Podcast Episode 248: Zach Watson: The Guy Who Wants to Teach Your Husband About Mental Load Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

Zach Watson: weaponized responsibility is, let’s say, my wife is Working with our toddler. And all of a sudden there’s spilled milk everywhere. And our toddler is about to just make a two X mess into 20 X. And she’s like, Zach, I really need, I really need your help right now. I say, Hey, I’m doing the taxes. Like I can’t help you right now. I’m doing the thing that’s on my responsibilities list. And so I’m weaponizing the level of priority that I’m putting my own responsibility over a shared, domestic responsibility between the two of us. 

JoAnn Crohn: Welcome to the No Guilt Mom Podcast. I am your host, JoAnn Crohn, here with the lovely Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker: Why, hello, hello, everybody. How are you?

JoAnn Crohn: We have such a great episode for you today. It is with Zach Watson. You might know him from Instagram or TikTok because He is there as real Zach think share and it is where he shares mental load advice for the dudes and to help guys recognize the mental load that they’re putting on their wives and it’s just such refreshing stuff to see

Brie Tucker: Yes. I mean, I, I have told him like both when we were doing the interview and off, Mike, that I really love that he is using his platform for good. he’s using his gift for good and not for evil 

JoAnn Crohn: for good enough for evil.

Brie Tucker: with great skill comes or not skill. What is it? Talent, whatever it was from Spider Man comes great responsibility, 

JoAnn Crohn: yeah. He does not go to the Joe Rogan side of the sphere. In fact, it’s totally opposite of that, which we’re thankful 

Brie Tucker: And we appreciate that. 

JoAnn Crohn: We appreciate that. So Zach Watson is a recovering man child. He calls himself that. I love it. An invisible labor educator for men. He helps men better understand the invisible labor going on in their homes and redistributing the domestic workload. You can find him on Instagram at RealZachThinkShare and Zach is the proud dad to a two and a half year old. And we hope you enjoy our interview like we did with Zach. 

Welcome Zach to the podcast. OK, so the first thing I have to mention to you, though, is like we were talking on Instagram before you came on the podcast and you mentioned to me that you were going to put M. E. D. on your bio and I see M. E. D. is now on your bio as Zach Watson M. E. D. for the podcast. So you added it.

Zach Watson: I thought I didn’t, but because 

JoAnn Crohn: No, you did. It’s there.

Zach Watson: Oh, okay. Cool. on instagram. It won’t let me it’s like stuck. I keep trying to edit it. But yeah Thank you for giving me permission honestly by doing it yourself 

JoAnn Crohn: yeah. Well, okay. So like I’m interested because there is a specific reason I didn’t add my MED at first like what was your thinking on it?

Zach Watson: I think for a while it was so it’s a master’s in education for mathematical curriculum and development and I was a math teacher for eight years in massachusetts and I think I still feel weird calling my, a lot of people call me an expert, so I’ll jump on their bandwagon of calling myself an expert, just talking about mental load.

and that’s not what my master’s it is in. but I do think, you know, I recognize as a for men is that. I’m all, I’m doing education. I’m doing curriculum development. So I think that was when I saw you had it and I saw that you weren’t talking about specific like educational stuff that, that you would see of like a teacher.

I was like, okay, yeah, actually part of the reason I think I am good at talking about mental load is I treat it like practice problems in math is you have to see like a thousand Y equals MX plus B. type equations to get it right. And I personally have probably done about 20, 000 of them. And so I think my understanding of how to do that,has actually really translated over to the way that I speak about mental load.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. That’s interesting because originally, like I didn’t add Med to my, any of my stuff until a coach told me to do it. who didn’t realize that I was actually qualified and had a master’s degree. I was hiding it for such a long time. because those education degrees, you tend to like, knock down a little bit. Like I knocked it down because that’s what I feel like the world tells you. especially here in Arizona, teachers are not valued at all.  Like It was basically told like you do not know what you’re doing. You are a teacher. and so that was off of my bio for a really long time. and it’s interesting.

