Do You Have End Of Year Overwhelm?

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Hello, this is Teakindatolly and Annaly's Todd from this Glorious Mess.

Now.

We know that you have older kids, but we wanted to share an episode with you because it is universal. It really is this time of year, end of year, the overwhelm, the juggle, the struggle. It's real.

We're being dragged over the finish line of twenty We're twenty.

Ling, we're dragging, we're gripping. Whatever it is you're doing, let's do it together. We have a wonderful episode which we're sure you'll love.

And it's not just us winging about being tired.

We actually have a professional and expert who knows a lot more than us. It's Lauren Thornborough the Village, and she's got some practical advice of how to actually get you over the line of twenty twenty four and just smooth sailing into twenty twenty five.

We hope you.

Enjoy Hello and welcome to this glorious mess. We're embracing the chaos together, ditching the judgment. I am taking the tolly and I'm slowly but surely working my way throughout every Christmas concert, finale, school presentation, friend, family, Christmas shindig.

There's still a bloody month to go. Oh I'm Annaly's todd, I'm burnt out, I'm present, and I'm dragging myself across the finish line.

Oh well, that seems right on point, because today on the show, we're tired, and I don't think we're alone.

It's getting to that time of year.

Where everything starts to get just a bit hard. It's the last week of November, but it feels like this year has been dragging on and maybe, just maybe you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed.

How are you feeling, Anale? I have been feeling like this since Halloween. Hmmm, this year particularly.

I don't know what.

And so many of my girlfriends have said the same thing that this year everyone has felt end of year burnout since October. It's like Term three should have been the end of the year.

Please and thank you, because you know how term four is always a right off.

It's like your kids go for all, everyone so much on for them. There's so much on for us. We're not even there yet.

There's so much want to go and so muchot to do.

Oh my god, And I just try and pretend that I'm going away in December. So when people are like you've got this catch up or work this or that this and that this, I'm like, can we just do it in January when things are a little bit more.

Calm and you've got no plans? Like, what's the rush of.

Block out December? Yeah, tend you're away.

Yeah that's what I do. Yeah, you could photo shop yourself into holiday photos, post.

Them on Insta. No one will know.

And also like, because my kids are January babies, I'm like, no one should have children in December because they're never getting a party, or if they do, hardly anyone can come to it. Our poor kids, our poor kids. Everyone's away or busy doing busy stuff. So we are going to talk to someone who might be able to help us.

Please. Lauren Thornborough.

She co founded a company called the Village, which builds a network to empower and support parents.

And as always we'll hear from our friends Sarah Marie.

But first, here's what's happening in my group chat.

It's that time of year where you start thinking about Christmas presents, of course, and like teachers, there's all different types of teachers, aren't there. There's the school teachers, there's the daycare teachers, there's the dance teachers, the whatever teachers.

But for your kids, maybe to.

Poor coaches or whatever. I don't know what you always do.

Anyway, I was starting to ask my group Chad, what's some ideas for teachers school teachers? So apparently the department look at me. I'm getting all historical historian over here.

The Department of Education Code of Conduct specifies that it needs to be under fifty dollars and cannot be cash.

Oh that's fun, sponge nanny state.

Isn't it.

Teachers don't pay them enough at less you let them get a good gift, thank you. Yes, So some schools will not let teachers keep gifts from individual families. Above this, some will look come on, they've.

Got to declare it like a healthcare professor.

So if it is, the teacher would have to declare it to the department and fill out a form. But the way to get Merry Christmas, here's some more admin like, you don't do enough?

It was fifty one dollars. Here's a form. Who are you to know the value of the gift? Yeah?

Sorry, thank you? How much did this cost?

Sorry?

Before I can accept this to you just taking an inventory of all the gifts receiving Christmas receipt? Can you ask your mum to bring in the receipt? I know whether I have to declare.

It or not.

But there is a way which most classes and families do it, and it's the you know, the group together.

There's the lea is the only way?

Is it?

Someone for you? You'd be like Nicole has got this Nicole of the school and the class is always on to add your photo, You add your note and then send your money and just popular pay Apple pay and it's done for you.

Thank you, Nicole, Thank you Nicolet.

So they don't have to declare that they don't if being over fifty dollars, they don't because it's a grouped together.

This is the only one.

Are they going to sit down with the number of kids in the class and divide it by fifty. I don't know, but god, let's hope not. But we did get some extra points from a teacher in terms of what to give what not to give. Look, I'm surprised her candle didn't. I was going to say she would have been on that you do not give us another efving candle. But she did say please no mugs or plastic things. I'm not sure what plastic things really.

