A TikTok video of a mum who forgot her clothes on a holiday trip and had to head home in her towel has gone viral, with hundreds of mums saying the same thing: “I feel her.”
Amanda Ayala, from Wisconsin, US, went on a family trip to Kansas with her husband and two children – however things went south when the family visited a state park and she forgot her own stuff.
Cue her getting into the car in just a towel after visiting the shower block, because she didn’t have any clean clothes to wear.
It’s something so many parents – but especially mums – will relate to. We spend so much time getting everyone else together and making sure their needs are met, it can mean we often forget about ourselves.
In the video, which has been viewed more than 3 million times, Ayala gets into the car and her husband – who is filming – asks: “Hey, why does everyone else have clothes on and you’re still in your towel?”
The mum glares at him and replies: “Because I’m the mum and I get everybody else’s shit together – and not my own. So I come to the shower house with nothing, so here I am.”
Her husband then responds: “I had a super peaceful shower. It was nice.”
Speechless, the mum looks at him – we’re talking a full-on Paddington death stare – and calmly says: “Take me home.”
Ayala told Today.com her husband found the situation “hilarious” which is why he started filming when she walked towards the car. But she was clearly far from impressed.
“This embodies what we do as women – we are last, I’m always last. It’s kind of the role we take,” she told the publication.
In the replies to her video, which she captioned “Moms always suffer”, hundreds of parents flocked to comment on how this is a sad reality for lots of women.
“Men. Don’t do this. Just don’t,” said one person. “It’s incredibly hurtful to know that we care for everyone else and no one thinks of us. I feel for this mama.”
Another added: “I feel her!! No one ever worries about mama but she got to worry about everyone else.”
The 43-year-old mum, who runs a ranch with her family, told Today.com her and her husband’s marriage is equitable, and stressed they don’t divide household labour into a man or woman’s job.
In terms of their holiday, the mum said she packed her and her children’s things, while her husband packed his own bag.
“He’s that husband who is like, ’Babe, I’m probably not going to see it staring at me. But if you leave me a list, I’ll get it done,’” said Ayala.
“It doesn’t make him a bad person. We’re just showing you that this is real life.”
The mum concluded that the video didn’t show, for example, her husband brushing their daughters’ teeth, or putting the kids to bed.
Even still, commenters weren’t impressed by his response. One user said: “He really decided to risk his life there with that sentence.”
Another added: “The level of rage I would feel at the last comment.”
Lots of mothers also took the opportunity to discuss how holidays “are more work than fun” because of the amount of preparation involved in getting everyone else’s stuff together, including your own – a task that more often than not falls upon the shoulders of women.
“This represents how I feel about every vacation ever,” one user responded.
Another added: ”[This is] Why we hate going anywhere but home. It’s not a trip or a vacation. It’s just doing the same thing somewhere else.”