My child has two parents. Why does day care call only me? (2018)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/my-child-has-two-parents-why-does-day-care-call-only-me/2018/09/25/6b6e46b0-b076-11e8-a20b-5f4f84429666_story.html

by Tomte • 5 years ago

52 83 5 years ago

washingtonpost.com

jbob20002• 5 years ago

Because it’s easier to have one contact, rather than have staff debate if they have called each parent an equal amount of times.

kayodelycaon• 5 years ago

The article says even through they’ve listed the husband as primary, they ignore that, so this is clearly not the reason.

jbob20002• 5 years ago

Maybe they have learned that the primary contact doesn’t respond as quickly?

My partner is listed as my primary emergency contact, and my mother is my second. But my partner isn’t always by her phone like my mother is, so if there were emergency calls happening frequently, I could see how staff would just know to call my mother.

The story lacks nuance, it’s just someone looking to be victimized; woe is me, the answerer of my child’s daycare phone calls.

mewpmewp2• 5 years ago

The title seems misleading to be honest. It makes it sound like they should be giving a phone call to each parent turn by turn for any piece of information.

jojobas2• 5 years ago

21th century USA Scylla and Charybdis: an equal parenting family wishing to include the father vs all other mothers demanding a woman-only group.

JoeAltmaier2• 5 years ago

"Day care" doesn't do anything. Somebody working there does this.

It happens everywhere. My sister went to buy a car, with her husband tagging along. She couldn't get a sales person to talk to her. She had to go away and come back without him.

My wife cannot be seen in a certain car parts store. The counter guys will "see right through her" and talk to the man behind her in line when it's her turn.

Not quite 'institutional', its certainly cultural. And it it doesn't happen to you, it's easy to think it doesn't exist.

jojobas2• 5 years ago

Bayesian statistics at work.

If a mechanic or a car salesman speaks to the man he'll be correct 99% of the time. Same for a pram salesman talking to the woman.

I blame these monkeys: https://www.livescience.com/22677-girls-dolls-boys-toy-truck...

rich_sasha5• 5 years ago

I hate stereotyping, but also sympathise when people use Bayesian reasoning. These two are hard to reconcile, but in an imperfect information world, we have to make assumptions.

JoeAltmaier2• 5 years ago

Probably. But its pointless - the cost of a mistake here is zero. The value is in not pissing off the customer. So its a lazy, biased approach and it pays to be self-aware enough to cure oneself of it.

cmiller1• 5 years ago

Yup, there are people working in all sorts of industries that have their own biases and it gets reflected in their work.

It goes the other way too, there are plenty of professionals (female engineers, male primary education teachers, etc.) who get harmed by the biases of the general public.

Really tangential story but I was calling large supplier in my industry looking for an application engineer to help me figure out how to set something up. I first asked for one and got put on hold until someone picked up, I started describing the problem and was told "oh, hold on, it sounds like you need an applications engineer, I'll go get one" so I get put on hold again. The next person picks up and the exact same thing happens. Finally I'm getting a little flustered and a woman picks up the phone and because of what just happened I say "Am I speaking to an applications engineer?!?" She sighs and responds in the positive in an annoyed voice and I finally get my questions answered. This stuck with me for a while because I felt really bad knowing she assumed my initial incredulity was because it was a female voice on the line, and I certainly don't blame her for thinking that either.

bityard2• 5 years ago

In much earlier stage of life, I did a stint of tech support for a well-known web hosting company. Basically to get the job, you needed to have a better-than-average knowledge Linux, Apache, and PHP. Because of the wide variety of questions and problems you would come across, you would fill in any gaps very, _very_ quickly. I got to work alongside many excellent people that I still touch base with occasionally to this day.

There were two groups that sometimes had it rough, though. From time to time, everyone gets the "fun" of picking up the call from a verbally abusive customer (who you can't just hang up on because of company policy) but I really felt bad for the women who had to deal with misogynist pricks. I never got a chance to hear both sides of the conversations but I could tell from the tone in their voices when they had to deal with one of these guys. Along the lines of, "No, I am the only one available right now, how I can I help?" "Sorry, my manager isn't around at the moment." That sort of thing.

One particularly egregious case was when some asshole kept calling in because he broke his site and wanted us to fix it. One woman kept picking up the call (by chance) and every time she tried to help him, he demanded to speak to someone else. After the 3rd or 4th time of this, she quit on the spot. My word of advice: If you're going to be sexist douchebag, at least have the courtesy to just hang up without saying anything instead of berating the human being on the other end for their crime of having a vagina.

