Parenting & Family Quote by Ogden Nash

Nash turns the family portrait into a sneeze-soaked group photo, and the joke lands because it refuses the sentimental script. Instead of “mother, father, children” as a tidy civic ideal, he builds a household out of whatever actually shows up: grown humans with their moods and compromises, “an occasional animal” that quietly outranks everyone in affection, and the common cold as the real head of state. The punchline isn’t just that sickness spreads; it’s that families are defined less by bloodlines than by shared air.

The line’s precision is what makes it sting. “Unit” borrows the language of institutions and social science, a cool, managerial word that promises order. Nash immediately sabotages that promise with messy inventory. By the time you reach “the common cold,” the list has migrated from the respectable (men, women, children) to the uncontrollable. The cold is a perfect Nash add-on: mundane, recurring, absurdly democratic. It levels ages and roles; it mocks the idea that anyone in a family is ever fully in charge.

Context matters: Nash wrote in a mid-century America that loved polished domestic mythology - the wholesome, hygienic home as proof of national stability. His humor doesn’t rebel with a manifesto; it needles with recognition. You can idealize the family all you want, he suggests, but the real emblem of togetherness isn’t a framed photo. It’s the passing tissue box, the dog underfoot, and the intimate inconvenience of living too close to other people to stay pristine.