Cause the first thing you said when you, we started this interview was this difference between this expert level. and particularly how, like you see a lot of female experts talking about mental load. we talk about mental load a lot. and then you talk about mental load as a man and you get a lot more. Attention coming at you for it, and you must feel that attention coming at you. what do you see, really, as the difference for that attention? do you, how do you rationalize it? 

Zach Watson: you guys probably know page, uh, she’s a page Turner, 

JoAnn Crohn: Yes, I, yes, we talk online as well. 

Zach Watson: we live in the same state and, I think it was one of her earlier videos I had stitched in. I realized how much we talk a lot about, like, just giving examples of mental load and domestic labor. And at one point, I was commenting on some, really minor backlash. I was like, I think I was almost annoyed. I was like, I want someone to push back like someone like hit me or something because I was just getting a lot of moms in there that are just like, yeah, this is so great. Glad to hear it. So great coming from a man. and then she tagged me a video. She’s like, here, you can have them.

And she put, she showed me a stitch of someone that did her video. and then they shot to, uh, Matthew McConaughey from, from Wolf of Wall Street. It’s a fugazi. It’s a fugazi. fairy dust. That’s what that’s like. Those are the comments. Those are the DMS that she gets, where it’s like a bunch of men pissed that she’s trying to bring this issue up. 

Meanwhile, I get all the women that feel heard and validated by what I’m saying about it. I think one of the things I’ve tried to do is be palatable for men and try to do some of the emotional labor of putting myself in a vulnerable place, sharing where I’m screwing up and where I’m adding mental load for my partner first.

And I think that gives the A lot of the guys and opportunity to be like, Oh yeah, he sucks. And then they hear themselves in it and they’re like, okay, all right, maybe that’s me too. Versus if I think earlier in my content creation, I was saying things where I felt better than a lot of guys. I was like, here, here’s where you’re screwing up and here’s where I’m better. And that probably was pushing away guys and they probably couldn’t hear it. And so I’ve adjusted my tone. One, because I recognized I wanted to work with guys and help them out and help them recover from man child ness like I’m working on. 

Brie Tucker: I love, that. Use that term. It cracks us up. It’s in your title underneath your name right now. Zach Watson, recovering manchild. That is what we’re seeing as we’re interviewing you. I love it.

JoAnn Crohn: to go along with that, I mean, I can see that, as a woman, when a man, tries to tell me advice about anything I am doing wrong, I’m like, no, do you even know? and I would probably fight pretty hard against it, but I also, I don’t think I would go publicly fighting as, I don’t know. It’s a really hard thing. Do you get any of the men who, Come against you quite as hard as Paige gets.

Zach Watson: a couple of them, but I seem to have an army of women to back me up and they just eat them alive before I even get to the comment section. there’s probably already 20 responses. 

Brie Tucker: You’ve got your own Swifties. I would agree with that. It is frustrating as a woman, sometimes, like, how much we have to work to get acknowledged and noticed. And, like, we talked about that earlier, how you had a comparison before with, work of somebody that we’ve had on the podcast a few times. We love Iwotski and her work, and she’s had to work hard to get to where she is. But I love how you were using the platform that you were given for whatever the reason, societal expectations, because you’re a man, it doesn’t matter.

You were using that platform to put forth positive change. For everybody. And that is why we love you. That is why the women love you. Because you’re saying, you know what? No, we all need to work on this. let’s move forward with it. And that is what is phenomenal. And you don’t see that as much.

Because, feels like, in general, it’s really easy to be like, Oh, she’s a girl, she messed up there. But it’s not as easy in society for them to be like, Oh, he’s a man. He messed up there. It’s all like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, let’s just hear him out. Let’s hear him out and see the patriarchy of that. I love how you’re working and figuring out how to communicate this in a way that it’s going to make positive change for everybody. And thank you for being a Recovery Man, Chab. Love it, Zach. Love 

JoAnn Crohn: And I want to dig into that recovering man childness too, and may I just add that not only do you teach about mental load, but I also learned this morning from watching your reels how to restring a hoodie that I was like, that looks so easy! I have so much trouble with that one! 

Zach Watson: it’s just a tool. It’s a single tool.

