Back-to-school season is often measured in backpacks, new shoes and packed lunches, but much of the work happens before anything appears on a shopping list. New national polling suggests Canadian mothers are doing an outsized share of the remembering, scheduling, anticipating and worrying that keeps family life moving.
The headline number is striking: 92% of Canadian mothers polled said they feel responsible for keeping track of most family-related tasks. As classrooms reopen and routines change, that invisible workload is becoming more intense. The findings point to something broader than a busy September. They show how school schedules, household finances, children’s well-being and everyday family administration can accumulate into a form of work that rarely has a clear starting or stopping point.
What the 92% Figure Actually Measures
The 92% figure comes from Ipsos polling conducted for GreenShield between July 2 and July 8, 2026. Researchers questioned 1,001 Canadian mothers aged 18 to 64 who had children under 18 living in their households. Responses were weighted using demographic information, and Ipsos reported a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Importantly, the number reflects mothers who said they felt responsible for keeping track of most family-related tasks. GreenShield describes that responsibility as carrying the family’s mental load: the planning, remembering, organizing and anticipating that happens behind visible household chores. Another 86% said they feel “always on” when it comes to family responsibilities. The results do not mean every Canadian household operates identically, but they indicate that among the mothers polled, responsibility for managing family life was extraordinarily widespread.
Back-to-School Turns Planning Into a Second Shift
September creates a particularly concentrated version of work that already exists throughout the year. Sixty-eight per cent of mothers said their mental load becomes higher during the back-to-school period. Seventy-one per cent reported being primarily responsible for coordinating school-related tasks, while 75% said they mainly handle household scheduling and planning. Another 74% said remembering important dates and tasks primarily falls to them.
Those percentages capture why back-to-school pressure can feel larger than the visible checklist suggests. Buying supplies may take an afternoon, but someone also has to know which supplies are required, notice that gym shoes no longer fit, remember orientation dates, follow school messages and arrange transportation when activities restart. Each individual decision can seem small. The cumulative job is different: one person becomes the family’s information centre, maintaining dozens of unfinished tasks in the background while ordinary work and household responsibilities continue.
Mental Load Is Different From Simply Doing More Chores
Researchers have increasingly distinguished cognitive household work from physical chores. Sociologist Allison Daminger described cognitive labour as a process involving anticipating needs, identifying possible solutions, making decisions and monitoring whether those decisions actually work. Her research, based on interviews with members of 35 couples, found women performed more cognitive labour overall, particularly the anticipation and monitoring stages.
That distinction helps explain why dividing visible chores does not necessarily divide the mental load. One partner might take a child to soccer practice, for example, while another has already found the program, registered the child, paid the fee, checked equipment, entered games into the calendar and remembered when the uniform needs washing. The driving is easy to see. The chain of decisions behind it is much less visible. Academic researchers have therefore treated cognitive household labour as a separate dimension of domestic work rather than merely another name for cleaning, cooking or childcare.
Canadian Time-Use Data Shows the Gap Goes Beyond Perception
Statistics Canada’s 2022 Time Use Survey offers another perspective on how childcare is divided. Among parents studied, mothers averaged 7.5 hours per day caring for children, compared with 4.9 hours for fathers. The measure included direct care and other activities occurring while children aged 14 and younger were present, so it is broader than uninterrupted hands-on childcare.
Parents also perceived the division differently. In different-gender couples, 46% of mothers said at least half of childcare tasks were shared equally, compared with 64% of fathers. Equal sharing was reported more frequently on weekends than weekdays. The differences were particularly visible in school-related help: among parents with children aged five to 14, only 22% of mothers said homework help was shared equally on weekdays, compared with 44% of fathers. That gap in perception is important because an imbalance can remain difficult to address when household members disagree about how much work is already being shared.
The Psychological Toll Is Showing Up in the Numbers
The GreenShield-Ipsos findings suggest that this responsibility is accompanied by significant strain. Sixty-five per cent of mothers said they often or very often feel overwhelmed. Fifty-five per cent reported experiencing burnout at those frequencies, while 52% reported regular anxiety. Nearly all mothers polled — 96% — said they spend at least one hour in a typical week thinking about or worrying about family needs, and 24% estimated that this exceeds 10 hours.
