You’ve heard of the “ManFlu” — that mysterious illness that somehow hits men way harder than any woman could ever fathom. Well, we’re not handing out tissues. We’re here to talk about the real stuff underneath it: the disconnection, the imbalance, and how we can start to change it.
The ManFlu is a metaphor we use to dig into something deeper: the cultural scripts, gender roles, and unspoken rules that keep men sidelined and leave women carrying more than their share of the mental and emotional load.
Host Lucy McAfee has spent years studying how gender dynamics play out at home. As a wife and boy mom, she’s still working them out in her own family. Each week, The ManFlu brings together researchers, thinkers, and families themselves to explore emotional labor, modern partnerships, and how we raise more connected boys. Together, we examine why these patterns persist, how they affect families, and the practical shifts that build stronger partnerships today and help break old patterns for the next generation. You’ll leave each episode not just nodding along, but equipped with one small shift you can try at home.
Join us to lighten the load and build a future where women and men can both show up as their whole selves. New episodes drop every Wednesday, follow the show so you don’t miss one. And share it with your friends, because no one should have to face the ManFlu epidemic alone.
Follow Lucy on Instagram @lucypmcafee for more on gender dynamics, mental and emotional load, and raising boys who care.
Balanced, Not Equal: How Two Wives Share the Mental Load | Julia Markish & Krissa Lagos
Épisode 11
mercredi 30 septembre 2026 • Durée 40:44
Julia Markish sat at a dinner party while the women around her swapped stories about burnout and the mental load. She has a wife, so she couldn't relate. Still her first thought was a guilty one: Am I the man in this story?
Host Lucy McAfee talks with Julia, an executive coach, and her wife Krissa Lagos, a book editor, in the first couple's interview on The ManFlu. When Lucy asked if Krissa would've had her own complaint at that dinner party, the answer was no. They both have their roles, and balance was one of the seven touchstones they built their wedding ceremony and marriage around. Krissa cooks and Julia cleans. Julia schedules the checkups and Krissa keeps each day on track. When Krissa realized she kept landing in the kitchen prepping food while Julia got the fun part with their son, they talked about it and found a fairer way to divide the morning.
Gratitude in relationships runs through all of it. Julia and Krissa thank each other for small things and have learned to ask when the thanks doesn't come. They also talk about raising boys with room to feel, and how the trans men in their San Francisco community can show their son a different kind of masculinity.
Press play for a model of how same-sex couples divide household labor that any couple can borrow, plus one small shift you can try at home this week.
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Welcome And Meeting Julia and Krissa
02:35 The Dinner Party Where Julia Couldn't Relate
05:49 The Breakfast Prep Fix That Restored Fairness
08:40 Building A Marriage Around Seven Touchstones
Before It Had a Name: A Teacher of 30 Years on the Load, the Village, and What Changed for Boys
Épisode 10
mercredi 23 septembre 2026 • Durée 51:51
Long before mental load and maternal burnout were in our common vernacular, our guest this week had a moment that clearly illustrated them: rushing out the door for work, unable to find a glove, and deciding that if she couldn't find it, she was done.
Host Lucy McAfee sits down with her mom, Eileen Goeke, a retired high school teacher and mother of four, to compare motherhood across two generations. Eileen lived in 10 houses in ten years, built new communities in small towns, and eventually returned to teaching without ever having a conversation with her husband about how the responsibilities at home would change. Lucy asks how Eileen found her village then and why building that kind of support can feel harder for parents today.
After nearly 30 years in the classroom, Eileen also saw major changes in the boys she taught. Earlier in her career, many boys seemed to have a clearer sense of what came next after high school. Over time, she saw more students struggle to figure out where they fit as their options and expectations changed. She and Lucy talk about phones in the classroom, parents stepping in to solve problems, and how giving kids more choices can sometimes make life harder. Eileen also shares the simple habit that helped teenage boys slow down and talk to her.
Listen for Eileen's perspective on letting go of some of the pressure around motherhood, from resisting the urge to apologize for a messy house to deciding which choices really deserve your time and attention.
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Meet Eileen, Lucy's Mom and Longtime Teacher
03:35 Four Kids, Ten Houses, and Building a Village
08:47 Going Back to Work Without a Conversation
11:24 The Glove Story and Motherhood Burnout
18:14 Why the Doorbell Still Triggers House Apologies
21:05 Watching Boys Lose Their Clear Next Step
26:54 Phones, Parent Pushback, and Too Many Choices
The Manosphere and Our Boys: What It's Teaching Them, What We Can Do
Épisode 9
mercredi 16 septembre 2026 • Durée 30:50
The Manosphere doesn't need boys to go looking for it. Researchers who set up TikTok and YouTube accounts posing as teenage boys found it reached their feeds within 26 minutes, starting from nothing more than a fitness video or a gaming clip.