The other group I felt bad for was those with non-US accents. Every so often, they would find themselves on a receiving end of an anti-outsourcing tirade from out of our customers. Even though they were sitting in a call center in the middle of a Midwest state.

bryanrasmussen• 5 years ago

Well in my case it's because I'm generally the more dependable one, and generally the one that has dropped off the child and am registered as the parent coming to pick up the child.

clarkevans4• 5 years ago

As the primary caregiver for my daughter over the past 10 years, social bias been a constant challenge. For school and extra curricular activities we just list my contact information, and even then, somehow, my wife is the first (and only parent) to receive invitations, notices or other communication. The best hack is to have a generic-sounding email that doesn't include the father's name; or list my number under her name (you get hangups though), or only populate my number under the "home" telephone. This way, my contact has chance of being used by someone searching exclusively for the mother's contact information. Things got better when my daughter became old enough to say: "please call my dad, his number is .... ".

Justsignedup• 5 years ago

My ex wife is no longer the primary caretaker of my daughter.

She lives a few states away.

The school still tries to call her first.

arbitrage2• 5 years ago

so, i'm gay married with another woman. it's not as simple as it seems. depending on the institution we're interfacing with, one of us will tend to get all the calls from that institution. for our child's school, it's my wife. for the pharmacy, it's me. etc.

i think quite literally the most frequent reason this happens is because the person calling you will pick the first person on their contact list. for a school, that's usually the wife/mother. she took the kid to school once, and put info on the contact list. she's first. nothing nefarious there.

t0mas88• 5 years ago

In my experience this is not the case at daycare. The form is very gender neutral, has a primary contact and a "partner". I did the signup and I'm usually the one dropping our daughter off and picking her up, since I work closer to daycare so ended up being the primary contact. Yet still they 9 out of 10 times call my girlfriend. Very impractical, since most cases they want you to come and pick up your kid because she is sick and I work close by while my girlfriend is 2+ hours away.

fanatic2pope• 5 years ago

This happens to me at my kids' school. I work from home and so I am the primary caregiver in the registration forms. I also take special care every year at "meet the teacher" events to remind them (including the school nurse and the people in the front office) that I am the primary contact. They still usually call my wife first.

steve_adams_862• 5 years ago

My son’s schools have always done this as well. Invariably the administrative staff at his schools (apart from the principal) are women, and invariably they call his mom instead of me. Every single time I get an apology because they tried to reach out to mom and couldn’t get an answer.

1. They assume his mom is his primary caregiver 2. They assume I will mind having to care for my child 3. They never make a note that they can’t get through to his mom; the assumption remains all year that she’s the primary caregiver

On the other side though, buying a car last year was frustrating because multiple salesmen treated my partner like she didn’t exist and answered her questions about cars like she was 3 years old or simply directed answers to me. I had to remind them far too often to talk to her - I hadn’t asked the question.

Also the shitty jokes about letting her test drive - it just isn’t funny, she commutes by car for work and I ride a bike to work; she really should test drive it and no I’m not afraid of a woman driving a car. It made us want to walk off car lots, but then we discovered every lot did it anyway.

jchallis• 5 years ago

This was one clear way Carvana was a better buying experience than the lots - they never made my wife feel less than.

moftz3• 5 years ago

We did our research through TrueCar, Consumer reports, and using free vehicle history lookups for anything that didn't already include a free Carfax report to find the exact used VIN we wanted to buy. The Carvana model is a neat idea but we found there was a little bit of a premium on identical models sold through them versus brick and mortar dealerships nearby.

bityard2• 5 years ago

I despise Carvana.

Their whole business model, in my area at least, is to buy up all decent used cars for sale and then flip them at a non-negotiable higher price. Those of us looking for a newer used car at an affordable price from a private seller or dealership are left with nothing to choose from.

tptacek• 5 years ago

The car salesman made a joke about letting your wife test drive the car instead of you? Yikes.

steve_adams_862• 5 years ago

In one case he was only half joking, but in the wrong sense. He was genuinely concerned and making sure I think it’s the right call. Sad to say we ended up buying through that dealership, but through a different salesperson.

moftz3• 5 years ago

Last time we bought a car, it was for my girlfriend. She was the one with the down payment and the one who would be the primary driver. She had already done all the research about what she wanted down to the exact used VIN she wanted to buy from them. When the salesman started directing questions to me, I simply would just look at her and let her answer. This quickly made him realize I was just there as a cosigner. Only thing I said the whole time was asking to see under the hood and about anything they knew about the car and it's maintanence that wasn't already on the Carfax report. She didn't have any technical questions for the salesman as she already knew what we wanted, just a test drive to make sure it rode fine, and then we bought it. The finance guy had me fill out some paperwork but all of his questions were directed to her.

