The ManFlu | Exploring Gender Dynamics, Partnerships & Raising Boys Who Care
The ManFlu is a podcast hosted by Lucy McAfee that uses the concept of the 'man flu' as a metaphor to explore deeper issues in gender dynamics, partnership, and emotional labor. Each week, Lucy and her guests examine the cultural scripts and unspoken rules that shape how men and women share responsibilities at home. The show discusses how these patterns persist, how they affect families, and what practical changes can build stronger partnerships. It also focuses on raising boys who are more emotionally connected and aware. Listeners can expect thoughtful conversations with researchers and families about creating more balance in modern relationships.
Episodes
Be Their Safe Place: Raising Boys in Middle School | Kelly Wiethuchter
It’s 7:43 AM, her boys still aren’t out the door, and our guest is sipping her coffee and saying nothing. Middle school parenting asks you to step back right when every instinct tells you to step in.On this episode, host Lucy McAfee talks with her friend Kelly Wiethuchter, an ad tech sales leader and mom to fraternal twins, about raising boys through the transition to sixth grade. Kelly’s sons sha
It's Not You, It's the Job Description: Navigating Maternal Burnout and Mom Guilt | Stacy McCann
You ask for help. He nods along. Next week looks exactly the same. If you've wondered how to talk to your husband about the mental load without it ending in tears or silence, this conversation is a good place to start.On The ManFlu, host Lucy McAfee talks with Stacy McCann, a licensed therapist, writer, speaker, and parent coach whose practice focuses on maternal burnout. Stacy says many moms
Balanced, Not Equal: How Two Wives Share the Mental Load | Julia Markish & Krissa Lagos
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 Kriss
Before It Had a Name: A Teacher of 30 Years on the Load, the Village, and What Changed for Boys
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
The Manosphere and Our Boys: What It's Teaching Them, What We Can Do
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 h
You Can't Do It All: Five Years Straight of Breastfeeding and the Reckoning at Home | Victoria Tice
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 car
“You’re Just a Housewife”: Recognizing the Value of Making a House a Home | Lori Sugarman-Li
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 l
"Did I Agree to This Rule?": Ditching Impossible Standards for Working Parents | Jess Weisz
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 standa
That Village Everyone Talks About: How to Actually Build Yours | Jessica Hill
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
Before We Lose Their Attention: Raising Boys in a World of Screens | Julie Messer
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
He Googled 'How to Be a Great Husband': Now He's the Expert Your Marriage Needs | Brian Page
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 re
Don't Let Go First: Friendship, Motherhood, and Raising Boys | Sarah Koopmann
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-ti
A Case of the ManFlu: Women Carrying It All, Men Missing Out
When boys grow up in a world where caring isn't expected of them, they become men who don't realize what they're missing.In the first episode of The ManFlu, host Lucy McAfee traces her thinking back to a phone call six years ago. She was thirty-eight, pregnant with her second child, and when the nurse said "it's a boy," she cried. They weren't happy tears. She knew exactly what she was mourning, a
The ManFlu - Trailer
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 ru
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