When I was in college, I had a friend who apologized constantly. It was the first time I became aware of the mostly female habit of apologizing unnecessarily. In my friend’s case, it came to seem as if she were apologizing just for taking up space.

My self esteem wavered at that time, but I saw value in myself. Enough to recognize what I didn’t want: to be in a place where I was apologizing for existing. I determined not to let that happen.

I’d like to say I never apologized for anything that wasn’t my fault again after I made that decision, but my inner self has always taken the marathon route when it comes to personal growth. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

I have been especially guilty of it with the Chaplain. The Chaplain isn’t someone who wants or needs me to be sorry all the time. And we’re at the point now where I’ll catch myself starting to apologize and then I’ll stop myself aloud.

I have made big strides with how often I do it when I’m out in the public sphere.

But I also do it with my kids.

It’s hard not to be sorry all the time. When someone wasn’t looking where they were going and you bump into them even though you tried to get out of their way. Or the thousand other things we do or don’t do. Like changing the radio station to a type of music we didn’t know the other person hated. Serving gluten to someone we didn’t know was intolerant. All of the unintentional slights.

It becomes a default. At any perceived wrong or insecurity, a verbalized “sorry” comes out, like a hiccup.

I was driving my kids home recently. I was mentally exhausted. I was thinking about, 15 years after college, how apologetic I can still be. About mental load, and the default parent. Under that heavy burden, I am still sometimes apologetic about kids not having a certain item laundered, or when I don’t have a dinner planned and executed on time, as if I’m the only person who’s capable of taking care of those things.

I’m tired, and I start making excuses, which implies that I’m responsible. Even though I live in a house full of smart, able humans who walk past the folded baskets of laundry all around the house but don’t unload them. They walk through the same crumbs I walk through. They knock clean dishes into the sink reaching over the quivering tower in the dishrack, or even better, add dirty dishes to the sink without checking to see if the dishwasher has been unloaded.

But I digress.

When we are sorry for things that don’t require an apology, we give away our authority, while simultaneously taking on a responsibility that isn’t ours. And we take meaning away from the times when we DO need to apologize.

I want to say sorry when I need to, and have it be heartfelt. I don’t want it to be a verbal tic.

I want to learn how to share the mental load WITH my family. The Chaplain has made great strides in taking on more of this. And in our conversations about it, I’ve developed a better appreciation for the mental load the Chaplain carries, some of which was invisible to me in the same way my load is invisible to him.

The kids have been less enthusiastic about sharing this weight, with Three as a notable exception. But even she has her limits.

I’m very aware my kids are learning from my example how to be. I don’t want them to see me trying to take the responsibility for everything. I don’t want them watching me attempting to do it all on my own rather than push through the resistance of asking for help.

Sometimes the cost of asking is emotional: I call someone to help me, and they whine, complain, and take forever to do what I’ve asked. Or pretend they can’t hear me. Or start doing it, but disappear midway through as soon as I’ve let my attention go to my next task.

Sometimes it’s the physical and mental exhaustion of staying present to supervise the “help,” train people for the job, and see that it gets completed.

Just thinking and writing about it feels like work.

And when I don’t do this extra work of asking for and getting help, my family learns that I take care of everything, and when I don’t succeed, it’s my fault.

I’ve gotten better.

Tonight, for instance, I realized too late that our upstairs bathroom was out of toilet paper. When I came downstairs, I called Five over, handed her three rolls of paper (letting her see where it was stored), and asked her to take them upstairs. “If you can,” I asked, “could you put one roll onto the holder?” I demonstrated with my hands how the spring in the holder worked. A few moments later, she called downstairs that she couldn’t do it. I called up that I would try to help in a minute, but that she should try one more time. A little while later, she came downstairs and proudly told me she had figured out how to put the roll on.

You see, I said to myself, that wasn’t that bad. I feel great, Five feels great, and the next person who uses that bathroom will have a much better experience than I just did. I tried very hard not to wonder if she’d put the roll on with the end over the top or underneath. (I checked later on. She got it right.)

I’m not just doing this with my girls (which would perpetuate the problem, no?). In some ways, working with boys can feel harder. I don’t know if this is because of my own deeply ingrained “traditional” thinking or actual gender differences. Maybe it’s some of both.

This past week, I delegated a task to my oldest son. We needed replacement parts to fix our backyard trampoline, and I needed him to get some information in order to make sure I was getting the right parts. I wanted to place the order before the end of the week, while there was a sale. A day passed, and he still hadn’t done what I asked. Finally, I came into his room. I appealed to his humanity. I know he’s kind of outgrown the trampoline, and technically, I could get the information I needed myself. But if he did it, it would be a huge help, and would take him much less time than it would take me, and he would probably have better results.

Do you hear the mental gymnastics I have to do sometimes to convince my family (and myself?) that I’m justified in getting them involved? And there is the added piece that when you have teenagers, “Because I said so” doesn’t work anymore. Once someone is taller than you, you just have to hope whatever you did so far gave the kid some level of respect so that they will do what you ask even though you can’t physically make them do it.

So, these days, I often stop myself before I apologize. Even better, sometimes I can ask the person who either has expectations of me, or who I feel I have a responsibility toward, a thoughtful question instead. I might ask, “Have you thought about what YOU might want to do to help make dinner?” “Did you try to do it yourself?” “Is your hamper full?” “Did you try to help him first?” “Why are you telling me this?” “Could you have handled it yourself?”

Here’s where it gets tricky. When there is something going on in my house that I need to get involved in, I want my kids to tell me. I want them have the judgement to know when it’s time to involve Mom, and when they should deal with it themselves and just let me know when it’s taken care of.

That’s a work in progress.

All this in the name of shared responsibility, and the reduction of apologetic females in the world. I don’t want to be a sorry person, and I don’t want it for my girls. I don’t want my boys growing up in a world where they take it for granted that the women in their lives will just take care of everything in certain spheres, and if the women don’t, it’s no one’s fault but their own.

Do you find yourself saying sorry for things you don’t need to apologize for? Do you let other people in your family help you bear the mental load? Are you comfortable with the amount of invisible work you do for your household?