Host Lucy McAfee spends this episode of The ManFlu Podcast unpacking the Manosphere, the vast online world of influencers, podcasts, and communities shaping how boys think about masculinity, women, success, and their own worth. She uses Netflix's Adolescence and Louis Theroux's Inside the Manosphere as her way into the topic, then digs into what boys are actually absorbing once the algorithm gets them there.
At the center of it is a dangerous idea: that men are born without value and have to earn it through money, strength, status, and attention from women. Lucy connects that message to therapist Terry Real's distinction between healthy self-esteem and performance-based self-esteem, and traces the childhoods behind some of the biggest names selling this content. She also explains the term incel and how ordinary teenage loneliness gets twisted into resentment and blame.
The answer isn't simply keeping boys offline, since these messages can reach them anywhere. The bigger opportunity is helping them question what they're hearing and making home a place where they can bring it up. Lucy closes with one small shift: a set of age-specific questions parents can start asking this week to keep that door open, so we're raising boys who know exactly who they can talk to.
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Why Lucy Is Tackling The Manosphere
04:44 Defining The Manosphere In Plain Terms
09:34 The Idea That Men Are Born Without Value
14:22 Tate Brothers' Arrests And Followers' Response
21:32 The Childhoods Behind These Influencers
23:57 Healthy Versus Performance-Based Self-Esteem
28:50 One Small Shift To Start The Conversation
You Can't Do It All: Five Years Straight of Breastfeeding and the Reckoning at Home | Victoria Tice
Épisode 8
mercredi 9 septembre 2026 • Durée 41:39
Some women carry the mental load in marriage so quietly that even their own husbands don't see it happening.
Host Lucy McAfee sits down with Victoria Tice, a copywriter and birth doula. Victoria has spent five years breastfeeding her two sons on demand, no pumps, no bottles, straight from the source. And that choice opened up a much bigger conversation about partnership, recovery, and who carries what at home.
Victoria compares her husband's five days of paternity leave with their first son to the nearly four months he took with their second, and why that difference changed her postpartum recovery completely. She and Lucy get into the list Victoria and her husband built together, naming every task that keeps a home running, and the exact language she uses now when dividing household responsibilities without becoming the house manager who reminds him of everything.
They also take on the maternal instinct myth, the idea that mothers are simply born knowing what to do while fathers get room to learn as they go. It is another face of the mental load in marriage, deciding everything so no one else has to. Press play to hear Victoria's simple weekly habit for protecting her own time and why she says letting your partner fail is part of learning to actually share it.
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Welcome And Meeting Victoria Tice
02:13 Five Years Of Exclusive Breastfeeding Explained
04:18 The Plan That Wasn't Really A Plan
08:27 Doing It All Alone With Baby One
12:31 Five Days Leave Versus Four Months
15:58 The Pressure Fathers Feel Taking Leave
20:43 When Travel Broke Their Family Rhythm
25:43 Building A Fairness List With Fair Play
30:17 Naming The Mental Load In Marriage
“You’re Just a Housewife”: Recognizing the Value of Making a House a Home | Lori Sugarman-Li
Épisode 7
mercredi 2 septembre 2026 • Durée 48:49
What is a life spent caring for a family worth? Our guest learned an insurer's answer the day it reduced hers to three words: just a housewife. The work of making a house a home can hold enormous value and still be assigned none.
On The ManFlu, host Lucy McAfee talks with Lori Sugarman-Li, a family systems strategist, speaker, and Certified Fair Play Facilitator, about invisible labor, the mental load, and what children learn from watching who carries the work of home. After a 15-year marketing career with Kraft Foods and Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Lori shifted full-time into what she calls the economy of care. Her experience eventually led her to Fair Play, the system created by Eve Rodsky, and a new way of thinking about how families talk about household responsibility.
For parents looking for a fair play method for kids, Lori's approach starts with helping children see themselves as participants in family life rather than occasional helpers. She points to research showing that the gender gap begins early, with girls ages 5–14 already doing more unpaid care and domestic work than boys their age. As a mom of two teenage sons, Lori talks about raising boys to share household labor, giving kids meaningful responsibility, and letting them learn through mistakes.
She also shares her perspective on teaching kids chores without allowance, separating household contributions from financial literacy so caring for a family isn't reduced to a paycheck. The bigger goal is not a perfectly folded load of laundry. It is creating more room for equal rest, joy, connection, and responsibility across the family.
