I rarely say I’m sick. “I’m fighting off a cold,” I repeat like a refrain. I like the story that my assiduous use of herbs and supplements, vigorous application of nasal rinses and gallons of tea will engage my immune system so I don’t actually get sick.
Which means I walk around moderately ill for days at a time, but rarely actually work less. I did that this week. My one concession to the battle was to take a daily COVID test – all negative – and sleep more than usual. I pushed off a few tasks – including last week’s substack post – and spent less time working out.
When my partner, who got sick first, got a fever, we cancelled our plans to go out of town for the weekend. He rested. What did I do with my free Friday? Caught up on work. I was at my desk all day.
Why?
Women share a joke that when they get a cold they power through it – especially women with young children – and that when men get a cold they languish on the couch, doing nothing. The memes and social media posts hint at the rigors of childbirth, the pain many experience around menstruation, and the fact that men can’t handle physical discomfort.
The Man Cold. Lying about, sleeping in, eschewing chores, leaving a trail of used tissues.
Man COVID was worse. I talked to a number of women whose male partners went to another part of the house and watched TV for days while they did all the work of taking care of the kids and the house on top of their regular jobs.
I think we’ve got it wrong. We shouldn’t mock the Man Cold, we should aspire to it.
Even though it’s been actual decades since I was a single mom with young kids, I still get a bit panicky when I feel a cold coming on. Back then, since there was no family or co-parent around, I would try to get everything done before I got too sick to get up. Go to the grocery store and get food, cook some soups, pick up the house, throw in a few loads of laundry.
Now, I aspire to have a Man Cold. I want to take this sensation of being on the cusp of illness and work it. Lay down on the couch and watch cooking shows. Nap extensively. Let the dishes rest in the sink, order carry out to be delivered.
I’m writing a book, and one of the sections is about the stories we tell ourselves that get in the way of us making the most effective or helpful decisions for our career or well-being. So, I’m noticing the stories I tell myself. And there is a story about sickness. As in, you can’t rest when you get sick. You have to keep your house reasonably clean, and the fridge adequately stocked at all times. And of course, you have to go to work.
This is a story that our culture tells us. We all know that women bear the brunt of the “home” work – the childcare, cleaning, shopping and cooking – when their partner and co-parent is a man. And there are men who perpetuate those stories.
Not surprisingly, I am not with that kind of man. My feminist partner and I have a very egalitarian division of labor. This isn’t coming from him.
Rather than making fun of our male partners who have a mild cold or flu, we should aspire to be like them. Of course, it is a privilege to rest when ill, to have another person to rely on to pick up the slack in childcare or household duties. But it is a privilege I have and refuse to use.
Why?
What is keeping me from calling it a day and putting my feet up? One of the positive changes the pandemic wrought was that we aren’t expected to go to work sick. Sure, we can work remotely, but showing up at the office spraying phlegm with a hacking cough is frowned on now.
Part of the false narrative is that what I do is so important no one else can do it, or can do it without me. The house, the job, the client project.
I was talking with a family member, an astute woman, about this and she suggested that being sick gives men a chance to ask to be taken care of, permission to step out of the toxic masculinity narratives that they must be stoic and provide and work. It gives them permission to rest. To ask for help.
We should all have permission to rest when ill. We should all have paid sick time.
When I first started work, in the late eighties, many women navigated the gender divide by working like men. They wore tailored suits with big shoulders and didn’t talk about their children – if they had them – or about anything that came along with being in a female body. I learned that. I never mentioned that I had kids, would never mention having menstrual cramps or being ill in any way. Did I take on the toxic masculinity too, wearing it like a big shouldered hairshirt? I know I have workaholic tendencies – most of us who work or worked in startups and ad agencies do – but I have also taken on that narrative that I am what I do, my value is in how much money I make, my role in my family is mainly provider. How does that narrative impact my ability to rest? To be ill and step out of the producer role and into the human being role?
Part of staying isolated with COVID means that you can rest when you’re sick. There is a societal expectation that you don’t do the normal things that take you out in the world when you are carrying a virus that can be deadly.
Now that I’m back in the world, with in person client meetings and trainings, back in the commuter lanes to and from Seattle, I have put on that big shouldered hairshirt again. If it’s not COVID, no need to take time off. I want to reframe my narrative and try to get to the practical magic of resting, and own the Man Cold.