Can AI Save You From the Mental Load If Your Partner Can't?
There’s a certain point in my week where things at home start to teeter on collapse: the to-do list starts to feel crushing, the dining table becomes a dumping ground for every piece of mail, homework assignment, and broken toy. The laundry is overflowing and the fridge is empty.
The “mental load” – which one sociologist broke down into four parts – anticipate, identify, decide, monitor – begins to feel impossible to carry.
And, as has been well-documented, the gender breakdown for the load is pretty imbalanced in heterosexual couples: Women are more likely to “anticipate” and “monitor,“ while men and women both tend to take care of “identify” and “decide.”
To be clear, I am in no way trying to win a prize for having the most organized home, or even becoming a more efficient human.
But I am worried about whether I’m using my time for the things I really care about. After all, how I live my days is how I live my life.
Instead of doing things that feel truly meaningful – volunteering to elect abortion rights candidates, or moving forward on a project at work, or setting up a night out with friends – I’m preoccupied with just getting to bedtime.
So it was eye-opening when I came across MotherAI, a project from Stephanie LeBlanc-Godfrey, which teaches parents to use AI to help make household management a bit easier.
LeBlanc-Godfrey has a leg up on using tech in her day-to-day life: She’s an engineer by training and her day job is working for Google as Global Head of Inclusion Programs for Women of Color.
But she’s also creating a series of programs that are meant to help parents use tech in useful — and meaningful — ways in their everyday lives.
Her goal, she says, is to provide “relatable, digestible information as an on-ramp into using AI.”
AI chatbots can be “virtual sounding boards,” she says. Try feeding a problem you’re struggling with into a chatbot, whether it’s sketching out a week of meals, or planning for holiday shopping on a budget, and see what the output is.
Now, I’ve written plenty about my concerns about tech in the home – mostly about social media use for kids, and the importance of limiting screen time.
So I am squeamish about the idea of introducing another piece of technology, especially one where the longterm implications can seem, frankly, terrifying.
Just recently, the newest version of one AI tool has started to evolve into a tool that goes beyond being a chatbot, but can actually use a computer on its own, which has all kinds of unknowns.
But I was convinced her argument that understanding how the tech works, and seeing how it can be useful – as well its limitations – is a kind of digital literacy I absolutely need.
And learning it along with my child gives me the added bonus of monitoring and shaping her understanding as well.
But the thing that put me over the top: Leblac-Godfrey’s guide for using AI to help my kid with math.
When it landed in my inbox, “No More Tears Over Math: How I Finally Understood My Child's Homework,” I poured over the instructions. I sent it to friends. (One said, “You know, I’ve been looking for an ‘in’ with AI – this is it!”)
She’s also got guides for teaching cybersecurity for kids, managing the family calendar, and getting ready for the start of the school year.
I spoke with her recently about the big vision behind MotherAI, the ways it can – and can’t – help lift the mental load, and how AI can become more inclusive.
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You call Mother AI, “a learning journey series” designed for working parents and caregivers, and you also have a project called “Parenting Backwards.” What’s your vision for this work?
The philosophy of Parenting Backwards is bringing your kids on a learning journey with you, in an age-appropriate and creative way. That’s how Mother AI came to be. You can literally go on this journey with your kids, because it’s a piece of technology where your kids are just as confused as you are. We both don't know how to use it – and we can figure it out together.
I was listing the things that stuck out to me as I've been reading the newsletter. It's the AI for math homework. It's teaching your kids cybersecurity. It’s managing the family calendar.
How do you choose the topics that you're going to write about in the newsletter?
It is very much reflective of what's going on in my household. I have an 8, 12, and 14-year-old, so elementary, middle and high school. I'm running the gamut of social situations, age-appropriate technology, personalities and life stages.
So for me, homework is absolutely number one.
Two, meal planning. We're a family of five, and everyone has dietary restrictions, preferences and mandates. Trying to account for that requires potentially hours of research.
Whereas you can put into an AI chatbot, “Kid number one doesn't eat meat. Kid number two only eats meat. Kid number three is only into carbs these days. Mommy’s just trying to make it through the night, so a sandwich could work.” Put all that in and the AI gives you an output that takes into account those considerations. So instead of cobbling together things from five different places, you now have something that reflects your family's needs.
In early October, you wrote about your family's digital detox journey. I thought that was interesting: you're this engineer, you're a technologist, and you're also recommending a digital detox. I'm a parent who's nervous around technology, and is trying to keep my kids off screens. How should I balance using this technology with my concerns about overuse or too much screen time?
I'm of the perspective, and this goes with all these varying technologies, that banning is not the answer. It is about being able to teach your kids critical thinking.
So we have lots of conversations in my house. TikTok is amazing. It unearths all of these cool trends. So that's the great part.
But in that same vein, they're also receiving lots of videos with misinformation, and information that is just plain wrong. And then we need to have conversations about it, which teaches them to question what they're seeing.
I don't want to miss that opportunity to talk through it and share what I know, what I don't know, and what I don't understand.
I can say, “Actually, let's look into this further, and do the research with each other, so that we can understand a thing better.”