JoAnn Crohn: I need to get it because honestly, I’m like the hood, the string comes out of a hoodie and I’m like, forget it. It’s not worth it anymore. It’s gone. It’s gone. too far. Let it 

Brie Tucker: go. we’re, going to get into that recovering manchild right after this break. so Zach, I’m really interested in your backstory. Like when was this recovering manchild kind of awakening? When did you go from being manchild to recovering? 

Zach Watson: Clearest point was probably 2022, or we had about a one, just under one year old. And, I’d been talking with Laura Danger and Abby Echol on TikTok. And at one point I had just made a video saying like, what book should I read next? I was working on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s, memoir. And, both of them had recommended I listen to Fair Play.

And I thought to myself, one, oh, this will be good. This will be appropriate. I feel like I’m constantly listening to books that can continue my education so I can, speak in a more useful way. I had been really stagnant in my growth on TikTok a couple of months prior Roe v. Wade was overturned because I didn’t feel like I ought to have a voice and honestly, I just green screened people that were talking about it and I felt weird being a man talking about like a woman’s issue. As I was listening to the book, I think I had this understanding that I thought I was better than most men, honestly.

I think I, my first videos that people came to know me for was, I was talking about being on paternity leave for four months and how, The first two videos that really did well were me talking about the sixth S that we don’t talk about, which is smell and how I would use mom’s shirt over my shoulder to help calm our newborn down.

and then the second one, she was really committed to breastfeeding. And in that time, I had a 10 minute, goal of calming her child down. If I, if she wouldn’t calm down in 10 minutes, I couldn’t soothe her. we had agreed that I would have to go wake up my wife. even if she had just been sleeping for 45 minutes, That was the expectation we created. So because of that, I felt like I was ahead of a lot of guys because a lot of people were saying how crazy it was that I was on paternity leave for four months. and then once I read fair play, I realized how much was missing from my understanding. like I still think I was a good dad, but, but I don’t know if I was the partner that I thought I Was if you were to imagine a pie chart of the domestic labor that exists in the home, let’s say it’s including mental load is, I thought I had a good chunk higher. and if you zoom out, I was probably at 10 percent and a lot of the other guys that I was comparing myself to were at 5%. So I was double them, but still at 10%.  So I think once I started to understand mental load that. And like the emotional labor that, is done and is required for a home to work.that was the big aha. I think,

JoAnn Crohn: That’s really interesting. Okay, I’m curious even more. How, what was it like for you growing up? What did you see your parents, how was it in your home and what did you witness there in terms of mental load?

Zach Watson: I think my mom still manages a bit more of the mental load. There are even moments now where I call my dad out. Sometimes, there’ve been multiple times in the past year where my dad’s asking my mom a question or remember where we’re at my cousin’s wedding. And he called up from. like the little beach and to where to put the chairs.

I said, dad, she’s in the shower. why don’t you make an executive decision on this one? And, and, uh, he was like, no, no, no. She has like this like specific way. She wants it. I was like, dad, I feel like you got this one. I’m just, I’m not going to bother her. So I think there’s still a lot of the mental load, isn’t necessarily fully equitable in my parents house.

I think my mom was, she calls herself a humanist, but I definitely think she’s a feminist. a huge part of what I grew up in was she was actually the main breadwinner. Uh, she 36 years as a teacher. My dad had a lot of different jobs. And never really gained enough steam to beat her income.

So her doing that job was typically more important than him doing his job. And they both have master’s degrees. so I, I think just seeing her have a little bit more of the financial power in our home, I think had, I don’t, I couldn’t tell you how that’s impacted the way that I think about things, but I anticipate like, All those guys out there you see on those like toxic podcasts. Like I can’t date a woman that earns more than me. 

JoAnn Crohn: Mm hmm.

Zach Watson: you would never catch me saying something like that. 

JoAnn Crohn: I think like in our society there’s the kind of roles that we fall into where like the man makes the money Decisions and the woman makes like the home decisions just like you saw with your dad deferring to the home It’s like decor to your mom, but you saw that you didn’t see that in your home you saw your mom make the finance decisions and it wasn’t these strict roles that I think so many other people havemy question is like, what do you see among other men?

