Episode #9 - Kelly Hubbell
You don’t have to carry the mental load alone to be a great mom.
Here’s how.
IIn this episode, Kelly Hubbell explains the mental load as the constant behind-the-scenes managing that keeps a family running, like having “100 tabs” open in your brain all day. Even in dual-income homes, moms often end up holding the planning, tracking, and anticipating, which can quietly turn into anxiety, loneliness, and resentment when the responsibility stays lopsided.
Her approach is practical: get the load out of your head and into support and systems. That might mean outsourcing specific tasks so your limited after-work time goes back to connection and rest, and building a simple home “playbook” so routines and responsibilities are clear and repeatable. When the work is documented and shared, delegation gets easier, and being a “good mom” stops meaning “do it all” and starts meaning “build a home that supports you too.”
HERE ARE THE 3 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:
1️⃣ The mental load is planning and remembering, not just chores.
2️⃣ Systems make delegation stick.
3️⃣ Support buys back time.
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“You don’t have to be a super mom. You don’t have to do it all.”
Guest Appearing in this Episode
Kelly Hubbell
Kelly Hubbell is the founder of Sage Haus and a mom of three who helps busy moms get real relief from the mental load through home systems and household support. She built her approach after hiring her first house manager in 2021, when everything felt like too much, and learning what actually makes delegation work in real life. Today, she guides families to “build their village” by creating clear home playbooks and helping parents hire the right support so they can feel present, not just productive.
Full Transcript
speaker-0 (00:01.388)
Hi Kelly, welcome to the show.
Hi Tia, thanks for having me.
Of course, I knew that you had to come on the Feel Good Show. Talk to me about what the mental load is, the invisible load, and how come women, moms, are the ones carrying most of it or all of it. And then I want you to talk about, from your perspective, what happens if we just
Keep it all inside of us, assuming that you are also working full time.
Yeah, yeah. yeah. Let's talk about it. So the mental load is all of the things we are holding in our head in our body to ensure that everyone around us is taking care of and thriving. So what that basically looks like, if you want to sort of visually imagine it is like having, you know, 100 tabs open in your brain at all times of
speaker-1 (01:12.15)
all of the things that like you need to happen that day, that week, that month, the birthday party that you need to plan for your kids, five year old birthday party, the groceries that you need for dinner tonight, the soccer jersey that needs to be washed for the game. Like all of those things that you're sort of like running through. it's a sort of combination of like a to-do list, but then also you're thinking constantly of when...
When does my kid need to like go to their next pediatrician appointment? Like how are my kids doing social, social emotionally? Like, you know, what, what do they need? Yeah. Academics, all of those things. It's just everything as a parent that you're sort of holding. Um, you're responsible for it. Yeah. And you're responsible for, and to your point, moms are like the mental load holders in most
relationships and most heterosexual relationships, typically moms are holding the majority of the mental load and continuing to take on that sort of lion's share of responsibilities.
And immediately I thought when women weren't doing paid work, right? Because women have always worked. It's just there's paid work and unpaid work. When women weren't doing paid work, then and they were taking care of the house and home, it was like, OK, this is your area of responsibility. then whether that's right or wrong, it's how it was. Now and going forward.
Women are working more, yet they're still carrying the lion's share of this invisible mental load for the home and the kids.
speaker-1 (03:00.814)
They sure are. Yeah, yeah. So more women than ever are in the workforce, but it hasn't really changed that like at home dynamic. I mean, we are making, we're making strides like things are, I would say like there is a lot more awareness right now on like partnership, collaboration, division of labor, right? Like all of those terms, sure, sure, sure. Yes, of course. I will say though that we still have long way to go.
So until we're there, we're gonna continue to have these conversations. The other thing you asked was, is like, how does owning the, yeah, the mental load, how does that, you know, how does that feel for us as moms, right? And so I would say that for me and a lot of the working moms I work with, they feel overwhelmed.
I often hear the term like, feel like I'm drowning. Anxious, they feel unsupported, they feel lonely, they feel resentful. All of those things, like these really heavy, intense emotions as a result.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right. And that none of those you're not feeling if you're in that state consistently or even on most days, right? You're not you're not thriving. You're not, you know, happy. And for for the dads, right? Like dads are spending more time than ever with their kids. They're doing more.
of the, like, let's say, child care piece than any other generation, which is awesome, great. But that doesn't mean that they can't support also with the invisible and mental load. So you're a big proponent of outsourcing and delegating and not doing it all, not being this superhuman person who is working, doing the invisible load, doing the kids, taking care of the house.
speaker-0 (05:16.83)
and everything with a little bow. So talk about why every working mom should really be thinking about what they can outsource, what they can delegate, and doing this with their partner.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that we are at a point in our like, society and culture where we're really starting to make a huge shift in terms of realizing how we want to feel and how we want to be spending our time. What that looks like for a lot of dual income working families is they're, you know, you know, what I tell
families all the time that I work with is even with two highly executive functioning, well-intentioned partners, there still just aren't enough hours in the day to get it all done. And those very few hours in the day that we're able to connect as a family, right, on the weekdays for us, it's like basically six to eight a.m. and then like five to seven p.m.
