The costumes. The candy. The decorations. The group chats about who’s trick-or-treating with whom. Halloween is supposed to be fun—so why does making the magic feel like another full-time job?

In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner unpacks the invisible work behind Halloween—and why so much of it falls to moms. From planning costumes and keeping children safe to navigating friendship drama and the rising expectations of “boo baskets,” Leah explores how one night of fun can become weeks of organizing, worrying, and doing more

She also discusses the extra planning involved when children have sensory sensitivities, are neurodivergent, or live with a disability—and the work parents do to make a holiday feel welcoming when it wasn’t designed with their child’s needs in mind

Plus, a story about a painstakingly handmade mermaid costume raises an important question: Are we creating the memories our children actually want—or exhausting ourselves trying to deliver the ones we think they need?

Whether you love Halloween or wish you could switch off the porch light and skip it, this episode offers permission to take shortcuts, share the work, and let go of the extras that don’t bring your family joy.

In this episode

• The hidden work of making Halloween magical.
• How social media and new traditions keep raising the bar.
• The emotional work of friendships, inclusion, and being left out.
• Safety concerns, sensory needs, and planning for different experiences.
• How to decide what to keep, delegate, or drop this holiday season.

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

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

You ask for help, but nothing happens. Eventually, you stop asking. Or you make a decision “for the family”—only to realize your needs are the ones that keep coming last.

In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner unpacks three forms of power in relationships: the obvious power of saying no, the quieter power that stops you from asking, and the invisible power hidden inside decisions that seem fair. Drawing on sociological research and her own work on marital dynamics, Leah explores how everyday negotiations over housework, careers, and family responsibilities can leave one partner doing more while the other gets more say.

From the “nag paradox” to the thinking work behind supposedly shared decisions, this episode asks: Are you making choices for both of you—or consistently putting one person first? Leah also explores how partners trade support over time, when those trade-offs become unequal, and how to start making room for your own goals, rest, and ambitions.

In this episode

• Why ignoring a request can be an exercise of power.
• What happens when you stop asking because you already expect a no.
• How “we decided” can hide one person doing all the planning.
• Why decisions made “for us” don’t always benefit both partners.
• Recognizing when to push back and ask for what you need.

#MissPerceived #Relationships #RelationshipDynamics #InvisibleLabor #ProfLeahRuppanner

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

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

Does it actually matter for your relationship if your partner carries more of the emotional load? In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner breaks down a new study from the University of Southampton that goes beyond who does the dishes and digs into something more surprising: the link between emotional labor, relationship satisfaction, and sexual satisfaction.

Leah explains the key distinction this research reveals — men doing more housework and emotional/family-management tasks boosts women's overall relationship satisfaction, but it's specifically emotional labor toward the partner (knowing when you're upset, taking care of you when you're sick, understanding your emotional needs) that predicts sexual satisfaction. She also unpacks a fascinating gender split in the data: women report the most satisfaction when things are split equally, while men report the most satisfaction the more their partner takes on — a mismatch that can quietly fuel resentment and burnout in relationships.

Drawing on her book Drained, Leah connects this to a bigger pattern: men often see offloading domestic labor as an investment in the family's future, while women often feel guilty taking on less, because they've been taught that 100% of their energy should go to their families. If you want to understand why your relationship might be hitting friction points around who does what, this episode breaks down exactly what the research says — and what to actually talk about with your partner.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — recording from Australia and new research on relationships

02:26 What is the mental load? A quick refresher

04:39 How researchers measured emotional labor, relationship nurturing, family management

06:57 The key finding: emotional labor to the partner predicts sexual satisfaction

09:12 Why women want equality, but men want investment — a gendered mismatch

11:38 How this mismatch creates relationship conflict and resentment

13:00 What happened during COVID when men carried more of the load

14:03 What to actually do: get strategic, not just "do more"

Resources Mentioned:

📄 Research: Verena Klein, Rotem Kalisher, Esra Ascigil, and Tanja Oschatz (University of Southampton)

📄 Related research: Sabino Kornrich on housework division and sexual frequency

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

🧠 Free Mental Load Assessment — Lighten Lab (lightenlab.com)

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

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

Nearly 1 in 4 adults have experienced a period of estrangement from a sibling — and it's more common (and more complicated) than most of us realize. In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner unpacks a new study out of Ohio State University that dug into 39 in-depth interviews to understand why adult siblings go no contact.

