛️ Better Life Lab — Story Fellows Program

Stay Connected with Leah:

Instagram: @prof.leahruppanner 

Instagram: @lightenlab 

TikTok: @prof.leahruppanner 

Website: https://www.leahruppanner.com

Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe now: /@missperceivedpodcast

About MissPerceived:

MissPerceived is a weekly podcast hosted by Professor Leah Ruppanner, sociologist and author of Drained. Each week, Leah breaks down the gender myths and social systems shaping our lives — from mental load and caregiving to work, relationships, and identity. No PhD required. Just come hang out.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This description contains affiliate links.

#MissPerceived #Caregiving #GrandparentsRaisingGrandchildren #MentalLoad #Drained #ProfLeahRuppanner

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When employers demand that people return to the office full-time, who pays the biggest price?

In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner responds to a listener whose partner is being called back into the office — and whose family is already feeling the consequences. Leah explores what the research says about remote and flexible work, why it became essential for so many mothers’ employment during the pandemic, and why return-to-office mandates risk pushing women out of the workforce again.

But flexibility is not a simple fix. Leah unpacks the flexibility paradox: working from home can help women stay employed and manage caregiving, but it can also stretch the workday into early mornings, late nights, and an exhausting always-on cycle of paid work, parenting, housework, and guilt.

She also explains the unequal career trade-offs families make. Too often, women make career compromises “for the family,” while men are encouraged to accelerate their careers as breadwinners — even when both parents genuinely want more time with their children. The result is a gendered mental load, unequal long-term earnings, and a system that asks mothers to hold work and family together at once.

Chapters:

00:00 A listener asks: What happens when a partner is called back to the office?

01:30 Why return-to-office mandates can hurt women’s careers

02:20 Before COVID, men had greater access to remote and flexible work

03:00 The pandemic’s “exposure effect” — proving work could happen outside the office

04:39 How flexible work helped mothers remain employed

06:44 Why working from home is essential — and why it is not enough

07:30 The flexibility paradox: a resource that expands the workday

09:06 Remote work, maternal guilt, and never being able to clock out

10:00 The career trade-offs women make “for the family”

11:25 Why men and women often make different work decisions for the same family

13:44 Flexible work helps dads care more — without sacrificing their careers

14:30 Class differences in who can access flexibility and who faces job disruption

15:30 The gendered mental load of holding work and family together

Research Mentioned:

📘 For the Family: How Class, Gender, and the Family Shape Women’s Work by Sarah Damaske

📚 Research by Professor Heejung Chung on the “flexibility paradox”

📊 Research by Leah Ruppanner, Kristin Landevar, Katie Collins, William Scarborough, Lauren Ryan, and Brendan Churchill on flexible work, caregiving, and employment

📘 Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More by Professor Leah Ruppanner

Stay Connected with Leah:

Instagram: @prof.leahruppanner

Instagram: @lightenlab

TikTok: @prof.leahruppanner

Website: https://www.leahruppanner.com

Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe now: /@missperceivedpodcast

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does a strengths-based approach actually mean — and when does it become another way of asking people to solve impossible problems alone?

In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner responds to a listener’s thoughtful question about why her work focuses so much on structural barriers, inequality, and the systems that make life heavier. Leah explains the value of identifying your strengths, resources, resilience, and community support — but also why strength alone cannot fix unaffordable childcare, inaccessible healthcare, discrimination, or a broken labor market.

Through research on LGBTQIA+ families, the Mental Load Audit, and the sociological tension between structure and agency, Leah explores how we can use our existing strengths while still demanding collective solutions. You are powerful, resilient, and capable — but you were never meant to carry structural problems by yourself.

Chapters:

00:00 A listener asks: Where is the strengths-based approach?

01:30 What “strengths-based” actually means

02:23 Strengths-based vs. deficit-based thinking

03:00 The Mental Load Audit as a practical strengths-based tool

04:46 LGBTQIA+ families, shared experience, and community as a resource

07:06 The problem with “just try harder”

08:00 Why individual resilience can’t solve structural inequality

09:19 Structure and agency: what is yours to carry — and what is not?

10:00 Asking for help, sharing the burden, and building coalitions

11:42 Why lived experience is valuable research and knowledge

12:30 How we change systems without carrying the whole world alone

Resources Mentioned:

📘 Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More

🧠 Free Mental Load Assessment — Lighten Lab

📱 Follow along on Instagram for research insights and mental-load tools

Stay Connected with Leah:

Instagram: @prof.leahruppanner

Instagram: @lightenlab

TikTok: @prof.leahruppanner

Website: https://www.leahruppanner.com

Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe now: /@missperceivedpodcast

About MissPerceived:

MissPerceived is a weekly podcast hosted by Professor Leah Ruppanner, sociologist and author of Drained. Each week, Leah explores the gender myths and social systems shaping our lives — from mental load and caregiving to work, relationships, and identity. No PhD required. Just come hang out.

