The Ben Mulroney Show - We Are Quick To Vilify Those in Viral Videos

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

In this segment from "The Ben Mulroney Show," Ben takes comedian Nikki Glaser to task over her tongue-in-cheek desire not to be a mom, but to be a dad. Ben also unpacks a viral video of a "super mom" supposedly married to a lazy "bum." The public was quick to dissect and interpret a brief clip, though the super mom depicted says we've got things all wrong. If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠   Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Discover free sports tips, casino games, and poker guides at OZoon.net. I love comedian Nikki Glazer. She's hosted the Golden Globes and she can roast a man better than anybody. I mean, it's so bad the guy needs to bathe in aloe vera afterwards. So everything I'm about to say comes with genuine affection. Nikki's got a bit that's been going around right now and she says she doesn't want to be a mom. but she would love to be a dad. Back in January, she said she walked out of the movies thinking,

and I quote, I don't want to be a mom, but I would love to be a dad. And in one of her special, she boiled the whole theory down to one line. Quote, it's easy to be a bad mom. That's as easy as being a great dad. Look, it's a good joke.

I'm a dad, and I laughed. And then I thought about every single dad I know. And I thought to myself, Nikki, Queen, pump the brakes. But first, the other clip we have to talk about. Last Tuesday, Giants versus twins in San Francisco. The Giants lost three to two, which was the least interesting thing that happened all night. See, the camera finds a woman coming down the row, baby strapped to her chest diaper bag on her back,

three trays of ballpark food in her hands. The Giants broadcaster said, holy smokes, look at this. And then his partner says, if ever there was a true definition of a multitasking mom, that is the deal right there. And then the camera pans over to the guy next to her. He's looking at his phone. He stands up, moves her coat off the seat, sits down and starts eating. And then the announcer delivers the verdict.

Well, that's mom of the year right there. Millions watched it within a day. And the internet reached a unanimous decision. Mom, saint, dad, bum. Case closed, no appeal past the ketchup. Except, the mom's name is Erica. and a few days later she wrote a post explaining what actually happened. See, her husband, the guy on the phone, Ramsey's,

he offered to take the baby while she was in the washroom and she said no, it was a chilly San Francisco night and the baby's body heat was keeping her warm. So in fairness, the baby was on the job, tiny space heater. She texted him the menu and asked what he wanted. He said, get whatever is the fastest. Gentlemen, write that down. That is the correct answer. When she got back, he moved her jacket, said hi.

of their daughter and asked if she wanted to eat first. She'd already eaten before the game. He offered to take the food containers off her lap. She said no, because she didn't want them near the stadium floor. And if you've ever been to a baseball stadium, that's the right thing to do. Then he offered to share his brisket sandwich. And folks, when a man offers his brisket sandwich to the woman he loves, that's love. And here's the part that stopped me.

Ramsey's had recently lost one of his oldest friends. a baseball player he had known since they were kids. There was no funeral. And so the game was Erica's idea, a way for her husband to remember his friend. And that phone that he was staring at, he was texting his group chat about the friend that they had lost. And Erica put it beautifully.

She wrote, The camera showed what I was carrying in my hands. It couldn't show what he was carrying that night. Now, I'm not here to pile on the broadcasters. They are great at what they do. and Erica herself said they meant no harm. The clip went viral because it fit the story we already carry in our heads.

Dad's on the couch. Mom does everything. It's the same story that makes Nikki's joke land. So every once in a while, it's worth checking the story against the numbers. According to the Pew Research Center back in 1965, American dads spent about two and a half hours a week on child care. By 2016, that number was eight hours.

So that tripled. housework went from four hours a week to 10. The 1965 dad's idea of child care was apparently telling you to go ask your mother. Now, to be fair, moms still put in more hours with the kids, about 14 a week in that same data. And nobody is claiming that dads are on par when it comes to that metric. And I'd like to state for the record that every mom I know is a magician and a goddess, and were it not for my mother, and my sister and my, I would not be here. I'm in awe of them every single day.

This is not, this is an and situation, not a but. There's no opposing, no opposition here. But let's go back to the numbers. Pew added up paid work, housework and child care together. Total work. In 2011, fathers were at 54 hours a week. Mothers at 53. Photo finish, right?

Closer to home, let's look at parental leave. Stats can, compiled by the Vanier Institute, shows that in 2005, 15% of new dads and partners took or planned to take parental benefits. By 2024, that number was 52%. That's more than triple. In Quebec, 85.5%. La Belle Provence showing the rest of us how it's done. Now the money, Pew found that in 55% of American marriages, the husband is the primary and sole breadwinner. That's down from 85% in 1972, and good for all the women out there earning more than our husbands. But in most homes, dad is still carrying the biggest share of the mortgage,

the groceries, and the brisket sandwich. And the pressure that comes with that, Pew asked Americans whether employers push mothers or fathers harder to get back to work after a new baby. 18% said mothers. 49% said fathers. So when you see a dad staring at his phone, there's a decent chance it's his boss or the score of the game. I mean, both are possible. But then there's the part we don't talk enough about. The same. single dad. The Department of Justice Canada looked at divorce cases from 2012 to 2015, where the kids' primary live, with mom, about 52%. With dad, about 9%. Shared, 26%. Now, lots of those arrangements are worked out between the parents, not handed down by a judge, but the outcome is the

outcome. Nikki says being a great dad is easy. I'd invite her to try being a great dad every second weekend and Wednesday night dinners. The good news is things are moving. Shared decision making showed up in about two-thirds of those files. Slow progress, like a dad assembling an IKEA furniture without the instructions. He'll get there. But there's always that leftover screw. So here's where I land. It isn't a competition.

Moms are heroes. Erica is clearly an amazing mother. And by her own account, she's married to a terrific dad. She wrote that she didn't want her kids to someday search for that night and find strangers calling their dad a deadbeat. That is a mother standing up for a father. And I will take that over mom of the year. any day. And Nikki, if you still want the job, you'd make a great dad. The job description includes

the 3am fever, the car seat that requires an engineering degree to install, watching, Dad, watch this 40 times in a row, and yes, holding the sandwich while mom holds the baby. All I'm asking for, just all I'm asking for, is not to default to the deadbeat trope. We're not there anymore. I take great pride of being a dad. I take great pride of being an active dad. I take great pride in cooking and cleaning after my kids, making sure that their home is warm and full of love. I take great pride in knowing what they're doing and knowing who they are. And every dad I know is that kind of dad as well.

So the next time the camera finds one of us at a ball game, maybe please just give him the benefit of the doubt because he might be caring a lot more than you see. That's it. That's it. Like I said, I'm not here to, this idea of always pitting two groups against each other, mothers versus fathers. What Erica told you in that moment, standing up for her husband,

it's in the best cases, whether it's a married couple or co-parenting situation, the best, the best parents are the ones who aren't attacking each other. They're the ones who work together to attack the problem. That's what you can hope for everybody. That's what you want. Every kid wants both parents involved in whatever way works for their family. In some cases, it's the mom's at home and the dad is the breadwinner. In other cases, those roles are reversed.

In a lot of cases, they split everything 50-50. And every shade in between, there is no one right way to be a parent. There is no one right way to be a dad. And there is no litmus test that anybody should have to pass for strangers on the internet to determine whether somebody's a good parent or not. The least newsworthy story is when you read, the internet was outraged over X. The internet is always outraged. That's not news. What is news is this beautiful couple being there for each other and pushing back against the toxicity of online.

BS.