THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 22, 1995 TAG: 9510190049
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: HE SAID, SHE SAID
SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY & DAVE ADDIS
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
DAVE SAYS:
Have you recovered yet, Kerry? I really hope so.
When last I saw you, you were doing a pretty good imitation of a female Mount Vesuvius, and there was no telling where the ash and lava would land next. I have to admit, I fled like a whipped puppy.
If I heard it right, you had just gotten a phone call from your baby sitter, who, in a heavy accent that was fading to her native Norwegian, thought she ought to let you know that your kindergartner was coughing like he'd just swallowed a lawn chair, and was turning all those sunset shades of pink and purple that even a teen-ager from Norseland knows are signs of immediate peril.
Bad enough luck that you were on deadline, pal, but then when you called the doctor and he said he could either see your boy in the next 30 minutes or next week sometime - well, frankly, Kerry, the language I heard could have stripped the chrome off the bumper of a Sedan de Ville.
In all honesty, though, I probably fled more in shame than in revulsion at your creative use of adverbs. When my own kid was little, all those work-hour phone calls about illness and injury went to my wife, even though she was working nearly as many hours as I was.
The boy's a couple of months shy of a law degree now, and even though $17 million in education loans are about to land on my checkbook like a hungry rogue elephant, paying cash for a kid's upkeep just isn't the same as paying in frayed nerves and stomach linings.
But the action shifted whenever I was home. Calmer in a fray than my ex-wife, I was the designated emergency-room driver. She handled the common illnesses, I handled the broken arms and split-open heads. By the time my kid discovered skateboarding, the ER nurses knew me so well that they knew how I took my coffee.
I know this isn't much comfort, Kerry, but unless the world changes its outlook on working moms, you're going to see a lot more days like that last one. And when the kid graduates from teddy bears to monkey bars it's going to get more gruesome.
So here's some advice: Keep lots of bandages and hydrogen peroxide handy, and plenty of ice. Pour the peroxide on the cuts, then wrap them with the bandages. Then pour some vodka over the ice and figure up how many years it will be until the little scudder will be old enough to look after himself.
KERRY SAYS:
OK, Dave, you got me. I apologize for the blue language and temper tantrum, but I'll probably explode again the next time I come up against an institution designed to make working mothers feel like heels.
First on my list are pediatricians who keep banker's hours. I can't figure this one out. National figures show that 63.5 percent of American mothers work. That's 22.5 million of us. We have to, otherwise the kiddies don't eat, then they get rickets and scurvy and I'm not sure doctors even know how to treat those anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I love my pediatricians. They're great guys, they've helped me through the first seven years of parenthood with humor and patience. But they also close for 1 1/2 hours at lunchtime and by 6 every night.
What's a working mom to do?
But what really set me off, was the receptionist indignantly asking: ``What, won't your employer let you off?'' It never occurred to her that I have a job to do that has nothing to do with bosses or timeclocks or asking permission for time off. The newspaper looks really weird with big chunks of white space where stories are supposed to run. But I didn't have time to get into all that. I had to leap into my car, drive like a woman possessed and scoop up the coughing kid for a quick trip to the doctor's so I could pay $50 to find out what I already knew: My son has asthma and needed a new prescription.
It's not just doctors. Schools schedule meetings during the work day. Last week my son's kindergarten held a parents' meeting at 9:30 on a Friday morning. Next week are parent-teacher conferences. They should call them mother-teacher conferences.
It never comes down to a choice for Steve between going to court or running the little nippers to the doctor or school meetings. No, sir. Baby sitters and schools call Mama - even though she works 20 miles from home and Dad's office is within spitting distance.
I've heard stories about Mr. Moms. I know one or two. But for the most part, when the sitter is sick, when her car won't start, when the kid is coughing, it's Mom they call.
I've had sitters interrupt my workday to ask how to use the coffee-maker (the kids needed perking up, maybe?), to ask me to speak to my obstinate daughter who didn't want to go to the park, and to tell me we were out of diapers.
You should have seen me that time, Dave. After reminding the sitter that there were plenty of diapers there when I left, and speculating about what she'd done with them, I gave her a brief history of western civilization and explained that children had been obeying the call of nature long before Pampers.
``Use your imagination, just don't let him go on the rug,'' I think I said, slamming down the phone.
Sorry, Dave, for every sweet bedtime with freshly bathed children smelling of powder, for every touching handmade birthday present and magical Christmas Eve, there are those jarring calls at work. The calls that summon women like me from the adult world, where we feel in control, to that frightening land of Cheerios and croup. Where we are all measured against stay-at-home mothers.
If you've ever wondered why working moms cringe every time the phone rings, now you know. No one ever calls Dad. by CNB