Now like your friends or how they’re managing the mental load in their homes like do they see what you’re doing or is it still a very much a hands off situation I asked because me like Knowing parenting and knowing everything like I have no effect on my friends outside of Brie who works with me Because you’re known for this great thing of encouraging the mental load and others And so other people feel threatened. And so I guess I’m asking like does do any of your male friends feel threatened?

Zach Watson: I don’t know, honestly. And the reason I’ll say I don’t know is because. I don’t talk to them that I don’t talk to when I say my when you say my friends, I’m thinking of like my college friends that I saw as my main friend group that slowly we talk less and less every year of the 10 years. Now we’ve been out of college.

 so I don’t talk to them that much about it. I honestly don’t even know if they watch my stuff, I think I get excited for sure, like sharing, I think they’ve always known that I wanted to become a content creator full time. I’ve been making videos since 2016 and I think to see me go full time this year, it’s probably cool for a couple of them, but coming back to the question, I don’t, I think, one thing I do see with my newer friends from different groups I’ve hung out with like outside of college, I don’t know the difference in the mental load.

I do recognize the difference in the emotional labor that I see. So I think that like my cousin is coming to stay with us for a couple of days. And, I know with him and a lot of the guys that I spend time with nowadays, you’ll see us like hug for 20 seconds. You’ll see us, like staying close to each other And just be with each other, and not feel like we need to go play cornhole out back to like, kill the awkward silence or something.

I think in a lot of ways of, my friendships used to be much more around games and sports and drinking, and I think a lot of that’s evolved over the years. I, I have a friend that right now he’s going through a divorce and with him every day. We help each other stay accountable for getting work done in our businesses. And uh, we met in person one day to work alongside each other. And I remember like holding him. and I think that was the like positive, like non toxic masculinity that I think I experienced with my more recent. Guy friends has been palpably different than what I had in college.

JoAnn Crohn: There’s a lot of vulnerability. It’s a generational thing, I think. Yeah, because, I’m right on the cusp of Gen X and Millennial, and breathe firmly in Gen X, and it’s like, well, firmly by being like 2 years

Brie Tucker: I do. Both feet. No, 

JoAnn Crohn: really not that much.

Brie Tucker: But be But I was also the youngest in my family, and you are the oldest. So that makes a big difference. But anyway, yeah, I’m firmly, like, those feet are planted in cement. They are not moving.

JoAnn Crohn: But it’s it’s cool to see that the values are changing and that the toxic masculinity in some areas are definitely like, shutting away a little bit. I know a question that a lot of people would want to know is if our listeners right now, if they have a partner who is not stepping up, who does not realize the mental load, what are your recommendations?  what can they do about it?

Zach Watson: So my biggest recommendation, which I don’t typically make in short form content anymore because this will require more emotional labor of women.  and like when you try to make a 90 second clip giving them how to put their emotional labor efforts out. it just doesn’t go well for anyone.  

I think The best answer that I’ve come to in the past year, and I can say similar to like I know I did a bad job answering your previous question about like, where’s the mental load that I’m seeing with my friends and family. 

JoAnn Crohn: I think you did a fantastic job, Zach. 

Zach Watson: Oh, thank you so in the past two years I was in sales and one of the things, as I was talking more about these subjects the past two years, I started seeing my colleagues and my managers starting to use the word mental load.

I, I forget, I’d sent an email over. I said, Hey, can you do something for me? And he responded back, Oh yeah, here’s the thing. Did I take the med load off you? And then like, P. S. Did I do it right? and so slowly for me, just including those words that are kind of uncomfortable because it’s new vocabulary, and it feels like you’re forwarding like an agenda or something by using this new vocabulary.

I noticed it starting to shift and change how my colleagues and my peers would think and talk, And similarly, like I made a post on LinkedIn the other day about my friend. Like he, he used it in a really normalized way in a text to me. He’s like, Hey, I got the mental load on this one. And, that I think is honestly how women can be fusing that into the home.