#MissPerceived #MentalLoad #StrengthsBasedApproach #Sociology #Drained #ProfLeahRuppanner #SocialChange

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Are you using AI at work — or quietly avoiding it? In this episode of MissPerceived, Leah digs into new research showing that women are about 25% less likely than men to adopt generative AI tools in their jobs. She explains what that means for careers, organizations, and the “brain” of AI itself, and why low female adoption could make AI less accurate for women’s experiences worldwide.

Leah walks through findings from Harvard Business School on global gender gaps in AI use, explores how unsupervised learning means our data is literally training the AI brain, and shows what happens when most of that data comes from men and from rich, English‑speaking countries. She also unpacks the mental load behind women’s hesitation: environmental worries, ethics, stereotypes that say women who use AI are “less competent,” and the pressure to prove your worth without help. Finally, she shares her own experience using AI, why it sometimes feels like “beautiful nonsense,” and asks what kind of future of work we actually want.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — are you using AI at work?

01:30 Future of Work Lab: automation vs. AI (what’s the difference?)

02:17 Harvard Business School findings: women 25% less likely to use AI tools

04:36 How your data trains the AI brain — and what happens when women are missing

06:56 Global gaps: rich countries, English speakers, and who AI really “sees”

07:30 Career consequences when women don’t adopt AI at the same rate

08:00 Organizational losses when only some workers use AI

08:50 Environmental and ethical worries as part of women’s mental load

09:16 Code for Good Now study: women seen as less competent when they use AI

11:45 Occupational sorting: why some jobs see more AI than others

12:30 Leah’s own experience: when AI makes her brain “lazy”

13:51 Generational differences: Millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha and tech skepticism

14:30 What kind of future of work do we actually want — and who gets to shape it?

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When someone you love gets a cancer diagnosis, you want to say the right thing — but often, what comes out does the opposite. In this very personal episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner steps away from the research for a moment to talk about her own recent diagnosis of breast cancer, and the wildly inappropriate (but often well‑intentioned) things people say in response. She shares the five big “please don’t”s she keeps hearing — plus what actually helps when someone is living through cancer or another serious chronic illness.

This isn’t about shaming anyone. Leah talks about the times she’s said these exact things to friends, why they come from fear and grief, and how we can all do better at holding space, dumping love in instead of out, and making it easier (not harder) for the person at the center of the storm.

Chapters:

00:00 Why this episode is different — Leah’s breast cancer diagnosis

02:28 Don’t tell me about someone else’s cancer story (especially the worst‑case ones)

04:36 Why other people’s stories shift the spotlight away from the person who’s sick

05:30 Don’t ask “what stage is it?” or quiz my screening history

06:59 The hidden message in “when was your last mammogram?”

09:22 When my diagnosis triggers your own fear: sharing your medical history

11:25 “I have a good feeling, you’ll be fine” — why that shuts down real feelings

13:46 Questioning medical advice when you’re not the oncologist

16:03 What actually helps: holding space, listening, asking what’s needed

18:14 Learning to slow down, receive care, and feel the collective love

What to say instead (Leah’s script you can steal):

• “This sucks. I’m so sorry you’re going through this.”
• “What do you need right now?”
• “How can I help?”
• “You don’t have to respond, but I’m thinking of you and I love you.”
• “I can call anytime — you don’t have to pick up.”

Resources Mentioned:

📘 Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More

🧠 More on the mental load and chronic illness in other MissPerceived episodes

Stay Connected with Leah:

Instagram: @prof.leahruppanner

TikTok: @prof.leahruppanner

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://www.leahruppanner.com

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Are you secretly preparing your kids for downward mobility? In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner asks a huge question many parents are quietly wrestling with: is upward mobility dead, and what does that mean for how we raise our children? Drawing on Annette Lareau’s classic research on concerted cultivation and natural growth, Leah unpacks how different parenting styles map onto class, opportunity, and mental load — and why so many parents feel stuck between dreaming big for their kids and just trying to make ends meet.

She explores why upper‑middle‑class parenting can feel like relentless investment and optimization, how working‑class and poor parents create more freedom and magic in kids’ everyday lives, and what newer research shows about what all parents think “good parenting” should look like. Most importantly, she asks whether constantly raising the bar is helping our children, or just burning everyone out in a system no individual family can out‑parent.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — is upward mobility dead?

01:30 Preparing kids for downward mobility: what parents are saying

02:27 Mental load, money stress, and families who are just making ends meet

03:00 Annette Lareau’s research: concerted cultivation vs. natural growth

04:46 What concerted cultivation looks like in everyday family life

07:04 Natural growth: rules for safety, freedom for play, kids’ worlds without adults

09:30 The upsides and downsides of each parenting style

10:30 Patrick Ishizuka’s studies: what all parents agree is “good parenting”

11:52 Why mothers hold themselves to harsher standards than fathers

13:23 The pressure to invest in everything — and why you can’t out‑parent billionaires

14:11 How to bring more fun, freedom, and lower stakes back into childhood

15:29 What works in your culture and family? Leah wants to hear from you

Resources Mentioned:

📘 Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if your brain works differently from everyone else’s — and you’re still expected to carry the same invisible load for your family, work, and life? In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner explores how neurodivergent folks (ADHD, OCD, bipolar, and beyond) experience the mental load in uniquely complex and often heavier ways. She breaks down the seven stages of the mental load, shows where things get especially hard when you’re prone to rumination, catastrophizing, or forgetting, and explains why social norms demanding perfection make all of this even more overwhelming.