Like we're really trying to maximize that time and that presence with our kids and with our families and like that connection. And if we are instead multitasking, cooking, cleaning up, doing the laundry, like doing the house chores, know, trying to do.
all the personal emails from the school. I feel like there's all that admin work. Yeah.
speaker-1 (06:53.59)
All of that is like, we're trying to cram that into these hours of the day when what we really want to be doing is like spending those super, super precious time with our kids and or connecting or with our spouse. And so yeah, so I am a huge proponent of finding support that you need that your family might need to get your nights and weekends back, like get the time with your family back. What that can look like, right, is like,
meal prep. like someone who meal preps for your family. Ours like drops off food on Mondays for our family so we can eat throughout the week. And then I can like the other day, my kids were all home. It was like 445. I like ducked my head into my husband's office. He works from home too. And I'm like, Hey, everybody's home. We want to go for a bike ride. He's like, Yeah, great. Let's go. So like we went for an hour long family bike ride, got home, heated up food for five minutes and eight. I could have in
instead, been cooking in the kitchen, cleaning pots and pans like while my kids were out for a bike ride, but like, instead I was able to really spend that time right with my kids.
And this, so having a house assistant, house manager, how you help families, this is not childcare. Cause I know you and I are similar where we've had a nanny, we've had help with our children, but still felt overwhelmed and stressed and anxious and like resentful and everything. So this is really about
Yeah. So much more. Yeah. Now, and could there be a blend? Like, I know you talk about some, and we did that with us. It's like a little bit of Annie and then lots of house manager stuff. rethinking. So how do you help people change their mindset around thinking that the mom should be the one doing all of this? Like, a good mom does all. A good mom makes dinner.
speaker-1 (08:34.84)
So much more than childcare.
speaker-0 (09:03.436)
A good mom grocery shops. A good mom's the one who does the laundry, because that's what my mom did.
That's what we saw modeled to us. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it's it's also
Had wife stuff going on. Like there's all.
I know, I know, I mean, I know. I think that...
the mindset shift is really more around like, coming back to our core values, like, what do we really value? And how do we see ourself and what, what gives like, what makes us feel happy and feel good and feel connected. And I think when you really like take a deep dive and like, feeling all of those feelings I just mentioned, and then you think about like, the laundry, or
speaker-1 (09:56.62)
the cooking, like, if cooking brings you joy, amazing. Yes, absolutely. You should be carving out time to do that. For me, when my toddlers were screaming at me that they were starving, I was not feeling in a peaceful state to be cooking and that wasn't enjoyable for me. Like when, you know, I don't have to be the one like what I'm really thinking about, like, I don't have to be the one folding the laundry. Like, I don't it doesn't have to be me filling up the car with gas. It like, sure, can I do it? Yeah.
absolutely, I could do it, I can run myself ragged because I'm the one it has to be me. But when we let let, you know, go of this control and ask for help and like, accept help. Yes. The place that we can get to is like, way more aligned with like our core values of connection and like, feeling
Yes.
speaker-1 (10:51.86)
you know, supported and all of the things that we want, we actually want as moms and as working moms. So I think it's just this big sort of shift that I'm starting to see moms making, which is like, it doesn't have to be you. You don't have to be a super mom. You don't have to do it all. can build a village and support system around you.
Yeah, you made me think that I actually, I think back of over the years, because I've been a working mom for 11 years, and one of our kids is special needs and takes a tremendous amount of support and time with her without her, is that what I, I actually have never sacrificed like presence and time with my girls. I've always made that a priority of like,
the mornings, the evenings, the weekends, what I sacrificed was my ambition or career work time. So you if you're if you're listening, you might be a mom like me, where, you know, like, something's got to give you can't like, you know, I always you know, I know, I know some moms who stay up till one in the morning working, I could never do that, like, I could never sacrifice, I always need to sleep. So if you think about what
and then have causes. I always took care of myself physically, like some things, you know, for me, was sacrificing career. I was like, okay, for kid time, self care. did that. But something like you said, you can't do it all without something giving.
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, you can't. mean, you just you absolutely cannot like a lot of moms like I talked to her like, well, I in order to make it all work, like I just don't exercise. Like I know. Yeah. And and and I'm like, short term. Maybe that's a solution. Long term. Is that really what you want? Or Yeah, like the sacrificing sleep thing like, yeah, the literally the best thing you can do for your health is sleep.
speaker-0 (13:01.038)
No, exercise. mean, the research shows if you're not exercising regularly, it's the equivalent of taking a depressant pill. Like, it has such a massive impact on your positivity and optimism and your mental health. And then you're working, and your mental health matters for your work, and your mental health matters. So, oh yeah, self-care, absolutely. That goes out. So you also are incredibly,
incredibly strong at creating systems and having a systems thinking and approach around running your house and also around everything your kids need. So can you talk about that? Because honestly, I don't think I've been that systems focused over the past 11 years thinking about the house and kids.