And if they’re doing the emotional labor of Contextualizing it for how the guys are doing the mental load in their lives. So for example, let’s say you’re married to a man that is a manager, manages a couple of people, and he comes home complains about this one person that he manages that always is late on their time card.

You say, Hey, sounds like you have to do a lot of mental load for managing and making sure that he gets his time card on time. Otherwise it sits on you all weekend that you have to send them the email on Monday to remind him. And then he starts recognizing, oh, okay. When something’s sitting on my head as like a to do list that I’m not gonna write down It’s not gonna go on a sticky note, but it’s gonna stay in my brain for three days That’s what mental load is and when they can see how it’s how they’re experiencing it in their own roles and their job Same with emotional labor.

I think if you can start infusing that like Yeah, I hate it. Every time my boss comes into this meeting, like we got to stroke his ego and like we got to be really careful about how direct we are with him. Wow, it sounds like you do a lot of emotional labor to make sure you don’t piss off your boss. I think that’s a really effective way is starting to infuse and label the language of like how they’re already doing those things.

JoAnn Crohn: Oh my gosh, I love this so much because I think of like conversations with my husband lately and he’s doing that with his bosses and he, I mean, he’s, he’s great with, he knows emotional labor and mental load anyways, but it is such a common thing that happens in workplaces. And you’re doing such a teacher thing too, by the way, by labeling it and putting the vocabulary with it. And with the vocabulary comes the power to change the situation. And I love it all. I think it’s genius. I think it’s wonderful. 

Zach Watson: Thank you.

JoAnn Crohn: also building off of the work that’s already out there and crediting it as well is a real awesome thing to see A 

Zach Watson: I think the only original thing that I’ve done which apparently I was told that I coined it recently was weaponized Responsibility

JoAnn Crohn: ooh, weaponized responsibility sounds really interesting. Let’s hear more about that right after the break. So, you were talking about weaponized responsibility, and we know about weaponized incompetence, so what is the responsibility 

Zach Watson: so I mean I made this up that there may be an a previously existing word or phrase that I’m not Crediting but I came up with this term based on recognizing what weaponizing competence is which I’m I would defer to Lori Danger. I feel like she’s like the expert on it from all the videos she does.

But, I would want to. ask her whether that is purposeful or not. if a guy sucks at something, but he isn’t necessarily doing it on purpose. He’s just like, it’s getting more like learned helplessness. Almost. I don’t know if that’s weaponized, but coming back to your question, I think weaponized responsibility is, I made a example the other day, let’s say, Alyssa, my wife is Working with our toddler.

And all of a sudden there’s spilled milk everywhere. And our toddler is about to just make a two X mess into 20 X. And she’s like, Zach, I really need, I really need your help right now. I say, Hey, I’m doing the taxes. Like I can’t help you right now. like I’m doing the thing that’s on my responsibilities list.

And so I’m weaponizing the level of priority that I’m putting my own responsibility over a shared, domestic responsibility between the two of us. 

JoAnn Crohn: Ah. Yeah. It’s like making the task that you’re doing more important than the task that needs immediate assistance.

Brie Tucker: or the task that, that, like you just said, like it’s a group. like it, your task, just doing for you versus a task that would be helping everybody there. 

Zach Watson: and I, I’ve recognized, I think I came up with this, maybe six months ago. I made the first video of it three months later, cause it came up finally in one of the groups that I was running with the guys that I coach. but I recognized where I was doing this was all the time. So I own dishes in our house.

I, I filled the dishwasher, empty it, clean pots and pans, etc. Alyssa leaves the food out and she knows it’s going to get taken care of and won’t go bad overnight. In the mornings when, we’d have to feed our dog, two cats, three goats, 

Brie Tucker: Got a little farm going on there.

Zach Watson: those are all like shared household responsibilities for a while. Our minimum standard of care around the morning routine was whoever wakes up first does all three of those things. And I kept finding myself saying like, all right, I gotta do the dishes at this point. And then I would do those first before the other three. And let’s say Alyssa wakes up 15 minutes after I did. I’m doing the dishes as she comes down. And she says to. Did you do the dogs or the cats or the goats? So like, no, I’ve been working on the dishes. So I think it was, I was starting to see the, eroding of trust that it had on my wife, as she would come in the morning and wonder why are. The morning routine thing’s not done. And it was ’cause I was checking off my own to-do list first.