Lori's one small shift starts with gratitude. The work of home may still be repetitive and exhausting, but changing how a family sees that work can change how they value it, share it, and show up for one another. Her award-winning children's book, Our Home: The Love, Work, and Heart of Family, carries the same idea to the youngest readers, reframing the everyday jobs of home as acts of love.
Books Referenced:
"Did I Agree to This Rule?": Ditching Impossible Standards for Working Parents | Jess Weisz
Épisode 6
mercredi 26 août 2026 • Durée 42:14
Do you ever get to the end of the day, a day where you genuinely never stopped moving, and still feel like you somehow failed? That feeling usually isn't proof that you fell short. It's proof that you're chasing a standard that was never realistic to begin with.
Host Lucy McAfee talks with Jess Weisz, former McKinsey consultant, writer, coach, and creator of Rule Breaker, about the invisible standards behind working parent burnout, and why high-achieving parents can spend an entire day getting things done and still feel like they failed.
It started with a notebook. Six months postpartum, Jess's partner asked her to write down everything on her mind. What poured out wasn't a to-do list. It was a heaping pile of expectations no one could realistically meet, and that mental load became the work of Rule Breaker.
Jess pulls out her childhood report cards to get at something deeper: judgment. We're raised being graded, taught to prove ourselves against a fixed set of expectations, and no one ever sends the memo that the report cards stop coming once we graduate. We just keep grading ourselves against one that no longer exists.
That pressure shows up in surprisingly small places. For Jess, homemade muffins can feel like proof that she's doing motherhood right, and a granola bar can trigger the opposite reaction. She and Lucy unpack self-esteem and motherhood, and how easily our sense of worth gets pegged to the most ordinary choices.
Part of the trap is confusing capability with capacity. Being able to do something doesn't mean you have the time, energy, or space for it right now. Work-life balance for working parents can look less like finding the perfect schedule and more like letting go of unrealistic parenting expectations. Jess shares how to question the rules running in the background, decide which expectations deserve your attention, set boundaries around the rest, and recognize when something is enough. She leaves listeners with one question to reach for when mom guilt starts creeping in.
Did I agree to this rule?
Press play to hear the full conversation, and follow The ManFlu with Lucy McAfee for more conversations about the scripts shaping how we parent, partner, and share the load at home.
That Village Everyone Talks About: How to Actually Build Yours | Jessica Hill
Épisode 5
mercredi 19 août 2026 • Durée 44:54
Everyone tells new parents it takes a village. Nobody mentions that making mom friends as an adult is genuinely hard and can feel more like dating: is it weird to ask for her number? Do I look like a stalker?
Host Lucy McAfee talks with Jessica Hill, founder and CEO of The Parent Collective, about building your village as a new mom. Jessica spent ten years in England, where prenatal classes grouped expectant parents by neighborhood and due date. She left with a built-in support system and friendships that lasted long after the newborn stage. When she returned to the States, she found playgrounds full of mothers who said they did not find their people until their kids started school. That gap became the reason she created The Parent Collective.
Jessica explains how to build a support system as a new mom when those connections do not happen automatically. Her advice is simple, though not always easy: choose something you genuinely care about, put yourself in places where you will see the same people regularly, and keep showing up when the first few attempts do not lead anywhere. You may not meet a lifelong best friend. Sometimes a "for-now friend" who understands the exact season you are in is enough to make motherhood feel less isolating. And if the newborn stage came and went without your people showing up, it's not too late. Jessica shares practical ways to start building that village right now, wherever you are.
The conversation turns to the Fair Play method, the mental load, and maternal gatekeeping. Jessica shares how a bedtime dance party helped her recognize that her husband needed room to parent in his own way and create separate traditions with their sons. She explains how they divided responsibilities around weekend meals, soccer, and the Saturday "curriculum" he created for their boys. The episode closes with one practical shift for a fairer partnership: when one parent gets protected free time, the other should receive it too, and both should be encouraged to spend that time doing something that restores them.
Press play for practical ways to make mom friends, share the parenting load, and raise boys who understand what it means to show up for the people they love.
Before We Lose Their Attention: Raising Boys in a World of Screens | Julie Messer
Épisode 4
mercredi 12 août 2026 • Durée 48:19
Connection isn't something boys lack. It's something that gets nurtured, at the dinner table, on the drive home, in all the small moments in between. And right now, screens are competing for too many of those moments.
Host Lucy McAfee talks with licensed marriage and family therapist Julie Messer about raising boys who can stay present, emotionally aware, and connected in a world built around quick rewards. As a therapist and fellow boy mom, Julie sees young men struggling with loneliness, anxiety, pornography, video games, and the ability to express what they feel. Those patterns often begin much earlier, through what boys learn about relationships, attention, and emotional intelligence at home.