I don't think I will ever go back to a car dealership without knowing exactly what I want. It is such a waste of time listening to a salespitch by someone that has a absolute interest in you maxing out your budget.

simonh• 5 years ago

Similar problems in the UK. My wife recently bought a flat to rent out, she's been handling all the comms and paperwork with the solicitors, mortgage company, etc. I only own a 5% share, but when it came to closing the (female) solicitor (attorney?) called me first every single time she had a question, even though I told her every time she should call my wife as she's handling all the arrangements.

duxup2• 5 years ago

It's really frustrating.

With me (Dad) working from home and my kids remote learning for school I'm the primary home contact for school things, assignments, etc, but the school staff often reach for mom's email address alone more often than mine despite my requests.

I took my younger son to the clinic while he was sick and I would describe the situation (he has some respiratory issues that complicate typical colds and etc) and often the nurse would look at me and ask "What does mom think?"

sneak3• 5 years ago

Not a solution, but perhaps a workaround: a shared email account, hooked up to both of your phones/computers, used for childcare-related matters.

You'd have to be careful about checking things even marked read, but this may solve the issue. Alternately an email address that forwards to both of your addresses.

duxup2• 5 years ago

I've been thinking of doing that for a lot of things. Bills, logins, etc.

throwaway7133• 5 years ago

My wife gave birth to our child this past year in Palo Alto. While at the hospital, my wife and I noticed that no questions at all were addressed to me (the husband), particularly questions that I could have answered while she was in pain during delivery.

Afterward, we were provided with a form to fill out for the birth certificate, which required a parental signature. I filled the form out and returned it to the office, at which point I noticed that the clerk changed the signature to state my wife's name when inputting it into the system.

Later in the day, a social worker came by and began to ask questions about my income (when I told her I worked for one of the large tech companies, she immediately left and stopped questioning me). She independently took my wife aside to ask questions, and my wife later told me that she did not ask about her income, but did ask to make sure she was not being abused, a question I was never asked.

All in all, we felt it was a very poor experience (not to mention multiple mistakes were made during delivery because the anesthesiologist was distracted by the television), and we were surprised by the degree of sexism in what we thought was one of the more progressive cities in the U.S.

spacemark• 5 years ago

When I was younger I thought it absolutely baffling that some of my educated, reasonable friends and relatives elected for home births, given the obvious increases in risk.

It wasn't until I realized how absolutely terrible the hospital experience is, amplified 10x with birth, rife with shocking biases and sexism, that their behavior began to make perfect sense. Horror story after horror story of human beings being treated little better than cattle. I fear for when I get older and have to deal with the medical system on a more regular basis.

moftz3• 5 years ago

As long as there are no known issues and everyone is healthy, a home birth is probably safe. A hospital is usually safe too but definitely more expensive.

sneak3• 5 years ago

Babies are 2x as likely to die in a home birth as in a hospital.

It's trendy and perhaps more comfortable/convenient, but it massively amplifies the risk.

WarOnPrivacy4• 5 years ago

We first did a home birth & later two center births. These were so my wife could better control her deliveries.

Our last birth was twins and our midwife directed us to a 100% female OB/GYN practice. They were beyond fantastic.

circlefavshape• 5 years ago

the anesthesiologist was distracted by the television

What? The fucking television????

throwaway7133• 5 years ago

There was a young anesthesiologist in training (resident?) who was administering the epidural while a more experienced anesthesiologist was supposed to be watching. The trainee put the epidural in the wrong spot three times and ended up giving my wife Horner's syndrome after the final insert. The older anesthesiologist didn't notice the failed attempts because he was staring at something on the TV in the room. I eventually told him he needed to pay attention because his resident kept screwing up.

Also, I suspect (but cannot prove) that our daughter ended up in the NICU because of additional failings during delivery related to a very long period of trying to induce while our daughter did not have sufficient oxygen.

rib3ye2• 5 years ago

That’s nothing. In our case he was engaged in a text message conversation.

throwaway1492• 5 years ago

Your story reminded of the time I had a really bad experience attending a Ob-gyn appointment with my wife while she was pregnant with our first. I tried to ask a question and was pointedly ignored, to the point the (female) Dr didn't look at me for the rest of the visit. It was very odd and uncomfortable for me and my wife.

I got the message loud and clear that I was less than zero in the whole process, in that Dr's eyes at least.

clarkevans4• 5 years ago

In my opinion, a midwife is essential for navigating birth in our medicalized system. Think of it as going to court -- you don't want to be representing yourself. A midwife is not only helpful support for you, but they've seen all the various problems and know how to address them... or coax the nurse/doctor into doing the right thing.