Mean, but things from like Sheen or like Timu.

Yeah, plastic, yeah, like just bits and bops, pick and knack, a brick, a bracket. Yeah. Plants are also great, that's lovely. Homemade things are the cutest. And her best gift ever was a class compiled a book of art pictures from the year and they all signed it and it was her favorite gift. But look, I think teachers deserve things.

Yeah, like the do the group present? Yeah.

Okay, So it is still only the end of November. How are we going to get through the next month?

I don't know.

Why does it feel like this last two months drags on so long? I feel like I am mentally and physically broken. It's beyond mental load, it's burnt out. It's like the car has no petrol, but it's just being pushed along like Dodge carts. But then you want to know the worst thing, You're about to go up an incline, so the car's run out of petrol and you're about to push it up the incline. Because I feel like at the moment, this is when it actually gets busier,

And then there's like work things. Oh the Christmas pot the one that hasn't organized because they're my bloody businesses.

That's worse.

It's even worse.

And then like if you do Christmas, do you decorate the house and get a tree? And oh, god forbid, you're going on a family holiday at some point of the breaks. I bet you're the one planning that too, you know, like there it just is relentless and.

This is a really silly little thing. But I even found the admin of getting in all of the end of your appointments for the maintenance because it's very busy, you know, like the hair appointments and getting the wax and.

Yeah, bits and pieces, and because they get very busy because everyone's trying to do the same thing before, they've.

Got to time your hair growth. It's just too much.

It's so much, and not to mention, like as I said before, being a business owner, this is our busiest time of year. So like we're busy trying to be.

Busy, yes, to make money, correct, Yes, and then it's like, oh, hold on, there's seventy five other things I need to do as well.

Do you know what's ridiculous?

I could not even secure and this was, you know, weeks and weeks ago. We tried to lock in in a two month window frame catch up with my girlfriends and our kids for Christmas, like a Christmas catch up with my core village. Yes, there was fifty different poles we could not secure one day. So we're just not doing it. Oh, we're grinching it because it was too hot. I love a pole for a Christmas end of your thing. I'm actually missing out on two of my main girl

Tinsel on high octane.

Every year, baby every year? Or maybe I don't know.

Maybe for me, the kids are getting busier, whereas like when they're at daycare and they have one end of your daycare party and that's it. Yeah, it's like school is hectic at end of years. I feel like you really dodge a bullet with boys in the sense that like, although my eldest has his end of year six graduation formal, that's cute and dance and I'm obviously insufferably excited.

Oh my gosh, you got a date.

I can't reveal his personal life.

Oh but like did they do that these days?

Yeah, they ask someone to go with they.

Still do they give them like a flat I think it's like Connell and Maryann from normal people. They don't actually interact in public, but like that's what all you, dick. It's like the kid you never talked to, but like, oh, we're going together, but we won't actually one photo together when we get there, and then we'll spend the rest of the time with our friends and not even communicate and our parents will froth over it. Yeah, great days, all right.

Despite all our bitching and moaning and whinging.

I'm sick of it. I'm sick of saying I'm tired. I'm sick of it.

I'm sick and tired. I've a lesbian second.

I need help do throw me alive.

It's taken us till the end of November to find it. But she's here and she's going to give us some advice. She's going to help us through because Lauren Thornborough is a mum of two and the co founder of the village, and she is a big believer in parents finding a community.

Yes to help is the mental load? This is like something that you might granted yourself.

Ah.

So we've got Lauren here today and we have got some questions for her.

So Lauren, hello, Welcome to this glorious mess.

We are hoping that you can help us be less of the mess more of the glorious.

Because mental load, it's evolved, hasn't it? We feel it? But can you explain how and why?

So?

Search terms for mental load actually have been increasing since twenty seventeen, which, if you think about it, kind of coincides with the rising cost of living and then if you dig into that a bit more, Ever in history have we had so many working parents in the workforce. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has said that seventy three percent of couple households have both parents working in some capacity. Yeah, and that's increased ten percent in the last nine years.

Until they get to school age or something, and we would share the physical and the mental load of raising kids.

Where does that go? Women statistically take on the mental load. So seventy eight percent of women either always taken on or taken on in some capacity. Wow, so you know our brains are.

Full, Yes, the brain string, there's none left. So what are some of the things that you've seen contribute to the mental load? Like, when you're talking about this mental load, what does that look like?

