Parenting

Video Nails The Difference Between A ‘Mom Cold’ And A ‘Man Cold’

by Valerie Williams
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Originally Published: 

This hilarious video compares a “Mom Cold” and a “Man Cold”

There’s a video going viral contrasting how a woman deals with a garden-variety cold versus the way a man does, and it’s viral for a reason: it’s true. Most women will tell you that their male partners don’t do so hot handling a minor illness and thus, the “Man Cold” was born. This video perfectly illustrates how god damn annoying it is to be sick yourself and still have to baby a grown man who can’t handle a low-grade fever and a little snot.

Get it together, men. We are so done with your shit.

Mom and blogger Meredith Masony posted the video on her Facebook page titled The Man Cold, and it’s now at over 19 million views. She certainly struck a chord with women everywhere who are tired of their whiny husbands’ inability to tough out a stupid virus.

It starts with a familiar scene — the husband rolling over in bed like he’s at death’s door and Masony impatiently acknowledging that yes, she knows he’s sick. She knows because she’s sick too with the exact same cold, but of course, he’s feeling so much worse.

Throughout the video, Masony is still doing her usual thing as a mom and wife — cleaning, taking care of the kids and checking on her hapless husband. She tells Today that though the video is a bit dramatic, there’s definitely a lot of truth to it. “This seems to happen every year — the kids bring home back-to-school germs and we all get sick. I work from home and there is no such thing as a sick day. Between the kids and house and work, I have to keep going. I love my husband dearly, but he does turn into a puddle when he is sick.”

Because for moms, a cold doesn’t mean jack squat, and that’s incredibly frustrating. The laundry still needs washing, the dinner still needs cooking and the kids still need looking after. Not that her Man Baby cares. None of them do.

Then she says what we’re all thinking as we stare down at our pathetic husbands wrapped in blankets shivering. “No, you’re not going to die. I will dig a hole, kick you into the hole, and cover you up…you just have a cold.”

Preach.

Calling him a “big, baby, man child” who “obviously needs more rest,” the bullshit continues with Masony going about her day as usual and her husband being completely useless. It’s a scenario many of us are all too familiar with, because they all do it.

My kids are close in age and I’m a c-section mom, but at a week postpartum with a 20-month-old and tiny infant to care for by myself, I was basically back to business. A laundry basket on one hip, a baby on the other and a shrieking toddler not yet used to sharing her momma following me everywhere, it was then that I lost any sympathy I might have had for my husband when suffering a Man Cold.

Now, when he drapes a quilt over his shoulders and retreats to our bedroom moaning unintelligibly, I shut the door behind him and ignore most of his pleas for pampering. Sorry, buddy. I have two little ones who actually need me. You can haul your 38-year-old butt to the kitchen to get your own tissues. I might be a mom, but I’m not your mom.

As Masony acknowledges sarcastically at the end of the video, she knows she has no compassion, but that’s because no one has compassion for us moms when a minor illness strikes. We tuck a few tissues in our pockets and the world goes on. We don’t get to lay down for two days and no one is bringing us chicken soup with the little star noodles.

Sorry, dudes — if we’re on our own, so are you.

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