E-Paper
Sign In
'Super mum' carrying food, baby in viral video defends husband after social media backlash
Her husband was already in his seat when Erika returned from the food stand, and the internet thought it knew the story. But what really happened?
- PUBLISHED: Sat 26 Sept 2026, 2:47 PM
A woman walks back to her seat at a San Francisco Giants game in the United States, a baby strapped to her chest and three tubs of ballpark food balanced in her hands. Her husband is already sitting down. For a few seconds, all anyone could see was a mother carrying everything.
The moment, filmed during the Giants' game against Minnesota Twins on September 22, was picked up by the team's broadcasters, who jokingly dubbed the woman a "mum of the year" as she returned to her seat.
Recommended For You
When the clip made its way online, the internet had plenty to say. Viewers questioned why the woman was carrying the baby and food while her husband appeared to be sitting comfortably and waiting for his meal. For a lot of women, the scene was instantly recognisable. It looked like the kind of everyday moment that says far more than it appears to — a mother doing what women are so often expected to do, carrying the physical, mental, and emotional load while everyone else gets to sit back.
Stay up to date with the latest news. Follow KT on WhatsApp Channels.
However, Erika, the woman in the video, knew something the internet didn't. She knew the man sitting behind her. And she eventually came forward to tell the part of the story the camera couldn't capture.
"My name is Erika. Our baby is Anastasia. My husband is Ramses. Before you decide what our marriage looks like, I would like you to hear from the woman you’re defending," she wrote on Substack.
What the camera didn't capture
The story, she explained, had begun long before those few seconds on television, saying they "initially thought the broadcast was funny" and "part of their charm is the way they tell stories about people at the ballpark".
During the game, Erika went to the bathroom. Her husband offered to take their daughter, but she wanted to keep the baby close. It was a chilly San Francisco night, and she joked that that Anastasia was their little "hot pocket" because her body kept her warm in the carrier.
While she was out, she sent her husband a photo of the food menu.
"I thought since I was passing by, I might as well grab something for us. He said he’d have whatever had the shortest line," she said.
So she came back with brisket sandwiches and loaded fries. Still carrying their daughter. Still carrying the food.
And, from the outside, looking exactly like the woman the internet decided she was. But when she returned to her seat, her husband removed her jacket to make room. He greeted their daughter and asked Erika if she wanted to eat first. "I told him to go ahead. I had eaten before we left for the game, and I knew he hadn’t had a full meal all day," she said.
The grief she knew he was carrying
There was another part of the evening that no camera could have captured. Ramses had recently lost one of his oldest friends, someone he had known since childhood. There had been no funeral or memorial service for him to attend, but Erika knew her husband was grieving.
"I wanted Ramses to watch baseball, eat some ballpark food, and have some room to reflect on his friend’s passing. I would glance over and could tell he was texting his group chat about their lost member throughout the game," she wrote.
Throughout the game, she noticed him messaging friends about the loss. And then came the sentence that quietly changed the entire picture.
"The camera showed what I was carrying in my hands. It couldn’t show what he was carrying that night," she added.
There is something tender about that line. Because the internet had looked at Erika and seen a woman carrying too much. She knew she was carrying something, too. Because that night, she wanted to take care of someone she loved.
Why the moment felt so familiar
That doesn't mean the reaction to the video came from nowhere.
Women know what it looks like to be overworked. To carry the baby and the bags and the planning and the remembering. To do the invisible work that doesn't make it into a photograph.
So when people saw Erika walking back to her seat, many saw a story they already knew. And Erika didn't blame them for recognising it.
"Some people may have seen something in the clip that reminded them of a relationship in which they felt alone or unsupported," she wrote. I’m sorry if it brought back something painful. But that is not my story."
And perhaps, this is what makes this interaction human. Sometimes, we see someone else's life for a few seconds and recognise our own. We bring our experiences to their story. We see something familiar and, without meaning to, start writing the rest ourselves.
A marriage that the internet couldn't see
But there are always things happening outside the frame, such as a conversation we didn't hear, a loss we didn't know about, a kindness that happened five minutes earlier, or a history between two people that cannot possibly fit into a viral clip.
For Erika, that night wasn't about being a "super mum" while her husband sat back. It was about a family going to a baseball game together. It was about a mother keeping her baby warm. It was about picking up dinner because she was already there. And it was about a wige wanting to give her husband a few hours of baseball, food, and a little room to remember someone he loved.
"Our marriage has room for either of us to need help. That evening, I chose to take care of him. A camera catching me doing something for my husband doesn’t show all the times he has done something for me," she wrote.
There was a much bigger story behind that sentence.
Six weeks before her daughter was born, Erika said, her employer of 13 years laid off her entire division. Ramses had just put down a payment on a bigger home for their growing family, leaving him to manage the mortgage and a remodel while they prepared to welcome another child.
After Anastasia was born, Erika experienced complications and said she struggled with postpartum depression, stress and anxiety.
“He recognised that and told me to focus on feeling better,” she wrote. “The partner you rely on can also need someone to lean on.”
What we see and what we don't
And maybe this is the part that's worth remembering when we watch moments like this. Not every woman carrying something is carrying it because someone else refused to.
Sometimes love looks like letting your partner sit down and eat. Sometimes it looks like carrying the baby yourself.
Sometimes it looks like knowing that the person beside you is having a hard night, even when nobody else can see it.
And sometimes, the camera only captures the weight in someones' hands, never the love behind why they're carrying it.
