The Mental Load Olympics: Gold Medal Events for Single Dads

There needs to be a worldwide recognition ceremony—something televised—celebrating single dads and the mental Olympics they perform every day.

Forget the decathlon.
Forget Ironman races.
Those athletes have rest days.

Single dads have:

• Tuesdays

• And sometimes… an extra Tuesday

This mental load is no joke. It’s like your brain has 47 tabs open, 12 alarms set, and your heart is performing double-duty trying to be strong, compassionate, and patient while fighting burnout like a Marvel character who never gets a sequel.

Gold Medal Event #1: Remembering Everything

• Picture day

• Doctor appointments

• Who likes crust and who doesn’t

• Which water bottle lid actually fits which water bottle

• Deadlines

• Homework

• Spirit Week dress-up themes that only a sadist could have created

And that’s just before breakfast.

Your brain is a full-time project management system and you didn’t sign up for the position. You inherited it the day your life changed.

Gold Medal Event #2: Doing It All Without Losing Yourself

Maybe the hardest part of being a single dad is trying to be an entire village while still remembering you’re an actual human.

Sometimes you want to:

• Sit alone in silence

• Hit the gym

• Talk to an adult

• Eat food that wasn’t reheated in the microwave

• Feel like you matter outside of fatherhood

But the mental load whispers:
“Did you switch the laundry?”
“Did you reply to that teacher?”
“You forgot the field trip money.”
“That noise the car makes…? It’s back.”

This constant mental load is real.
And heavy.
And no one hands you a break unless you carve it out yourself.

Gold Medal Event #3: The Emotional Load

You’re not just dad.
You’re comforter-in-chief.
You carry their big emotions, fears, dreams, meltdowns, victories, and heartbreaks.

You carry your own too.

But here’s the powerful part:

Your emotional presence—imperfect, tired, honest—is changing the next generation.
You’re rewriting what fatherhood looks like.
You’re breaking old patterns.
You’re becoming the father you didn’t have or the father you always wanted to be.

And that’s worth every medal ever forged.

Why You Deserve the Gold

You’re doing daily heroism that rarely gets applause.
But make no mistake:

You’re winning.
Your kids know it.
God knows it.
Your future self will thank you for every sacrifice, every late-night conversation, every moment you put your heart back out there even when it hurt.

So congratulations, Olympic Champion of Fatherhood.
You’re carrying more weight than most people will ever see—
and still showing up with strength, humor, and a heart that refuses to quit.