GOOD thing we stocked up on laundry soap.
June 5th, 2009 at 6:38 am by Rachel Manek under Rachel's Good Day
Subtitle: Why do men and women seem to suffer the flu differently?
My family got the flu this week. Bella woke up at 2:30. Sick. 3 times. All over her pajamas. And OUR bed that she had crawled into an hour earlier.
Got her all cleaned up. Re-made the bed. And then my alarm went off. Ugh. Of course all of this woke the baby.
So I shower and go off to work. On the way.. And it only takes me 7 minutes to get there.. My phone rings. It’s my husband. The baby had just “gotten sick” all over him.
Poor baby. Poor hubby.
Work was understanding. They let me go home and Angela filled in for me. I held the baby all day. She didn’t know what was happening to her. And that leads me to the POINT of this blog. People handle sickness differently. I think Zoe is going to be like me. Avoid getting sick at all costs. I have an IRON stomach. And when it fails — use mind over matter so nothing comes up. We just don’t like that whole stomach ick.
Bella is more like her dad. She’s a champ. She lets it out when it needs to get out. (I’m trying to avoid the words in case you’re eating your breakfast while reading this)
Now let’s talk about my husband. He wasn’t too bad this time. Perhaps it was because we had joked about it two days earlier. But he has a tendency to MOAN the entire time he is sick. LOUDLY. I find it to be very annoying and I don’t know why I can’t be more MOTHERLY to him like I am to the children. They can throw up all over me and I don’t mind (that much). But he moans and asks for aspirin and it’s a little annoying to me. Is it because he’s the man? And I want him to take it like a man??
I on the other hand, and others may disagree, suffer the flu in silence. I’m moaning on the inside. To myself.
I’ve talked to my girlfriends about this. Lot of them say the same thing. Their husbands turn into needy babies when they get sick. Why is that???
I thought I had missed getting bitten by this flu bug but as I write this things are just not right inside. I just hope my husband doesn’t read this until AFTER he runs out for meds, gatorade, etc.
Rachel Manek serves as co-host and news anchor of the number one morning news program, Good Day Wisconsin.
I think men are such babies about getting sick because they don’t have the domestic responsibilities a woman has. When women are sick we still have to make sure we get up with the kids, make sure everyone is fed and taken care of and on top of all of this make sure that the house is clean and that we get to work to help make ends meet. Men, when they come home they can say “Hi” to the family and spend a little time with them but that’s about it. It’s not very often you see a man helping out with all of the things a woman has to do in a day. (I’m not saying a man like that is non-existent either.) So overall, men have the time to whine and moan about being sick when women are just too busy to even notice half the time.
Just to clarify — my hubby does almost all of the cooking and grocery shopping. And half the laundry. When he is healthy.
But when it comes to getting sick – moms just can’t lay in bed all day. You are SO right about that!
I, laughingly, have to answer this one with a story of my own. Last year the flu hit our house. My four kids (8,5,3,1)each came down with it pretty much at four hour intervals. Each of them was finished with the flu after twelve hours each. I then got it (thankfully, after they were all done)and I was “allowed” five hours to be sick. After all, my husband had to get to bowling. HOWEVER, when it was his turn he was down sick in bed (or on the couch) for a full 72 HOURS. 72!!!! This is not a man who is sick often and almost never misses work, mind you, but he sure milks it out when he is.
My motherly instincts to not come alive when he is sick either.