The Emotional Registry for Parenthood

A guide for navigating identity, gender roles, and the invisible load through reflection and compassionate communication

By: Sarah Donovan, LCPC, PMH-C

Perinatal Trauma Specialist · EMDR Therapist & Consultant

November 14, 2025

Family as an ecosystem

Invisible Load Conversations

Domestic Labor

As the holidays approach, this conversation surfaces in nearly every therapy session I hold with parents. The mental load, shifting roles, and quiet resentments often feel heavier this time of year.  Expectations run high to keep the “holiday spirit” alive and motivation feels scarce. 

I’ve been talking about these dynamics with clients for over 15 years, and it’s clear that many families need a way to name what’s unseen, honor what matters, and act accordingly. Research shows that unspoken expectations, invisible labor, and intergenerational patterns can significantly affect mental health, relationship satisfaction, and stress levels. Naming them is the first step toward meaningful, sustainable change.

This registry offers a gentle space for you and your partner to reflect on what feels tender, stretched, or unspoken — especially in the seasons of life when everything feels full.

1. Personal Identity & Passions

Parenthood transforms everything: your identity, relationships, body, nervous system, and sense of self. Both birthing people and partners undergo profound identity shifts, a process known as matrescence (Sacks, 2017). These shifts can include loss, rediscovery, and growth. Reflection helps regulate the nervous system, rebuild a sense of self, and strengthen your ability to advocate for your needs.

Listening inward to desire, creativity, rest, and pleasure is not indulgent; it is a core part of self-regulation. These moments of internal connection remind you that your identity exists outside caregiving. You deserve rest with no outcome or productivity attached.

Reflect:

• Who am I becoming, and what lights me up now?

• What parts of me have gone quiet since becoming a parent?

• How can I make room for play, rest, or creativity again?

• What and who helps me feel most like me?

2. Relationships: Safety, Support & Boundaries

Attachment and emotional safety extend into adulthood and shape how we connect with partners, friends, and children. Healthy boundaries and mutual support are protective factors for lower perinatal stress and increased relationship satisfaction (Feeney et al., 2020). And when a child enters the picture, families often must renegotiate roles.  One example can include reminding well-meaning relatives that you are the parent now and will make the final say on parenting decisions.

Boundaries are not barriers; they create pathways to secure attachment within your own family system. Often one partner names the need, and the other helps uphold it. Anticipating stressors, intrusive relatives and holiday expectations helps couples stay grounded and respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively.

Reflect:

• Who do I feel emotionally safe and supported by?

• Where do I notice tension, obligation, or emotional drain?

• What boundaries need to be strengthened to protect my peace?

• How can I nurture relationships that feel grounded and reciprocal?

3. Intergenerational & Family-of-Origin Patterns

Epigenetic and psychological research shows that trauma, beliefs, and relational patterns can be passed through generations (Yehuda & Lehrner, 2018). Parenthood often brings these patterns into sharp focus, creating a chance to choose a different path.

There is wisdom in the stories we inherit and also pain. Reflecting on the narratives about gender, caregiving, and worth that shaped you helps clarify which ones support the parent or partner you want to be. This process isn’t about blame; it’s about awareness. With awareness, you can hold reverence for where you came from while making intentional shifts.

Reflect:

• What stories, values, or roles did I inherit from my family?

• Which beliefs still serve me and which ones can I release?

• How do I feel when my upbringing clashes with how I want to parent?

• What do I want to consciously pass on, and what stops with me?

4. Domestic Duties

Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play (2019) highlights how women continue to shoulder most household and caregiving labor even in dual-income homes. Unequal division of labor is linked to lower relationship satisfaction, parental burnout, and chronic resentment (Offer & Schneider, 2011).

A household is an interconnected ecosystem. Every task carries emotional and logistical layers - who notices it, who plans it, who executes it, and how it’s done. 

