'Have I got to do everything?': Joanna Page calls her husband her 'fifth child' in debate over mental load

There’s a very old saying that suggests a man can work from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done - and despite dating back centuries, there’s many who still feel this rings true today.

Joanna Page, star of Gavin & Stacey, is one such person, as she let her husband know all too clearly during an episode of their shared podcast, Lush!

Joanna held nothing back as she criticised her husband for not helping with their four children, leaving her to do more than her share of the work to get them all ready and out the door, and even compared him to her "fifth child" thanks to the lack of help he offered.

During the (perhaps very) relatable marital squabble the two had on the podcast, Joanna asked her husband, former Emmerdale actor James Thornton "Do you want to talk about the argument that we had on holiday?"

Joanna wasn’t really asking, though, and didn’t stop when James claimed to not remember any argument. She launched right in, explaining that, while she was busy making sure their four children’s swimming bags were being packed up, she asked James to get their teeth brushed.

She said, "After [packing the bags], I’m saying to you, 'Can you just go and get her teeth cleaned? Because I’m packing everything up now'.

"You go in to do her teeth, you do such a rubbish job of it that you lose patience. She starts crying. I’m like, ‘For goodness sake, have I got to do everything? Have I got to take over doing this now?'"

Continuing her story, she said, "So I go in, I am then cleaning her teeth, get her sorted. I then go back, finish packing these three bags. I look and the kids and everybody are just waiting for me.

"And then you are just leaning... waiting as well, like a fifth child waiting for me to finish packing three bags before we can all go downstairs!"

James tried to plead his case - but chose the wrong words. After suggesting Joanna always did the bags because she knows what goes in them, she snapped, "Why can't we do them together? Why can’t you know what’s in the bags? There’s something wrong with you.

"You know why I always do them? Because you don’t".

The couple then explained what happened next - and it touched on the importance of communication. With Joanna already feeling overwhelmed, she believed James just upped and walked out.

But, as James explained, he had gone to collect the inflatables for their day at the pool or beach, trying to help move things along. He explained, “I went down to put the inflatables down on the sun loungers… it gets me out of the room, just take the tension out of the argument”.

Joanna, however, thought he had just walked out and “left me with four children [and] three bags… You didn’t verbalise it, you didn’t tell me.”

The fight ended with Joanna deciding to walk off and sit by herself in an over-18s section for a while and had "two Pina Coladas" leaving James with the kids. Something many a stressed mother has likely wanted to do before.