Academic evidence provides useful context without proving that mental load alone causes these outcomes. A study involving 322 mothers of young children examined cognitive and physical work across 30 household tasks. Researchers found the distribution of cognitive labour was particularly unequal and that carrying more of it was associated with stress, depression, burnout, poorer overall mental health and relationship difficulties. The distinction matters: persistent planning can continue while someone is commuting, working, exercising or trying to sleep.
Millennials Report the Heaviest Overall Load
The burden does not look identical across generations. Among Millennial mothers in the Ipsos data, 70% characterized their overall mental load as high, compared with 61% of Gen X mothers and 49% of Gen Z mothers. Millennials were also especially likely to report keeping track of most family responsibilities, at 97%, while 90% described themselves as “always on.”
Gen Z mothers showed a different pattern. Although fewer described their total mental load as high, 74% said they experienced burnout often or very often — higher than the percentages reported by Millennial and Gen X mothers. Seventy-three per cent of Gen Z mothers also said their workload increases during back-to-school season, versus 68% of Millennials and 65% of Gen X. These subgroup findings should be interpreted cautiously because smaller groups carry wider statistical uncertainty, but they illustrate how family stage, children’s ages and other circumstances can produce different forms of pressure.
Worrying About Children Has Become Part of the Work
Family management is not limited to calendars and lunches. Nearly three-quarters of mothers polled, 74%, said they spend considerable time worrying about their children’s mental health. Eighty-six per cent expressed concern about how online content and social media could affect their children’s well-being during the school year. More than half, 54%, said they are primarily responsible for providing children’s emotional support, although 43% said that responsibility is shared equally with somebody else at home.
For a parent, that emotional responsibility can involve noticing changes that never appear on a family calendar: whether a child suddenly dislikes school, has stopped talking about friends or seems unusually anxious before bedtime. The digital environment adds another layer because school-age children can carry their social lives home through phones and online platforms. Mental load therefore increasingly includes monitoring not only what children need to do, but also how they appear to be coping.
Back-to-School Costs Add Financial Planning to the Load
The family calendar is getting busier at the same time household budgets are being tested. Boston Consulting Group questioned more than 1,200 Canadian parents for research released September 1. Nearly 60% expected to spend more on back-to-school purchases than the previous year, and the average household budget for the season was close to $700. More than half said those expenses did not fit comfortably within their normal household budget.
BCG found that rising prices, rather than simply buying more products, were the main reason many families expected higher spending. Income also produced a substantial divide: households in the bottom 20% planned to spend roughly $525, while those in the top 20% expected about $925. For whoever manages a household’s purchases, that means another set of trade-offs — deciding what must be bought immediately, what can be reused and what spending elsewhere must be delayed so children can begin the school year prepared.
Mothers Are Often Delaying Help for Themselves
Even when pressure becomes difficult to manage, getting support requires time that many mothers say they do not have. Seventy-one per cent of respondents reported having delayed or avoided seeking mental-health support. Time was identified as a barrier by 44%, while cost was cited by 43%. Caregiving responsibilities themselves prevented 21% from seeking help, and 20% said they did not know where to find appropriate services.
The same respondents were clear about what would make care easier to access. Ninety-two per cent considered flexible options that fit their schedules important, while 89% pointed to affordability and 89% to timely access. The trade-offs appear elsewhere too: 51% said they frequently sacrifice sleep for family needs, 55% mental health, 55% physical health and 38% career opportunities. When the person coordinating care for everyone else also has to organize her own care, getting help can become another unfinished item on the list.
Sharing the Mental Load Means Sharing Ownership
Evidence suggests that reducing the imbalance requires more than assigning individual chores. Statistics Canada found parents who reported sharing childcare more equally were less likely to say they constantly felt stressed because there was not enough time: 68% among those reporting equal sharing versus 75% among those who did not. They were also less likely to report cutting back on sleep to gain time.
Research on cognitive housework reaches a similar conclusion from a relationship perspective. A 2025 study of different-gender partnered parents found that relationship satisfaction was highest when cognitive household work was shared equally. That suggests the meaningful unit of sharing is not simply completing a task when asked. It includes remembering the task exists, planning it, making decisions and monitoring the result. In a back-to-school household, true ownership might mean one parent taking full responsibility for school communications or extracurricular schedules rather than waiting for another parent to identify and delegate every next step.
