The Mental Load of Family Life: The Work You Can’t See But Always Feel

The Mental Load of Family Life: The Work You Can’t See But Always Feel

Author: Jo Piazza September 25, 2025 Duration: 40:48
Why does it feel like moms carry a running scroll of everything — the playdates, the vaccines, the permission slips, the damn pile of laundry on the stairs? Sociologist Allison Daminger calls it cognitive labor — the invisible mental work of family life — and her new book What’s on Her Mind shows why women do so much more of it, even in couples who want equality. We talk about what cognitive labor actually looks like, why personality differences are really gender training in disguise, and how we can raise the next generation to share the mental load. Get Allison's book here. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER EVERYONE IS LYING TO YOU here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In Under the Influence with Jo Piazza, journalist and mother Jo Piazza pulls back the curtain on the multi-billion dollar world of social media influence. This isn't just another show about viral trends; it's a critical exploration of the aspirational marketing that haunts our feeds, where perfectly posed lives in spotless homes mask a complex economy. Jo examines how this ecosystem fundamentally reshapes our culture, our families, and our personal sense of self, especially for parents and kids navigating this curated reality. Each episode of this podcast digs into the forces that brought us here, asking what it means to live, parent, and consume under this constant, monetized influence. You'll hear specific stories and analysis that connect the dots between the content we scroll past and the larger societal machinery at work. The conversation naturally extends beyond the screen to question the real-world impact on our journals, our relationships, and our understanding of value. Under the Influence with Jo Piazza provides the context often missing from the comments section, offering a necessary perspective for anyone who has ever scrolled and wondered about the true cost of that airbrushed perfection.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza
Podcast Episodes
From Momfluencers to MILFs: Who Gets Labeled a Bad Mother [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:16
If you’ve had kids, you’ve probably wondered at some point if you’re a bad mother. I would say this is true for 99.9 percent of us. And the other 0.1 percent is Ruby Franke. On today’s episode of Under the Influence, we'…
Moms Just Want (Deserve) to Have Fun [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:40
No one is going to check in with you to make sure you're enjoying your life. What if fun—not self-care, not optimization, not doing more—is the thing missing from modern motherhood? This week on Under the Influence, we’r…
Perimenopause, GLPs, and the Medical Gaslighting of Women [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:19
There are only a few topics women in their forties can’t stop talking about right now: perimenopause, hormone replacement therapy, and GLP medications. In this episode, we sit down with physician Dr. Mary Brandon for a n…
The Heated Rivalry Episode [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:07
Three things are happening in the group chat right now: perimenopause, ICE, and Heated Rivalry. That’s it. That’s the list. And yes, I am late to this particular party because this is a show I have to watch alone, in the…
Sunday Nice Things: Smart Bitches, Trashy Books [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:04:30
I’m really excited to introduce you to a new show today. It’s a smart podcast about trashy books: Smart Podcast, Trashy Books, created by my good friend Sarah Wendell. Sarah has been talking about romance novels in a sma…
Just a Busy Season and Other Lies We Tell About Motherhood [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:42
Taylor Wolfe, better known as The Daily Tay, has built a massive following online by helping us laugh about the hardest parts of motherhood. In this episode, we talk about Taylor’s new book Just a Busy Season, a brutally…
My Most Anticipated Book of the Year [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:53
There are so many “most anticipated” lists about what to read this year. We have one book at the very top of ours: The Fountain by Casey Scieszka. Casey is one of our closest friends, and this is the novel we’ve been qui…
More Joy in January [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:39
January should officially be Women’s Rest and Recovery Month, because after December most of us are sick, behind on work, emotionally fried, and trying to pretend that carrying the mental load of not just our own familie…
Tidying up in the New Year with Tidy Dad [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:03
January feels like a real dumpster fire so far. It's supposed to feel like a reset, but instead it feels chaotic and messy and exhausting. Today we are zooming in on why the urge to fix everything at once backfires every…
What We Want Less of in 2026 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:37
We’re kicking off the new year by talking about something we both love and hate: “resolutions.” Or, more accurately, a list of what we don’t want in our lives in 2026. With bestselling author Glynnis MacNicol, we get int…