Leah also shares what she’s learned from interviews and from living with a partner who has ADHD, and offers a gentler way forward: more compassion, more curiosity, shared systems, and dropping what doesn’t actually need your brain’s limited energy.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — neurodiversity and the mental load

01:00 What the mental load really is (beyond a to‑do list)

02:41 When your brain works differently: distraction, rumination, worst‑case thinking

05:03 The seven stages of the mental load: identify, remember, strategize, decide, delegate, execute, monitor

07:24 How ADHD, OCD, and other neurodivergences change each stage

09:41 Social norms that demand perfection — especially from women

11:55 Why this becomes a recipe for disaster (and it’s not your fault)

13:00 Using the Mental Load Audit: what to drop, delegate, and reduce

14:22 Conversations that help: explaining how your brain works to your family

16:00 Compassion, curiosity, and building better systems together

Resources Mentioned:

📘 Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More

🧠 Free Mental Load Assessment — learn your 8 mental load types

Stay Connected with Leah:

Instagram: @prof.leahruppanner

TikTok: @prof.leahruppanner

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://www.leahruppanner.com

Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe NOW: /@missperceivedpodcast

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most people say care is valuable. They believe childcare workers and home care aides are skilled and that governments and employers should help pay for care. But when you ask them what care actually costs — or what high-quality care really looks like — they are wildly off. In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner breaks down a new report from New America's Better Life Lab on what she calls the "care disconnect": the gap between how we feel about care and what we actually know about its price, quality, and impact on families. From US childcare costs and state-to-state differences to aged care, disability, and a Swedish example that will make you want to move tomorrow, Leah shows why we don't understand care until we're in it — and why that has huge consequences for our mental load and our future.

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you ever heard the term "lifecrafting"? It comes from a new piece of research out of UCL — and it describes something you might already be doing without knowing it: using your mental energy to deliberately think through the why behind your decisions and craft the life you want over time. In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner digs into this fascinating concept, connects it to her own research on the mental load, and then asks the harder question: is lifecrafting actually available to everyone — or is it a privilege reserved for those with the most resources? And why are young people booing at commencement speeches?

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — what is lifecrafting?

01:00 The UCL research: Frampton, Gould & Cox on lifecrafting and the mental load

01:45 How lifecrafting connects to Leah's "Meta Medicare" mental load type

02:18 Do you lifecraft? And has it gotten harder over time?

03:00 Why we encourage lifecrafting in young people — and why it's now backfiring

03:30 The commencement speech backlash: why students are booing

04:44 Structural forces that crush lifecrafting: inflation, AI, broken care systems

05:30 The gendered problem: women lifecraft for others, men lifecraft for themselves

06:00 Is lifecrafting only possible for the rich?

07:06 Individual agency vs. structural headwinds — a sociology superpower moment

08:00 Conclusion: lifecrafting is unequally distributed by income, gender, and age

09:27 Who is responsible for opening up lifecrafting to all?

10:00 What happens when young people stop seeing a future worth crafting?

11:00 Lifecrafting vs. dream building — how the concepts differ

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Leah posted one question on Instagram — "What do you hold to a higher standard in your household than anyone else?" — and got 26,000 views and 200 comments. The answer that came through louder than anything else? The clutter. The piles. The stuff that just sits there while everyone walks past it pretending it doesn't exist. In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner unpacks why household clutter is so emotionally activating, why it's a mental load issue hiding in plain sight, and what the research (and your comments) reveal about who's really responsible for making it disappear.

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

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A listener emailed Leah with a question straight from the middle of a relationship argument: what's the difference between equality and equity and which one should we actually be striving for? In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner breaks down one of sociology's most important distinctions and brings it all the way home, literally. From time-use research and the mental load to leisure time, burnout, and the economy of gratitude, Leah explains why your relationship probably needs both equality and equity, why getting stuck in only one is a trap, and why giving endlessly to everyone else while putting yourself last isn't equity: it's gaslighting yourself.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — a listener question sparks the episode

01:00 What is equality? Access, time use, and equal divisions of labor

03:00 Time-based equality in relationships — tracking who does what

04:08 Why time as a measure of productivity is becoming less useful in the AI age

06:21 The mental load and equality — what Drained adds to the picture

07:30 What is equity? Giving more to those who need more

08:39 The economy of gratitude — how households naturally use equity

09:30 Why mothers get stuck in the equity mindset and burn out

10:53 Equity without equality is gaslighting — and it needs to stop

11:30 How to undulate between equity and equality in your relationship

12:30 Kate Mangino: relationships balance out over time — but only if you're conscious of it

13:23 Brian Page and Modern Husbands: equal leisure time as a key equality measure

14:30 The beautiful cycle: inequality → equity → equality → repeat

15:29 Share your experience — Leah wants to hear what's working for you

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

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