Tech is an arena that's male-dominated, and white male dominated, and here you are taking this technology to serve women, as a woman of color. Why do you think it's important that tech moves outside of the domain of white male ownership?
Because it's not serving us. These white, hetero males now are starting to have families, and now you see an upsurge of “FamTech” companies that recognize, “Oh yeah, families do exist. Maybe we should solve for them.”
That gap in representation is the reason why I started MotherAI.
When ChatGPT launched in 2022, every time I'd ask my husband something or we'd have a conversation, he'd be like, “Oh, let's talk to ChatGPT and find out.”
And I'm like: “Not interested. Can we just have a conversation?”
And then my kids came home and they started talking about ChatGPT. I was like, “Oh, wait, you guys know about it?” I was shocked. And I thought, I can't put my head in the sand on this.
But there was nothing on YouTube. Nothing I could find on social media or anywhere talking specifically about how parents can use AI.
Business automation, revenue generation? Yes. Content creation? Yes. All the issues with privacy and bias? Yes.
All the, “Will it take over the jobs? Will it end humanity?” Yes.
And I thought: All of these things could end up being true, but in the middle of that, there is a space where we can benefit from it, and have a voice into how it then gets created.
Because as morbid as this sounds, our generation will not see what AI will ultimately be. The stage is being set now, and so we have to have our voices built into this, because our kids are the ones that are going to end up holding the bag for what AI will become.
So the more I'm feeding information into an AI Chatbot, the more it's learning from me and my needs. Why is it important that parents and women and women of color are in there training the AI? Is it a sense that we're going to get left behind, or is it something that's something for the future?
One, it's being left behind. Two, it's not being included in the history of it. What do they say? The victors are the ones who write history?
So the ones who are at the table write the history. This is one of the big issues with AI: It's pulling what's on the internet and what's already been written, and so it's upholding the lack of inclusion of voices.
So women, women of color and marginalized communities in general: We have to have our representation in there. That way, when we're using it, or we're being referenced in a prompt, it's actually culturally relevant and reflective and accurate for these community groups.
There’s a woman, Erin Reddick, who has created ChatBlackGPT, to include those cultural nuances. So that when a kid is typing in African American Vernacular English, that it understands what it's referencing and can give it a response.
There are systemic reasons why lots of communities don't have their culture and their voice represented. We have to be intentional and make space and figure out ways to ensure that these community groups and voices are included.
There's a fair amount of history that's been written about introducing new technologies into the home. In the 1950s, the (usually white women) homemakers would get the vacuum cleaner and the washing machine — and then all these technologies would actually increase the pressure on women to be the “perfect” homemakers.
I’m wondering if you feel there's any danger in adding this new technology to the household? Does it pressure us to be even more “perfect” with the meals, or “perfect” with the homework?
You know, it's like everything could be used as a weapon against the mom.
It seems like we have more resources to get things done. Instacart is great, but we're still in charge of the list.
This is one of the areas where I've gotten my kids involved. This household is like a big group project, and everyone has to do their part. And so if you finish the gummy bears, add it to Instacart, because I'm not keeping track of gummy bears.
These technologies seek to delegate tasks and make things easier. And they do, in a way, but then we use that time that we supposedly get back by doing more things.
My visual for the mental load is that it's like a sea of icebergs, and the pieces on the top are seemingly like innocuous tasks like RSVPing for a birthday party.
But yes or no to a birthday party invitation unleashes six or seven other tasks that need to be done. The decision matrix that happens underneath is so large and looming that all the tools and technology in the world don’t actually take away from those decisions that need to be made.
For all of the strides we've made with this technology, the task list seems to have gotten bigger instead of shrinking.
Yeah, I was looking at recent data from the American Time Use Survey, which found that, women spent an average of 2.7 hours on household activities, while men spent 2.1 hours. And on average, 48 percent of women did housework -- such as cleaning or laundry--compared with 22 percent of men.
There's just so many things that have changed and so many things that remain the same.
And the tool is not the thing that is going to solve the systemic issue.
You’ve talked about all the things that AI can do to just move things along for us in our everyday lives. What are the things that you think the parent can do that their AI chatbot cannot do?
I think this is such a good question. I was meeting with this woman, and she talked about how a friend of hers started using AI as a therapist. She's an executive coach, and so she was a little unnerved by this.
But there's this going to be a small section of people where maybe because of time constraints, because of financial restraints, where a person needs to talk to someone, and so AI can be there.
But when I talk to you, you can pick up on my tone and the words that I say or don't say and that can lead you into a line of questioning and conversation.
AI does not have the ability to pick up on tone and feeling.
There is no replacement for human interaction and human engagement.
I often talk about how there's no AI without HI. There's no artificial intelligence without human interaction.
“Whereas you can put into an AI chatbot, “Kid number one doesn't eat meat. Kid number two only eats meat. Kid number three is only into carbs these days. Mommy’s just trying to make it through the night, so a sandwich could work.” Put all that in and the AI gives you an output that takes into account those considerations. So instead of cobbling together things from five different places, you now have something that reflects your family's needs.”
Ok now I’m interested 😅 This is such a good perspective on this and one I’ve never seen yet!
Love this! Thank you for sharing