When mothers carry the mental load and become the parent everyone relies on, sons absorb that model of partnership. Fathers may miss everyday opportunities to build closeness through caregiving, chores, and the ordinary work of family life. Screens can deepen the disconnect by replacing the slower experiences that build patience, creativity, and real relationships. Julie also shares two of her favorite antidotes: unstructured time in nature and raising boys who love to read, both quiet gateways to empathy and attention.
Julie explains why delayed gratification matters, why individual screens raise particular concerns, and why kids need more chances to work, wait, create, and connect without constant stimulation. Lucy is honest about her own family's screen habits and the difficulty of choosing connection when connection requires more energy. This conversation is not about perfect parenting. It is about noticing what boys are learning and making small changes while there is still time: sharing responsibility at home, creating more communal experiences, and teaching boys how to show up for the people around them.
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Welcome And Meeting Therapist Julie Messer
02:25 The Most Common Friction Point Julie Sees In Therapy
05:46 Why The Dish Was Never About The Dish
He Googled 'How to Be a Great Husband': Now He's the Expert Your Marriage Needs | Brian Page
Épisode 3
mercredi 5 août 2026 • Durée 44:52
Our guest today irons his wife's clothes before putting them away, not because she asked, but because he understands that protecting her time is part of what providing means. This episode is about how he got there and what it really takes to build that kind of partnership.
Lucy McAfee sits down with Brian Page, founder of Modern Husbands, to talk about what equal partnership in marriage actually requires beyond good intentions. Brian spent years as a primary earner working 60 to 80 hours a week. When his wife's career took off and the family needed a different setup, he stepped back and tried to figure out how to genuinely take ownership at home. He searched for guidance and found almost nothing useful. So he read every book and piece of research he could find, built an advisory board, and turned that search into a platform helping couples do the same.
Brian breaks down why the mental load in marriage stays heavy even when a partner is willing to help. Willingness is not ownership. Real ownership means handling a task from start to finish at a shared minimum standard of care, without reminders and without someone watching over your shoulder. He and Lucy also get into gatekeeping, why it happens, and how couples get through it without creating more resentment.
They dig into domestic labor in marriage and what fair play for couples looks like when it moves from a concept into a weekly habit. Brian also reframes the provider role in marriage to include protecting your partner's time, not just bringing in income. He explains how he stopped giving his wife's phone number to schools, realtors, and anyone connected to tasks he owned.
The episode closes on equal leisure time as a real indicator of how balanced a partnership is, and Brian leaves listeners with two low-effort, practical shifts to try this week. If equal partnership in marriage feels like a moving target in your home, this episode gives you something concrete to work with.
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Welcome to The Manflu with Lucy McAfee
01:49 Brian Page on Building Modern Husbands
Don't Let Go First: Friendship, Motherhood, and Raising Boys | Sarah Koopmann
Épisode 2
mercredi 5 août 2026 • Durée 42:44
There's a specific grief a lot of boy moms feel but isn't often said out loud. It's one Sarah Koopmann and Lucy McAfee both know well, and after years of Lucy turning to Sarah for boy-mom wisdom, there was no question she'd be the very first guest.
On this episode of The ManFlu, the two best friends of 30 years sit down for a conversation about raising emotionally connected boys. Sarah is a full-time working mom to sons ages 16, 14, and 12, and an HR executive at a global aerospace company. She opens up about grieving the daughter she thought she'd have, and how it shaped the intentional way she parents her sons today.
The conversation turns to the mental load in marriage. Sarah orders the groceries, builds the shared calendar, and keeps a Sunday whiteboard with the week's schedule; her husband cooks, coaches, covers carpool and genuinely enjoys vacuuming. Lucy and Sarah unpack why so many men still tie their worth to an outdated definition of "provider," and how invisible labor shows up in a modern partnership at home.
They also talk about the village every mom needs. Sarah intentionally lives in the community where she grew up, leans on neighbors for rides, and recently had a mom assemble a craft kit for her son without being asked. Her advice for anyone missing a village: go first, and be the one who asks.
They also get into the everyday work of raising respectful sons: how Sarah talks to her boys about empathy, showing up for their friends, and even dating etiquette as they get older.
The episode closes with Sarah's daily ritual for raising emotionally connected boys: hug them before school, hug them before bed, and don't let go first.
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Meet Sarah: Boy Mom, Working Mom, Best Friend Of 30 Years
02:19 Finding Out It's (Another) Boy
05:28 The Grief No One Talks About
08:23 The Fear Underneath, And A Reframe
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