The Invisible Load Inventory
Finally, an inventory that shows you exactly what you're carrying.
Most mothers carry far more than their fair share of the invisible load. The planning, the remembering, the anticipating, the managing. The work that never makes it onto a to-do list because it never stops running in the background.
Most partners don’t see it. Not because they don’t care, but because invisible labor is, by definition, hard to see.
The Invisible Load Inventory gives you both a shared starting point. Not an argument. A conversation.
What is the invisible load?
What is the invisible load?
The invisible load, also called the mental load, refers to the cognitive and emotional labor of managing family life. It is the work of anticipating needs, remembering details, planning ahead, and carrying responsibility for the countless decisions that keep a household running.
Unlike physical household tasks, the invisible load has no obvious product. No clean floor. No cleared dish. It operates inside the mind, constantly, boundlessly, and most often invisibly to everyone except the person carrying it.
Research consistently shows that mothers carry a disproportionate share of this load, even in dual-income households and in relationships where both partners believe things are equal. The gap between what each partner perceives and what is actually happening is one of the most significant and least talked about sources of resentment, burnout, and disconnection in modern partnerships.
The Invisible Load Inventory was designed to close that gap.
How it works
How the Invisible Load Inventory works
You complete your inventory
Work through 9 areas of family life. It takes about 20 minutes.
Your partner completes theirs
You'll receive a private link to share. They answer independently, without seeing your responses.
See your results together
You'll both receive a detailed breakdown showing where your perceptions align and where the gaps are largest.
What we measure
What the Invisible Load Inventory measures
The inventory covers 9 distinct domains of family life. Each one is a real role that someone in your household is holding, whether or not it has ever been named or acknowledged.
The Child Reader
Who holds the whole child in mind, their emotional world, developmental needs, friendships, fears, and the thousand small things that make each child who they are.
The Chief Medical Officer
Who manages the family's health and medical world, tracking appointments, knowing the medical history, managing medications, and deciding when something needs attention.
The Social and Activities Director
Who manages each child's school life, extracurricular activities, and social world, from permission forms and playdates to teacher relationships and birthday parties.
The Daily Coordinator
Who holds the family's daily logistics, the morning routine, the pickups and dropoffs, the schedule conflicts, and the backup plan when something falls through.
The Household Manager
Who keeps the home running, tracking what's in the fridge, managing laundry, noticing what needs to be fixed, and handling the seasonal tasks that come around on a calendar.
The Chief Financial Officer
Who manages the family's finances and administration, tracking spending, paying bills, handling taxes, and thinking about the longer-term financial picture.
The Community Manager
Who maintains the family's relationships and community connections, extended family, friendships, gift-giving, holiday planning, and everything that keeps relationships warm.
The Emotional Intelligence Officer
Who manages the emotional climate of the home, noticing when someone is struggling, doing the repair work after conflict, and carrying the ongoing weight of everyone's wellbeing.
The Family Systems Manager
Who designs and maintains the systems that keep family life functioning, the routines, the research, the long-term planning, and the invisible labor of trying to make things better.
Why this exists
Why the invisible load matters
Study after study shows that even in households where both partners work full-time, women carry the majority of the cognitive and emotional labor required to run a family. This is not a perception problem. It is a measurable, documented reality.
The invisible load is linked to maternal burnout, chronic stress, resentment, relationship dissatisfaction, and reduced participation in work and community. It is one of the most significant contributors to the mental health challenges mothers experience and one of the least addressed.
The problem is not always unwillingness. In most relationships, the gap exists because the labor is genuinely invisible. One partner doesn’t see what the other is holding. The Invisible Load Inventory is designed to make the invisible visible so that both partners can have a more informed, less emotionally charged conversation about what is actually happening in their home.
This inventory was developed by Momwell, a maternal mental health platform that has supported thousands of mothers across Canada and the United States. It is grounded in clinical understanding of how the invisible load contributes to maternal burnout and relationship strain, and what it takes to start redistributing it.
Developed by
Erica Djossa, RP
The Invisible Load Inventory was created by Erica Djossa, registered psychotherapist, founder of Momwell, and author of the Gold Literary Excellence Award-winning book Releasing the Mother Load.
Erica has spent over a decade working with mothers navigating the mental and emotional weight of modern parenthood. The invisible load is not a personal failing. It is a structural reality that most couples live inside without ever having the language or the data to name it.
This inventory gives you both.
The Book
Go deeper with Releasing the Mother Load
The inventory shows you where the invisible load lives. The book shows you what to do with that information — a practical, compassionate guide to naming what you're carrying and building something more equitable together.
Winner of the Gold Literary Excellence Award
Get the book
Ready to see the full picture?
You don’t need to have the conversation figured out before you start. You just need both of you to be willing to look.
The Invisible Load Inventory is free. It takes about 20 minutes. And it gives you something no argument ever could provide: a shared, objective starting point.
Start the Inventory — FreeLet's get started
Your results are private until both of you have completed your inventories.