MissPerceived

Leah posted one question on Instagram — "What do you hold to a higher standard in your household than anyone else?" — and got 26,000 views and 200 comments. The answer that came through louder than anything else? The clutter. The piles. The stuff that just sits there while everyone walks past it pretending it doesn't exist. In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner unpacks why household clutter is so emotionally activating, why it's a mental load issue hiding in plain sight, and what the research (and your comments) reveal about who's really responsible for making it disappear.Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do men actually feel guilt — or does it just look different? In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner dives into one of her most viral Instagram moments and the research that sparked it: the striking difference between how men and women experience guilt in family life. Drawing on Marianne Cooper's landmark studies, Leah unpacks a concept called "upscaling" — why when life gets uncertain, many mothers respond by raising the bar, seeking control, and comparing themselves to others, all of which leads to more guilt, not less. If you've ever felt like you can't stop optimizing, can't lower your standards, and can't stop looking sideways at what other people are doing — this episode is for you.Chapters:00:00 Introduction — guilt, Instagram fame, and a viral post01:00 Do men feel guilt? What the research and the comments say02:18 How men transition guilt into action — and why breadwinner norms neutralize it04:35 Why women don't get the same guilt negation — and why that's a problem05:30 Is guilt even a useful emotion? What it's actually signaling06:54 Marianne Cooper's research: upscaling vs. downscaling under pressure08:00 The optimization trap — why highly educated mothers burn through mental load energy09:16 Three strategies mothers use when upscaling: raise the bar, seek control, compare11:36 Food, motherhood guilt, and the pressure of home-cooked organic meals13:00 Why "solely responsible" became the default — and how we got here14:30 Social media as the ultimate social comparison machine16:09 What Drained says: good is good enough, and social comparison is the thief of joy18:27 Guilt as a signal vs. guilt as a trap — and how to tell the differenceFollow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why does figuring out what's for dinner feel so exhausting — every single night? In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner breaks down exactly why dinner time is one of the biggest mental load pain points she hears about across her research and interviews. Spoiler: it's not just about the food. Dinner time activates all eight mental load types simultaneously — from life organization and safety to magic making and dream building — and it's happening inside a food system that is increasingly broken and putting the pressure squarely on parents to fix it. If dinner feels heavier than it should, this episode explains exactly why.Chapters:00:00 Introduction — why dinner is a mental load disaster02:23 How the eight mental load types map onto dinner time02:40 Mental load type 1: Life organization — do you have everything you need?04:39 Mental load types 2 & 3: Relationship hygiene and emotional support at the table06:58 Mental load type 4: Magic making — when dinner goes gloriously right08:00 Anticipating what could go wrong — and chasing the magic anyway08:30 Mental load type 5: Dream building — dinner as connection time09:14 Mental load types 6 & 7: Safety and food allergies — when the stakes are life or death11:35 Mental load type 8: The broken food system and parental guilt13:51 Why trad wife nostalgia makes sense — and why it's a trap15:00 Lobbying against nutritious food — and why you're left to solve it alone16:05 What to do: share the load, use AI, let the kids cook, let go of control18:25 Is dinner time a doom drain or a magical moment for you?Resources Mentioned:📘 Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More🧠 Free Mental Load Assessment — https://www.lightenlab.comStay Connected with Leah:TikTok: @prof.leahruppannerEmail: getcrafty@audiocrafty.comFollow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you heard of #Maycember? It's the viral term capturing what parents — especially moms — experience every May: a relentless pile-on of teacher gifts, summer camp signups, end-of-year events, school correspondence on overdrive, and the pressure to make everyone feel celebrated before the school year ends. In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner breaks down why this isn't just a busy season — it's a mental load spike driven by broken systems, eroded safety nets, and a culture that asks individual parents to solve what should be collective problems. If you're feeling overwhelmed right now, this episode will validate exactly why.Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of MissPerceived, Leah celebrates that Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More is finally out—and dives into a question readers keep asking her: do some people simply have more bandwidth than others, and is it possible to grow your own capacity without destroying yourself in the process?She explains why she thinks of all the invisible planning, worrying, and coordinating you do as a finite resource, not an endless well, and shares what she’s hearing from new “invisible work” collaboratives she’s convening in London, DC, and beyond. Leah explores why some people seem naturally able to carry more, how age and life stage shape your personal bandwidth, and how you might actually expand your capacity by cutting out pointless drains and getting more efficient at the thinking work that really matters to you and your family. If you’ve ever wondered why you feel tapped out while someone else looks like they’re “handling it all,” this episode offers a new, more compassionate way to understand your limits—and what you can do with the energy you have.Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Right before launching her book Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More, Leah found a lump in her breast on vacation and was diagnosed with breast cancer. In this deeply personal episode, she shares what it feels like to carry the emotional thinking work of a serious health crisis on top of everyday life: worrying about your child’s future, your career, your dreams, and everyone else’s feelings while trying to process your own.Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, Professor Leah pulls back the curtain on a sneaky problem hiding inside your already overloaded brain: duplicated mental load. Drawing on her new book Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More, she explains why mental load is emotional thinking work, how it stretches across eight types and seven stages, and why so much of it is being quietly double- (or triple-) handled in our homes and relationships.Leah shares a story about how one unpredictable morning (RIP Spuds) blew up her carefully planned day, then uses it to show why mental load is more like a limited bank account than an endless resource. You’ll learn how to spot where you and others are all worrying about the same tasks, when that duplication actually helps, and when it’s just burning you out. If you’re waking up exhausted, constantly planning for everyone, and wondering why you never feel “finished,” this conversation will help you see your mental load clearly and give you a simple first step: find the duplication, and drop what isn’t yours to carry.Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Should kids be on social media? Or should we ban it entirely?In this episode of Misperceived, we tackle one of the most complicated parenting questions today: social media and children.Parents everywhere are struggling to figure out the right approach. Should kids have smartphones early so they can learn how to navigate the digital world? Should parents strictly monitor and limit access? Or should children stay off social media entirely until they’re older?The truth is—there’s no simple answer.As a social scientist who studies the mental load, I’ve heard from countless parents who say that monitoring their children’s digital lives is one of the biggest sources of stress and cognitive burden they face today. From worrying about online safety and misinformation to navigating addictive algorithms and social pressure, parents are being asked to manage something previous generations never had to deal with.In this episode, we explore:Why social media creates a huge mental load for parentsThe challenge of raising kids in a digital-first worldWhy government bans on social media for teens may not workHow algorithms and addictive content affect young peopleThe growing problem of misinformation and polarization onlineWhy parents cannot solve this problem aloneWhat a society-wide response to social media addiction might look likeWe also talk about what it means to help kids become responsible digital citizens, how to have honest conversations about what they see online, and why this issue requires solutions from families, tech companies, schools, and governments—not just parents.If you’re a parent, educator, or anyone trying to understand how technology is shaping the next generation, this episode is for you.Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Misperceived, Leah asks a deceptively simple question: Is it actually your fault—or did society make you do it? Drawing on her training as a sociologist and her book Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More, she breaks down what sociology is (and how it’s different from psychology) and shows how invisible social norms quietly script our choices, behaviors, and sense of failure. From the myth that women are “naturally” great multitaskers to the pressure to be the perfect mom with the perfect home—and the stereotype that dads are inherently bad at caregiving—Leah reveals how these stories overload women, sideline men, and keep everyone stuck. You’ll learn how to spot when you’re carrying the blame for broken systems instead of actual mistakes, how to question the “shoulds,” “musts,” and “what ifs” running your life, and how to start using sociology as your superpower so you can move through the world with more agency, less guilt, and a lot more self-compassion.Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Misperceived, Leah pulls back the curtain on a powerful mental load category from her forthcoming book, Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More—dream building. She explains how women’s dreams get quietly starved as they carry invisible, boundaryless, and enduring thinking work for their families, workplaces, and communities, and why that’s a loss for everyone, not just women. Leah digs into why work and caregiving feel impossible to combine, why so many women are stepping out of the labor market, and how ageism and a rapidly changing, AI-driven economy make it so hard to get back in. You’ll hear why you cannot personally fix broken systems, why adaptability is now a core future-of-work skill, and how the Mental Load Audit can help you make small, strategic shifts toward the life you actually want—without burning yourself out trying to “do it all.”Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode, Leah explores how generational messages have taught women to feel shame about their changing bodies—from tight jeans and bodysuits in the 80s and 90s to today’s high-waisted shorts and leggings. She reflects on growing up hyperaware of every outline and curve, and how that discomfort still echoes when she sees her own daughter getting dressed. Through personal stories, a feminist lens on choice and self-expression, and a look at how media and beauty culture have policed women’s bodies, Leah asks what it means to stop hiding, stop apologizing, and allow girls and women to exist in their bodies without embarrassment. In the end, she celebrates a new generation that seems less interested in shrinking themselves and more interested in living fully, visibly, and unapologetically in the skin they’re in.Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

January isn’t a fresh start if you’re already running on fumes from making everyone else’s holidays magical. In this episode of MissPerceived, Leah unpacks why so many women swing from December over-giving straight into “new year, new me” overachieving—launching businesses, overhauling their bodies, and rewriting their whole lives before February even hits.​She breaks down the mental load hangover, why perfectionist resolutions backfire, and how to set goals that are actually aligned with your values, your energy, and your real life. You’ll hear why you don’t need to shrink, hustle, or “upgrade” yourself to deserve rest, and how to enter 2026 from a place of “I’m already enough” instead of “I am the project.”​​If you’re tired of vision boards, bingo-card resolutions, and self-improvement that feels like self-punishment, this one’s your permission slip to do less, eat carbs, and build a life that expands you instead of drains you.Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did women suddenly lose their ambition—or did the 2025 Lean In & McKinsey “Women in the Workplace” report give everyone the wrong story about what’s actually going on? In this episode, Professor Leah takes a blowtorch to the idea of a so‑called “ambition gap,” arguing that the real problem isn’t women’s drive, it’s burnout, mental load, and structural barriers at work and at home. Leah breaks down why women, who now earn more degrees and participate in the workforce at historically high rates, can still look at the next promotion and think “I literally cannot carry one more thing,” while men are socially rewarded for chasing the top job.​You’ll learn:How stats about “wanting a promotion” are being misused to claim women are less ambitious than men—and why that’s a myth.The role of mental load, caregiving expectations, and workplace bias in draining women’s capacity long before ambition ever disappears.Why reframing this as a burnout and structural problem—not a confidence or personality flaw—is key to closing gender gaps in leadership.​If you’ve ever been told you’re “not ambitious enough” while simultaneously doing everything for everyone, this episode is your permission slip to call bullshit—and to start imagining a version of success that doesn’t require you to disappear to achieve it. Keywords: women in the workplace, ambition gap, Lean In report, McKinsey, burnout, mental load, working moms, gender bias, promotions, women’s careers.​Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.