JoAnn Crohn: that, like what you say there, not many partners pick up on at all. and I just like wanna get to the bottom of like, what makes you realize these things? Like how did you realize that there was an eroding of trust versus like, I mean. I hear partners attribute it to, Oh, my wife’s just being cranky in the morning. Or, my wife’s just doing this. putting it on the woman. and you immediately are like, Oh, it is something that I am doing and you’re introspective about it. 

Brie Tucker: yeah, I think the important part is, I’m curious, from either side, able to pick up on that, that, again, this isn’t just the person being grumpy. This isn’t just attributing to I’m being, maybe I’m being selfish by doing something. but picking up on the fact that it’s an erosion of trust, like that was interesting. Did she, did she articulate that? Did you guys sit down and have a conversation? Or did you just be like, Oh yeah, she’s trusting me to help do stuff and I’m not doing it. Still, I don’t even think I can make that leap. I don’t. I think Miguel’s a little cranky today. It’s okay. I’m going to give him some extra

Zach Watson: Uh, I, I think it’s usually when it happens, like multiple days in a row or like 

Brie Tucker: Uh huh. 

Zach Watson: three or four times over a set of two weeks. and I think like when you hear that tone of, uh, again, it’s like that, repetitive annoyance over like the, single one-off annoyance has a different like. Flavor to it and I think I’ve started picking up on some of that.

I mean, my wife and I were separated in 2018 because I didn’t have the language for it. I put too much mental load on there. We had bought a multifamily house and I was very invested in my YouTube career, which ironically is my smallest platform right now. And like I was putting in probably an hour to a day on YouTube and this house that we agreed to renovate, like I was twiddling my thumbs about trying to figure out how to get an electrician in the house and we’re new homeowners.

I think the amount of erosion that happened in that time, and that it took to build that trust back after we got back together, I think I’m both lucky that I got to go through a separation and not a divorce, and like experience the challenges of that to really have the opportunity to analyze all the problems that I created in that time.

And so I could hopefully not repeat some of those same mistakes. I think the other part of the question is I think because I certainly get an ego boost when I’ve articulated things well and people are like, yes, this is great. Everyone should talk about this. I have a craving now I think to consistently get better at analyzing myself and sharing it with the internet because

JoAnn Crohn: That’s what I do. I’m sorry. It’s what I do with my writing as well. I’m like, ooh, this is a problem right here that I acted in a way that wasn’t great. Oh, I could write about this. Let me write about it. So I totally get that. 

Brie Tucker: agree, like, I think there’s this part about being able to have a positive impact on others. I think that you’re cutting yourself short, say, a stroke of ego on there, like, it’s 

JoAnn Crohn: It makes you more introspective though. 

You, realize like the challenges can be turned into opportunities and they can be turned into teaching moments. Again, it’s like the teacher thing. Like it’s a teaching moment and you can share this with the world. 

Brie Tucker: Maybe that’s what it is. 

JoAnn Crohn: Well, Zach, you’re writing a book. Tell us about the book you’re writing.

Zach Watson: it’s slow going, but, that part of the reason I started really diving into calling myself the recovering man child is I thought That’s really great clickbait for book title. So 

that’ll be included somewhere in there. but I recognize that. So with the guys that I work with currently, working with about 33 of them in small groups and we read through fair play, we have a discussion on that every week and I’m holding them accountable to the weekly meetings with their partners. And I had to create a set of reflection questions for us to talk about every week as we go through each chapter. the reason I’m writing the book is I think there’s a love Eve and there’s a lack of palatability that I think a lot of guys have when they pick that book up.

I think it was easy for me because I already had a woman audience because I’d already read. 50, 000 comments by the time I picked that book up to know what women are going through. and that I was much more willing to empathize with their experience. And then I see countless stories of like guys being like, I won’t pick that book up.