Anticipating the planning and the scheduling, anything to do with household chores, events or family needs. So if you think about it, it's did I r s VP to that party? You know, when am I going to do my washing this week? You know what dentists appointments do I have coming up? Have I cut the kids' hair recently like.

A dentist for a while.

My kids fringes down to their bottom lip. They need gout so bad.

But then but then match that right with working, yes on top, on top, and then unpaid care, like, that's something else to consider here. So on average, women do four hours of unpaid care the day and men do three. And women are doing three hours of childcare and men are doing two. So intertality, women are doing more paid and unpaid work collectively than what men are. I'm tired just thinking about that.

I've got anxiety. I would comfortably say that because we talk about mental load blurring into burnt out. Yes, I feel like I'm here, I'm at burnout. Yeah, how do you know the difference? Like, how do you get out of burnt out? Back to managing the mental load?

I mean, I don't know about getting out of burnout, but there's certainly tactics that you can the ones that are you are in control of of, And then there's one sort of structural in society that need to change. So in terms of what you can control like communication with yourself and your partner. Maybe that's not necessarily your case on a least, but to talk about in totally what are you managing together? What's yours, what's theirs? Write a list?

Yeah, yeah, I need to do if you.

Can't write a list, because I thought about that and I'm exhausted at the prospect of putting a list on my mental load list. There's this brilliant book called fair Play that Eve Rodsky wrote, and she has cards so you can visually see the things that are on your list and you can use that as a talking point or a way to structure your mental load. So I like to think about it in three buckets, right, what do I need to do today? What's vital today?

Micro break it down. It feels less just today. I feel less anxious thinking about just today.

And I feel like once you achieve one thing, then everything else seems less overwhelming.

Yeah, I got that done, So okay, that's the less they're going to do. Yeah, so we break down by today and then what's next?

Set a reminder for the next thing. I love my phone calendar invites. My husband always jokes that you know, oh, you've invited to take your pill this evening.

Well, you don't want me to forget that.

But yeah, like find ways to remind yourself later, or is it really necessary right now?

Like am I gonna lie on my deathbed and.

Think, Oh, I should have organized one hundred and fifty play dates for my kids versus nine hundred Finding ways to be in control of it and hack your way out of it. So I have a friend of mine. She just does washing on Wednesdays.

That's it, so you don't have to think.

Don't have to think about it six other days of the week. You know. I find a successful toy, I just buy that toy for every birthday party thereafter.

For the rest of it, I must. I've got go tos for birthday parties. It's like you're all getting the same thing.

I'm at cash stage.

Yes, even pay for parking if that helps you get to work in a less stressful way, if.

You can, and then cut back in other ways. Yeah, delegate, I buy a coffee. You know, you can bring your own lunch.

Yeah, but it takes structure, I guess. But it's so important because burnout is one thing, but mental load has been linked to mental health issues. So increase in anxiety, increase in depression. You know we are getting less sleep. Yes, the people that take on the mental load because you're up thinking about all the things.

And I think that very famous viral video of Maggie Dent talking to Kate Richie about how our mother's mind at night ticks that along at two am, thinking about oh did I give them my kid enough broccoli? Or did I got to book my eyebrows in for a wax? And you know the men.

Are sitting there going, is that what you guys like do? Like that's the mental load, especially of a mother. It's almost like, I feel like getting it out of our head could benefit us so much. I'm a big pen and paper girl, so I carry around a notepad. I love my phone and reminders and calendars and stuff like that, but I love to just have something physically in front of me that I can cross off or add two, that I can see next to whatever I'm doing, because

Than go oh god, you know like we did before the dentist, We've got to do that, pop it down. So then I'm like, Okay, now it's out of my head and onto the pay this.

And also I like the idea of the cards because then once you've achieved it, you can set on fire.

Burn it.

No more mental burn out because I've just burnt all the tasks.

Bethany Frankel, I know she used to be like one of the Housewives of New York. Yeah, I love her too, and she's wonderful business onman, but she's obsessed with organization. And similarly to what you said, like what's on your to do bucket?

In your to do to bucket?

Yep, you know, when she's talking about organization, she's like, pick one draw for the day. When you're like, Okay, I need to sort my house out or I've got clutter, I've got mess she's like, don't be like I'm going to clean the whole kitchen today. Give yourself one draw and say today I'm going to clean that draw, and then the next day do that cupboard. Like, just go one bit at a time and eventually you'll get there. Probably by the time you finish it all, we'll be messaging.

Yeah, so break it down. What do I have to do today? Write everything down in a list or on car See I'm really learning here.

