Sometimes it feels like moms have the weight of the world on their shoulders and in their arms, and we have to carry everything—literally and figuratively. At least that’s what nationally syndicated radio personality and mom Anna Zapotosky feels as evidenced by her viral post about how men never seem to carry anything. And this “mom rant” is honestly so spot-on.
In an interview with TODAY, Zapotosky said, “You ever notice how you walk out of your house — you have 7,000 things on top of you, and your husband walks out and he’s got his wallet and his keys?”
Yes, yes I have.
Just for my 5-year-old son, I always have his bottle of water, a bag with a change of clothes, books for the ride, sometimes his stuffed Yoshi, a card game if we’re going to eat out at a restaurant, two monster trucks, and enough snacks to feed an entire elementary school. Not to mention my own water, sometimes coffee, sometimes a protein drink in addition to the water, my keys, and my wallet.
Sure, I ask my 5-year-old if he can help, and sometimes he does, but a lot of the time he’s “too tired to carry his heavy backpack.” Such a man, right? And it’s so not worth the argument, but he does open the car door for me and the front door of the house, bless his heart.
In Zapotosky’s viral Instagram post, she shared a video of her carrying two backpacks, garbage—that she said somehow accumulated in the span of 45 minutes—a pair of Converse shoes, and of course, a cold cup of coffee. Because of course it’s cold. We’re moms.
She continued in the video, “And you know what? I still have like seven more things to bring in, but my husband will walk in without a single thing in his hands.”
Zapotosky also shared how the phenomenon infiltrates the workplace using a dad she works with as an example. “I swear he walked into work with nothing. Nothing. He just walked in with, like, his arms. His arms were just hanging by his sides like it was completely normal,” she said. “And I thought, what must it be like to walk in somewhere and just have your arms.”
Even at work, we need our water bottle, lunchbox, purse, and whatever else we may need on the fly that day. At work and with motherhood, you always need to be prepared, right?
Zapotosky speaks for all of us when sharing this phenomenon because we are tired of being pack mules, y’all. And commenters were definitely commiserating on the post.
“Could not agree more!! Hubs woke up yesterday and said where are the kids’ backpacks? I said they’re probably still in the car since you picked them up from school yesterday,” said one mom.
“With all due respect… do we really even need the husband? (Divorced mama here, if I’m carrying the entire marital/parental load anyway, wtf do I need more dead weight to carry?”
Yikes, but she has a point.
Obviously, however, we can always just, you know, ask the men to help us. Most of the time they won’t be “too tired to carry a backpack” like my 5-year-old son. Sometimes, men simply don’t think about it. At least that’s what one commenter said.
“I learned a long time ago that my husband is happy to help if I ask him. Or rather tell him. ‘Hey can you grab such and such because I gotta grab this and that’ or ‘when we leave can you take blah blah blah out with you?’ Just because they don’t think, doesn’t mean they aren’t capable,” she said.
So moms everywhere please just ask for help. We aren’t meant to carry the literal and figurative weight of parenthood alone. Just make sure your partner isn’t committing weaponized incompetence, because that opens up a whole other can of worms.