Leah breaks down the two major forces driving estrangement: parental behavior (favoritism, manipulation, and forcing siblings to "pick sides" after a parent-child conflict) and the sibling relationship itself (destabilizing conduct, safety threats, and childhood bonds that were never really built). She shares personal stories from friends navigating estrangement, explains the concept of family systems and triangulation, and connects all of it back to the mental load — the emotional scanning, relationship repair work, and guilt that estranged (or nearly estranged) families create.

If you've ever felt like your family "doesn't understand your world," or you're carrying guilt about a sibling relationship that isn't what it's supposed to be, this episode offers real permission to step back, set boundaries, and stop measuring your worth by an outdated obligation to stay close no matter what.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — sibling estrangement is more common than you think

02:54 The data: nearly 1 in 4 adults have been estranged from a sibling

05:18 Family systems theory and triangulation

07:36 Parental partisanship: favoritism and the "scapegoat" child

09:59 When sibling relationships become collateral damage in parent conflict

12:21 Why some generations never learned to resolve conflict

14:38 Destabilizing conduct, risk containment, and sibling violence

18:15 Absent foundations: when childhood bonds were never built

20:39 How family estrangement fuels your mental load

21:30 Permission to put people on the "periphery" without guilt

23:01 Setting boundaries doesn't make you a bad person

Resources Mentioned:

📄 Research: Rin Resnick, Kane Taurus Beltran, and Candace Cretchfield (Ohio State University) on adult sibling estrangement

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

🧠 Free Mental Load Assessment — Lighten Lab (lightenlab.com)

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.

#MissPerceived #FamilyEstrangement #SiblingRelationships #MentalLoad #Drained #ProfLeahRuppanner

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

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

Is optimizing every minute of your day actually making your life better — or just burning you out faster? In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner makes the case that optimization culture, especially prevalent in the US, is quietly destroying our ability to rest, create, and simply live.

Leah traces how we came to treat time itself as a resource to be maximized — a relatively recent social conditioning that emerged with industrialization — and explains why getting time back (from grocery delivery, AI, or any efficiency hack) rarely translates into rest. Instead, we immediately reinvest that saved time into more productivity, repeating a pattern seen since the first industrial revolution: every gain in efficiency just raises the bar for what "enough" looks like.

She connects this to her research on the mental load, sharing a striking story about a woman who drops the activities that bring her joy in order to make more room for stressful, "productive" problem-solving — and asks why we've been trained to treat rest as wasteful. Leah also explores what Gen Z's resistance to hustle culture might mean for the future of work, and why AI and automation may only intensify the pressure to optimize rather than relieve it.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — is optimization good?

01:00 Why optimization pressure feels different in the US vs. Australia

02:20 How eroded social safety nets fuel the need to "game the system"

04:41 Getting time back doesn't mean getting rest back

06:00 A brief history: how time became a resource to optimize

07:00 The fourth industrial revolution: AI, automation, and rising standards

09:23 A woman's insight: dropping joy to make room for "productive" stress

11:48 Why younger generations are rejecting hustle culture

13:00 What happens when optimization stops being efficient at all

14:14 How to reclaim mental space instead of constantly optimizing

Resources Mentioned:

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

🧠 Free Mental Load Assessment — Lighten Lab (lightenlab.com)

📄 Bill Gates' annual letter on AI and the future of work

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.

#MissPerceived #Optimization #MentalLoad #Drained #ProfLeahRuppanner #Burnout #FutureOfWork

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

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

Can teaching your kids to notice mess actually lighten your mental load? In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner shares a simple, viral tip from her friend Kate Mangino's Good Housekeeping article that's already resonating with thousands online.

The idea is deceptively simple: we're not born noticing mess, disorder, or what needs to be done — we're taught to notice it. Kate's solution? Walk her kids around the house and ask them what they see as a problem. It didn't work perfectly at first, but over time, her children learned to notice what needed doing without being asked — and even started noticing different things at other people's houses, building empathy along the way.