Delegate if you can. Oh, oh, that's a good one, because there's notion of maternal gatekeeping. I hate that terminology, but it's that women are responsible for the nutritional outcomes of the household. You know, they're responsible for the way kids look as they walk out the door, Like how many times have you heard, oh, dad must have dressed them.

Yeah, you know.

Anyway, I can.

So like get a meal delivery service if that takes that mental load off your plate of it. There's so much pressure when driven a little bit by social media. Let's be honest to adhere to these kind of crazy standards. Take the pressure off.

Yeah. It's funny because I think outsourcing used to be bougie, Like I feel like if someone else was doing your washing or you were getting meals delivered, that's fancy, you know, whereas now there are affordable outsourcing and if not by doing maybe one of those weekly meal things like Hello Fresh or something like that it's saving money on groceries, it's more convenient, it's delivered you to do all this

Work more or be more present, be more present, is it? Is it a luxury? I don't think it is.

I think it's something that we need to actually cope with this load or even like bringing the village into it, something that is on my mental load list that I haven't done. I'm going to start doing it next year. Is I've talked with my girlfriends about doing like meal prep and mimosa days, where like everyone gets together on a Sunday and you cook up a massive thing of bolonnaise and maybe you do a shepherd's pie with the other mints, and everyone's chopping and it's literally like you know,

Yeah, great idea. I mean, I think we need the village. There was a reason why we had a village for so long.

Yeah, it's not going.

To help with the mental low, but it's going to help with the mental health issues associated around it, right, Like how good does it feel to share dump vent whatever it might be two girlfriends, two therapists, and you know from a working capacity, like find your village at work, people that are like, I'll take that meeting. I'll give you the notes afterwards, so you don't have to add

I'm feeling better. How are you feeling? And Elise, I'm just You've got a plan of attack one day at a time. I'm going to write my giant list and then I'm going to micro break it down and just think about each day because I really do need to get I think we all do. And Lauren, do you have any other final tips for our listeners today to get through the rest of this year, across this silly season, across the school holidays that we've got coming up. Any words of wisdom?

There is no shame in asking for help.

Oh I love that?

And relying on the village or just deprioritizing things that are not important. Putting yourself first.

Self care is.

One thing that goes a lot in terms of when people are working, childcare, unpaid work. It's that long list again. But you need to prioritize yourself because if you're not putting your own oxygen mask on, then you can't help others around you.

Yeah, boundaries and saying no yes. Love that well, Lauren, thank you so much for joining us today. You have been a wealth of knowledge, and I'm feeling my load a little lighter.

I'm feeling less anxious.

Okay, good, good, great good. We're gonna go often, right, listen.

Some hiatt Sarah Marie.

Hi, Sarah Marie, Am I in the wrong here? My neighbor, who is just a neighbor, she's not a friend, doesn't drive. She said to me that she's scared of driving and she isn't taking any lessons or trying to get her license. So she asked me if I would drive her child to school for a few weeks, as our kids go to the same school. It's now been a year and I feel stuck with this responsibility because even when my kids are sick, I still have to do the school run.

Look? No, you're not unreasonable for feeling fed up.

And I think what's making you fed up is it sounds like you're having to wait for her child. So if it's making you late, that's unacceptable because you're doing them a favor. Secondly, if your children are sick, that is not on you to take her child to school, because your children are your response ability. There's no way you would have me taking someone else's kids to school

Blah blah blah.

You don't need to explain yourself more than that, we need to leave it this time. We can't be late. If we're late, I'm sorry. I've got to go and stick to that. If the kid is late, be like, we're leaving now and just go. And if your kids are sick, just tell her, hey, little ones are sick. I won't be able to take your little ones to school today.

That's it.

Just put your foot down and have your boundaries.

That's it.

I don't think she would be non understanding to that. I think on your neighbor's point, she just thinks it's fine that there is no issues, especially if you haven't communicated that to her or you haven't put your boundary up. She probably just thinks it's great. Kids enjoy going to school, they go to school together. I've got my neighborhood drives the kids like. She's probably thinking nothing of it. So yeah, I don't think there's a problem driving. Just set your

Thank you for listening to this glorious math. We hope you've enjoyed the episode, and if you've loved it, please be sure to leave us a rating or a review. And if you have a dilemma that you'd like Sarah and Marie to solve, you can leave us a voice note by following the link in the show notes, or get in touch at TGM at mamamea dot com dot au. This episode was produced by Grace Rubray with audio production by Lou Hill.

See Ya, see you next time.