Yeah, well, we think that it's really like twofold. we think having finding the right support, whether that's house manager, family assistant, meal prep chef, whatever it is, nanny, some combination of that for your family is important. The next piece that's like gonna ensure that your support is actually as supportive as they can be is systems. And the way you like to think about systems, especially for like
the audience here, which is a lot of working moms is sort of like thinking about like running your home like a business. So like making decisions as you would as a leader in your work in terms of creating operations, automation, things that are working and helping you sort of behind the scenes to ensure that everyone is again, like happy and thriving. The way that we view systems is basically
what we've done over the last two plus years and working with families who have onboarded, house managers, family assistants, is there's a connection piece there between like, basically offloading your everything in your brain, like all of those tabs we were talking about, all of that mental load and invisible labor, and getting that all out of your head and into what we call a home systems playbook, which is like, think about it as like a template for how you want your home to run.
speaker-1 (15:24.326)
and what that does is it bridges the onboarding of once you find the right support is now this support knows exactly how you want your home to run and what you want that to look like. And so, so the way we sort of think about it at Sage house is there are three core systems. The first system is feeding the family.
That system includes everything like having standing grocery and pantry items on hand all the way to recipes your family likes to eat. You know, what is the meal planning schedule for the week? Basically like the entire conceptual planning and execution of feeding everybody in your home. The next system is keeping the house clean. That's like all the laundry, all of the like cleaning, all the decluttering, all the organizing, basically like
how do we set up systems to ensure that like our home feels organized, clean, and that's one of the systems. Then the last one is plants and pet care, which is like the other living things in our home that we need to make sure are really happy, medications, schedules, appointments, like whatever, those kinds of things. And basically like among those systems, and then if you think about like things that need to happen daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally,
process systems.
I'm thinking of Christmas and the holidays. mean the amount of hours.
speaker-1 (16:53.038)
so much. There's so much around the whole month every holiday now really I feel like, you know, especially with kids like Valentine's Day is a big thing like Halloween.
But everything is like big now.
Yeah, it's like a big and like if you have systems in place to know, like what you need, and you can anticipate those things like we you know, we have like basically a calendar of like, like seasonal calendar and it's like basically reminds me like, when to order Christmas pajamas for everyone in their new size right like in October so that we make sure we have like
It's systems. It's like creating systems for your family so that you can get it out of your brain again. And you can either manage it better because it's somewhere or someone else. You can start delegating these things to somebody else.
And we can delegate to people that we hire. We can delegate to our partners, like offload someone. Family members, as kids get older, kids can take on more. It's just this, yeah, not all, not all, yes, not all you. So in addition to everything that you have shared and you've given so many great tools around
speaker-1 (17:51.63)
Family members, yep.
speaker-0 (18:12.63)
mindset and execution and doing things differently and making yourself feel happier calmer more productive more successful more connected i mean there's so many benefits in addition to all of that and the systems thinking as well what are what's one or maybe two things that you do on a regular basis we talked about exercise and sleep so in addition to those
that you do that help you feel good as a working mom.
Yeah. It makes me feel really good to, I guess, boundaries around just in general set boundaries. I think for me, those boundaries are around working and around like, basically balancing that with wanting to spend time with my family. Yeah. It makes me feel really good.
I mean, of course, it makes me feel so good to have the support my family has, right? Our house manager is amazing. Our meal prep chef is amazing. I would say like, I couldn't do this without them. what that allows me, having that support allows me to define my working hours. Yeah. So that I can be there for my kids in the mornings. I can greet my son when he gets off the bus at three o'clock on the corner and like really spend special time with him. Yeah. And so what it's allowed me to do is basically
have boundaries around like my time. And like, really that is, I realized like that is so, so important to me in feeling good. Yeah, as a working mom.
speaker-0 (19:55.758)
I love it. So Kelly, where can people find you, follow you if they want to connect with you and also learn more?
Yeah, so I would say find me on Instagram at my sage house. It's house is called H A US. I'm also on LinkedIn, Kelly Hubble. And you can go to our website to take a quiz. It's a free quiz. And the outcome of that is how many hours you're spending managing your household, it gives you some tailored suggestions on exactly like
what you could do to start getting things off of your plate. And it also provides you with a list of like hundred ideas for outsourcing, like a hundred tasks you could get off your plate today. So I would highly recommend going to take the quiz. And yeah, that's where you can find me.
love it. And wait, what if people want to learn more any resources for the systems piece?
Yeah, yeah, on our website, go to stagehouse.com. Yeah, ha us.com and you can go and find out more about the home systems, digital course and playbook. It's, it's something that comes together and anybody at any time can start that.
speaker-0 (21:13.058)
Get the course and the playbook. Awesome. Yep. Cool. OK, well, thank you for coming on the show. And as always, thanks for your inspiration and education. for everyone listening, go follow Kelly. She always shares a lot of great insights.
Thank you.