Leah connects this to her own research on the "messy house study" and the double standard men and women face around mess — including the surprising finding that men do see the mess just as clearly as women do. The real gap isn't perception, it's the emotional weight of noticing and feeling responsible for fixing it. This short but powerful episode gives you one concrete, doable tool to start redistributing that invisible mental load today.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — a tip from Kate Mangino that went viral

01:00 We're not born noticing mess — we're trained to

02:22 Teaching kids to notice: what Kate Mangino's family experiment looked like

03:00 Why noticing at other people's houses builds empathy

03:30 The gender socialization behind who notices what

04:44 Leah's own research: men see the mess just as much as women

05:30 Why "noticing" is really about emotional labor, not perception

06:00 How to try this with your own family

Resources Mentioned:

📰 Kate Mangino's article in Good Housekeeping on teaching kids to notice housework

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

🧠 Free Mental Load Assessment — Lighten Lab (lightenlab.com)

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 #MentalLoad #Drained #ProfLeahRuppanner #Parenting #DomesticLabor

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

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

Friday Night Lights, weekly spirit-day outfits, tailgates, private coaches, group chats tracking every practice and sign-up — Professor Leah Ruppanner just moved back to the US after 13 years in Australia, and youth sports culture hit her like a truck. In this episode of MissPerceived, Leah unpacks how American youth sports have become a multi-thousand-dollar investment in kids' "dreams," why it's a hedge that rarely pays off, and how it quietly reshapes the family mental load — including sharp gender divides in which sports (and which kids) actually get the resources.

Leah shares stories from her own daughter's flag football season, contrasts American sports culture with the more community-focused, less commercialized approach she saw in Australia, and dives into research showing that while dads are often the ones handling sports logistics and correspondence, moms still end up doing the invisible cleanup work when something falls through the cracks. She also introduces a live research project on where your family's school and extracurricular correspondence is really coming from — and invites you to be part of the data.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — back in the US and immersed in Southern sports culture

01:30 A new research project: where is your correspondence coming from?

02:26 Why dads often take the lead on sports logistics (and where it breaks down)

04:45 Youth sports as a "lottery investment" in your child's future

07:11 Friday Night Lights: money, tailgates, and weekly spirit outfits

09:11 The gender gap: cheerleaders, flag football, and unequal investment

09:34 Comparing US and Australian sports culture

11:50 How you can contribute to Leah's live research on sports and the mental load

Resources Mentioned:

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

Free Mental Load Assessment — Lighten Lab (lightenlab.com)

Upcoming survey: share your experience with youth sports and the mental load

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.

"The mental load doesn't exist. It's just something women made up to make men feel bad." If you talk about the mental load online, you've seen this comment — and in this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner takes it head on.

Leah unpacks why this response shows up constantly (and mostly from men) whenever she, Morgan Cutlip, or Zach Watson post about the mental load, and why the discomfort behind it actually proves the point. She traces the mental load back to 1970s research, redefines it as emotional thinking work (not just remembering things, but remembering things while carrying the anxiety of what happens if you forget), and explains why everyone — including the guy leaving the comment — carries a mental load, just distributed differently.

The episode also dives into a powerful listener comment about "linear" versus "messy middle" mental load: the privilege of simply thinking something and doing it, versus the exhausting work of anticipating, monitoring, and juggling a hundred what-ifs that never fully resolve. Leah connects this to her seven mental load stages from Drained and makes the case for why acknowledging invisible labor — at home and at work — is the first step to sharing it.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — becoming an "influencer" and reading the comments

01:00 The comment that keeps showing up: "the mental load isn't real"

02:16 Where the mental load term actually comes from (hint: the 1970s)

04:30 Redefining the mental load as emotional thinking work

06:48 Why everyone carries a mental load — just a different composition

09:06 Eloise's comment: linear mental load vs. the "messy middle"

11:23 Why moving through tasks without worry is actually a privilege

13:39 How to acknowledge invisible labor and start sharing it

Resources Mentioned:

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

🧠 Free Mental Load Assessment — Lighten Lab (lightenlab.com)

📄 Research: Leah Ruppanner, Liz Dean, and Brendan Churchill on the emotional thinking work definition of the mental load

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.

#MissPerceived #MentalLoad #Drained #ProfLeahRuppanner #GenderEquality #Relationships

Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner

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

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.