"I look like the people that are ideally doing more of the changing"
Zach Watson on being a mental load coach for men
Have you noticed how gendered the conversation around household labor—particularly invisible labor/cognitive labor/mental load—is? Most of the journalists who write about these topics are women; most of the researchers who study these issues are women; and most of the books/podcasts/popular media on related subject matter are made by women—and, at least judging by the marketing, geared toward a primarily female audience.1
This makes a lot of sense. If it’s women who are doing most of this work, and in many cases suffering because of it, it stands to reason that women would be the ones most likely to recognize cognitive labor as an issue worth reporting on/writing about in the first place, and women who would be most motivated to consume related content.
But if we want to actually solve the problem of gender inequality in the distribution of this work, we need to make sure men are part of the conversation, as both producers and consumers of information. On the consumption side, that might mean branding relevant content in a more gender-neutral fashion. Kate Mangino’s book Equal Partners is a great example of this, from the color scheme (blue, red, green) to the list of activities included on the cover (“laundry,” yes, but also “provide for family”).
On the production side, it might look like encouraging and amplifying the voices of men who are savvy about the issue of labor inequality. (Not at the expense of women’s voices, but as an important adjunct.) Enter Zach Watson, a content creator and “mental load coach” who works with a primarily male clientele (but does not reach a primarily male social media audience, as you’ll see below). When he reached out to interview me for his podcast, I asked whether I could turn the tables and ask him a few questions, too.
Excerpts from our conversation—lightly edited for clarity—are below!
On how he first learned about invisible labor and mental load:
[A few years ago] I had the opportunity of four months of paternity leave. I was a teacher at the time; I was also already creating content on Tiktok, mostly personal development, and I started talking [on social media] about fatherhood. [Someone] recommended that I read the book Fair Play, and I got the same recommendation in the same week. I was like, well, I know what my next book is! So I started listening to the book, and Fair Play was definitely the first place that I think I could articulate [the invisible labor concept]. It was probably slowly, from listening to momfluencers, seeping into my subconscious. But I don’t think I could have articulated it all that well before Fair Play.
On the pivot from consumer to producer of mental load content:
I was a teacher for 8 years, so I think there’s a lot of teacher in me. I’ve always really liked using social media as a platform for teaching. So as I was becoming a dad, I had a couple of videos perform really well, talking about the breastfeeding experience and trying to support my wife. As I started reading Fair Play, what I started doing was, I would read a chapter, and then I would share my raw, in-the-moment reactions. And then after a month or so, I started sharing, ‘Here’s what we’re trying to do for me to own the “minimum standard of care” [a core FP concept] of dishes.’ And then in December 2022 I made a video saying, ‘I think I just added mental load for my wife.’ She had given me two options for [our child’s] pajamas. And I had said, ‘Which one do you want?’ And I realized I could have just chosen one [to relieve her decision-making burden].
And that video did pretty well, so I made another one like it the next day. I asked my wife, ‘Should we give our daughter water or milk?’ Later I said, come on, Zach. I could have just chosen and said, ‘I think we should do milk because of X.’ That video is at 6.4 million views. And that was the moment that I was like, do people not know this?
At some point people started saying, Zach, can you make some educational content, like put together a course? I hired a coach, and he said, ‘Your audience is 91% women. What do you want to coach them on?’ I was like, I don’t think I want to coach women. Sure, they might be finding value, but I want to be my own client. Like, Zach a couple of years ago would have really benefited from the coach that I want to be today.
On why he thinks women make up such a large percentage of his social media audience:
I look like the people that are ideally doing more of the changing. I’m doing my best to be vulnerable so that men can look and see, ‘Oh, he’s making mistakes too. He’s not just talking down to me.’ But I’m outlining a problem that women are experiencing. They feel validated…I think that’s a huge part. It’s like, it’s a validation of the struggles that they go through…The person that validates your concerns and fights your enemies, those are the people that we tend to follow.
What I would love to figure out is, of all the shares I see on an individual video, how many of those are wives sending them to their husband? I don’t know if there’s any way to do it, but what I anticipate, and I’ve tried to teach a lot of the women that follow me to do, is give it context. Don’t just send the video, because I know it can feel very much like an attack, and their [male partners] are going to get defensive. But if you say, ‘hey, remember when I was trying to explain that thing the other day? This is what I was trying to say. Zach said it in a way I think explains it better.’
On what leads men to reach out to him for coaching:
I’ve heard anywhere from [a woman saying to her partner], ‘I think we should consider getting separated or divorced, unless you go to therapy or check out Zach,’ that’s one extreme. I think a lot of [women] partners are saying, ‘Oh, I would really like for you to look and see what his services are.’ I think that’s the majority of the hundreds of calls I’ve taken in the past year. Of the couple guys that have found me on their own, it was typically because their wife would say, ‘You’re putting all the mental load on me,’ and then they search mental load, and they find me.
On the biggest hurdle to change for the men he works with:
The hardest part is probably already shifted, if they’re talking to me. Like, thinking of me in 2020, if my wife had asked me to check out this creator, I would have had to get over the original hump of like, ‘Okay, yes, there’s an inequality here. I’m willing to see her side of things. I’m willing to acknowledge that I might not understand right now.’
I think the biggest hump is for men to be willing to see that even though they are doing what culture expects of them, which is, bring home a paycheck, make sure your lawn looks good, be stoic, try not to be too angry, but you’re not really allowed to feel any other emotions. I think that’s a really shallow picture that culture has offered us. So I think if we can get past that to say, ‘Hey, I see that there’s an inequality here, I’m willing to see her side of the coin.’ I think that’s the hardest one.
On how he hopes the conversation, and his work, evolves in the next few years:
What I would love to see more of is getting more DMs from men saying thank you. I get a lot from women saying, ‘Thank you for helping us shift the conversation.’ I get a couple from guys. But I think seeing more guys reach out to me and say, ‘Hey, thank you so much for your videos,’ or ‘Thank you for helping me shift the conversation at home.’ And having guys articulate more accurately what the mental load is.
I would also love to see more of both [men and women] being able to acknowledge the mental load they’re both carrying. I think a lot of women feel swamped and drowning, like, ‘None of this is going to get done or thought of if I don’t think about it.’ But I’m sure there’s a fair amount of mental load that the men in their lives do own.
And I’m hoping that my current videos will make less sense in the future, because they are fairly gendered today.
You can learn more about Zach here.
I have to admit that I was initially disappointed to learn just how woman-dominated Zach’s audience is. I’d been imagining, naively as it turns out, that a male spokesperson would attract a more gender-diverse viewership. And I suppose he is, albeit in a roundabout way that hinges on women doing some initial work to get the men in their lives connected. This is a partial victory, to be sure, but it seems like progress nonetheless. Because he presents as a typical dude, but knows mental load issues inside and out, Zach is in a unique position to act as a sort of translator or mediator. He can deliver uncomfortable messages to men without activating the defenses that might arise if the messenger was a woman (such as their wife, girlfriend, or partner). Long-term, I hope—and it sounds like Zach does too—we can collectively reach a place where the messenger’s gender matters less, and men do not require women’s prodding to get savvy about cognitive labor. In the interim, I’m grateful for the important work Zach is doing.
No, I haven’t formally quantified the gender breakdown – though perhaps I should – and yes, there are exceptions. But I feel pretty confident that the general point – this is a woman-dominated space – holds.