When these layers go unnamed, resentment quietly accumulates. Clarifying roles isn’t about scorekeeping; it’s about respect, shared responsibility, and reducing stress. Open dialogue can turn conflict into collaboration and model equity for children.

Reflect:

• Are household responsibilities clearly defined, not assumed?

• Do both partners understand the full task — from planning to completion?

• Where does resentment or fatigue show up in our routines?

• How can we design systems that feel equitable, not transactional?

5. The Invisible Load (Mental Labor)

Beyond physical chores lies the mental load — the constant work of anticipating, planning, and remembering (Daminger, 2019). When one partner carries most of this cognitive labor, disconnection, resentment and overwhelm follow.

This invisible work is often rooted in gendered and cultural scripts. Many people don’t even realize they’re reenacting these patterns until the stress becomes impossible to ignore. Naming the mental load — writing it down, talking it through, externalizing it — deepens empathy and paves the way for shared responsibility. Awareness transforms invisible labor into visible partnership.

Reflect:

• Who carries the family’s mental list — the reminders, birthdays, appointments?

• Who notices when clothes no longer fit or when supplies run low?

• How do we name and share what’s unseen but deeply felt?

• What would it feel like to not be the family project manager?

Let’s name it. Let’s share it. Let’s honor the invisible work that sustains a family.

These questions offer a chance to pause, take stock, and gently reset — with more insight and intention than before. Many relational patterns are preventable, whether they arise before a baby arrives, in the chaos of early parenting, or years into family life. And so often, these cycles are driven by histories, stressors, or inherited wounds that have little to do with the relationship itself.

At Tilted Root, we support women, parents, and couples as they navigate these vulnerable crossroads — redistributing the emotional and mental load, interrupting long-standing patterns, and strengthening partnership in ways that feel fair, steady, and sustainable.

Therapy offers an intentional place to reconnect with your values, improve communication, and rediscover who you are as a parent, a partner, and a whole person.

Ready to explore your emotional registry?

Schedule a consultation with me at Tilted Root:

https://sarah-donovan.clientsecure.me/

References

Daminger, A. (2019). The cognitive dimension of household labor. American Sociological Review, 84(4), 609–633.

Feeney, B. C., Fitzgerald, M. M., & Collins, N. L. (2020). The role of attachment and social support in shaping health and well-being. Current Opinion in Psychology, 33, 29–35.

Offer, S., & Schneider, B. (2011). Revisiting the gender gap in time use: Household work, child care, and leisure. Journal of Marriage and Family, 73(5), 1029–1046.

Rodsky, E. (2019). Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live). New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Rodsky, E. (2021). Find Your Unicorn Space: Reclaim Your Creative Life in a Too-Busy World. New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Sacks, A. (2017). The Birth of a Mother. The New York Times.

Yehuda, R., & Lehrner, A. (2018). Intergenerational transmission of trauma effects: Putative role of epigenetic mechanisms. World Psychiatry, 17(3), 243–257.

Further Reading & Resources

Daminger, Allison. “The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor.” American Sociological Review (2019). A foundational research article outlining how cognitive and anticipatory labor disproportionately falls on women.

Maté, Gabor. When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection. Clear, research-backed explanations of how chronic stress, emotional suppression, and invisible labor show up somatically.

Saxbe, Darby E., & Schetter, Christine D. “Protecting the Perinatal Brain: A Neuroscience-Based Framework for Supporting Parents.” A review highlighting how chronic overload, stress, and relational strain shape the perinatal nervous system.

Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Second Shift. A classic sociological study on invisible labor and the emotional demands carried by women — still incredibly relevant for modern couples.

About the Author:

Sarah Donovan, LCPC, PMH-C, is a licensed therapist, perinatal mental health specialist, and EMDR-certified practitioner and consultant. She is the founder of Tilted Root, a trauma-informed counseling practice supporting women, parents, and couples through identity shifts, burnout, anxiety, and relational stress. Through an attachment lens she combines evidence-based modalities, such as EMDR, DBT, EFT, somatic therapies and walk & talk therapy in nature.