But that’s a misandrist book. I’m like, yeah, it’s it’s hard hitting, but it’s not accurate. so I think a huge part of what I think I’ve been able to do is put myself first, be vulnerable. have almost like a Trojan horse type effect on, defensive men that are struggling with these concepts. 

Brie Tucker: That’s the cover. of your book, right there. That’s the cover. It’s a Trojan horse on the cover, man. Just tell sorry. heh. 

Zach Watson: so the original idea of the book was called Confessions of a Recovering Manchild. I don’t know if it’ll end up. Being that cover name because it what it’s meant to be is a directive way to see the mental load see the emotional labor And cite all the sources that I’ve already done and regurgitate it in a way that is gonna be a little bit easier for guys To digest as they want to see a guy that’s fucking up first, so that they can see it in themselves.

 JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. 

Zach Watson: if I were to, if I were to take, Fair Play and, Justin Baldoni’s Man Enough and create some sort of love child, that is what I’m imagining my book would be.

JoAnn Crohn: Well, that’s awesome. I look forward to reading it. I will definitely read it. I was like,

Brie Tucker: And you’re gonna have to come back and share more once you have that finished because I have a feeling that’d be very popular with our audience. What do you think, JoAnn? 

JoAnn Crohn: I think so. And Zach, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast and we’ll talk to you soon.

Zach Watson: Thank you. Appreciate it.

JoAnn Crohn: So we have such the honor on this podcast to interview people who are really smart, who are really accomplished and talented. but we also get people who are just really damn good people. Zach was a really good person. 

Brie Tucker: He really 

JoAnn Crohn: I, I mean, we see it on. For half an hour with him afterwards, just chatting and coming up with ideas and talking business and talking like everything. 

Brie Tucker: I what I love is like talking about ways that we can bring our audience and with his audience and bring in the dudes with the women and getting us all together and all talking and making real change moving forward, not only in the way that we communicate, but in our expectations.

And then we just continue to build upon that. And then that gets passed down to our kids. And then that gets passed down to their kids. And like, we are going to multiply with this. Mental load, equal distribution, thought process. 

JoAnn Crohn: Well, it really needs to be done, I bet. both sexes in the relationship. like in, heterosexual relationships. it can’t just be the job of the woman to Figure out how to take off this mental load and take off this emotional labor because something I, I know I’ve been made aware of very recently is that we as women are kept so busy by all of our mom guilt that keeps us working like tirelessly, taking care of all of our kids needs, getting in everywhere we can.

Professionally, we’re busy, trying to be like the best partners, we’re busy. We’re just so busy, busy, busy that it leaves us exhausted and unable to actually make change anywhere. And something in the interview that Zach said was there is this emotional labor that’s on us as well, and it comes to the point where it just becomes too much to do alone.

And so when we can have men coming in, and taking their fair share of things, and educating other men about the mental load, and having that change as well, then Change just becomes so much more attainable, because sometimes you look at the situation and you see some of the examples of guys in the world, especially on Fox News. And you’re like, there’s no hope. There’s really no hope. There is hope!

Brie Tucker: There’s no hope. We’re screwed.

JoAnn Crohn: We’re screwed! But there, there is a lot of like real good and people who actually see what’s going on and I truly believe that like women are such a powerful force and The more we alleviate from our shoulders, the more we lift up off of our shoulders, the more energy we get back to then really make the changes.

Because, you know, we were just talking this morning, Bri, when we were recording a podcast about how women are attuned to their kids crying, like, you know, their, their newborns crying. It’s like a biological thing in that respect. whereas some of like our makeup, like we are attuned to different things than men, and so we. We need to be truly involved in our, decisions and changes as well.

Brie Tucker: 100%. So I really hope everybody enjoyed this episode as much as we did. We really did. And, we’ve got a link in the show notes. If you want to learn some more about Zach, follow some more of his material. There’s a link down there for you to get on his email list, learn a little bit more about what he’s got going on.

Definitely check him out on TOK. He’s got some great information. It’s fantastic. And more than likely you’re going to see him again in our No Guilt Mom universe.

JoAnn Crohn: Until next time, remember, the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you. We’ll talk to you later. 

Brie Tucker: Thanks for stopping by.