Edit: responder used the correct word, "doula" not "midwife"; thank you.

ed25519FUUU3• 5 years ago

A doula is a more common version of what you’re describing. A midwife actually delivers the baby.

Anecdotally, I highly recommend a midwife birth versus doctor if you have the option. A midewife’s only job is to deliver healthy babies. Unlike doctors who do many things.

https://www.today.com/health/what-doula-here-s-what-doulas-d...

ip26• 5 years ago

I'm not going to argue that's a great experience. But I think it's important to remember a lot of very dysfunctional families come through the birthing center. Questions you as the husband are perfectly capable of answering, another husband may simply lie. Yes, she and I agreed not to use any pain medication, for example.

It's also a good time to catch abused, controlled, or manipulated women at an extremely vulnerable point in their lives. This doesn't mean men are never abused- but childbirth doesn't exactly seem like the place to discover it.

I've been through the experience. I think it's important to remember that, as the father, you are very much party- but you are not the patient.

ed25519FUUU3• 5 years ago

A lot of hospitals now separate the husbands and wives when they come in together, and will usually ask those questions very carefully when the husband is not present. It’s a good practice, but pretty annoying if the wife has anxiety and wants to stay together.

ed25519FUUU3• 5 years ago

We had our first in very similar fashion, but part of our “birth plan” was that me (the husband) can make decisions both for my wife and child, and that I’m also always present if the child is taken out of our room.

I felt treated as an equal, and several times they would ask a question and say we can discuss it together before making a decisions before leaving the room.

I don’t know if it was the birth plan or something else, but our experience was excellent. I recommend anyone worried about this also create a birth plan and bring it with them.

tartoran2• 5 years ago

I was also rendered a paperweight when my wife was in labor and took her to the hospital. I was there to respond to banal questions, age, address, etc. They insisted that she answers those questions instead and yeah - it took them a while to get them in between her screams of agony and pain. I was sent to the “family room” and told not to come back until they call me. My wife really wanted me there, the whole thing was so frustrating. Of course they asked her whether I was abusing her and I sort of understand why but still, I was treated negatively and they assumed the worst. Eventually I was allowed to be present at the birth as we knew the doctor from previous visits but again..

chmod600• 5 years ago

What happens if you don't answer the questions? The implied threat is that they will make your life miserable, potentially taking your child away. But to force someone to answer questions like that seems to be a violation of the fourth and/or fifth amaendments.

tristor• 5 years ago

we were surprised by the degree of sexism in what we thought was one of the more progressive cities in the U.S

I have observed similar things with friends who had kids. There's still something unique in how society deals with children that is fundamentally misandrist. At every level of our society, we assume mothers are the primary caretaker and primary authority with children and men are explicitly and intentionally excluded and distrusted. It's unfair to women as well, because it shoehorns them into a role they may not be comfortable with.

dragonwriter2• 5 years ago

“Medical staff directed questions to their actual patient, even when there was a man present who thought he could answer them as well,” isn't sexism.

Expecting anything else, though, is.

throwaway7133• 5 years ago

there was a man present who thought he could answer them as well

That’s a funny way to characterize a bunch of male doctors ignoring my wife’s request for them to ask me simple questions instead of her because she was incapacitated with pain, particularly when in a previous situation I broke my ankle and my request for questions to be addressed to her went fulfilled without any objections by the hospital staff.

But I will be sure to let my wife know that a stranger on the internet thinks her claims of sexism at the hospital are unfounded.

imbnwa• 5 years ago

She independently took my wife aside to ask questions, and my wife later told me that she did not ask about her income, but did ask to make sure she was not being abused, a question I was never asked.

Why would they ask you that for a transparent answer given where they're coming from? Or is this, "how dare they do routine questions that implicate my status"?

david384• 5 years ago

Not surprised. I live right up the street. Palo Alto is so progressive and woke that they assume every woman is a likely victim. Unless the husband is a minority I suppose, then it would be politically incorrect to ask.

rich_sasha5• 5 years ago

It works both ways. I remember looking after my baby daughter between jobs, taking her to classes etc. These were full of mothers with babies, who generally looked at me like, at best, a freak, at worst, someone who shouldn't be near children, and somehow coerced one to come along as cover-up.

People assume the woman is responsible for kids, which is a bit of a 1D projection of women, but also, in my personal experience, women, especially mothers, assume the men shouldn't be around, are no good with children etc.

IG_Semmelweiss• 5 years ago

Actually - you may be onto something here.

From personal experience, i have seen vast majority of personnel at daycares are women. As in, 95%+. So the bias, if there is any, at that EDU level, would be resting on such personnel, and the people that manage such notification systems. Thus, taken to its simplest premise, this article would become "Busy men & women complaining about other women who only wish to talk to women".

In my experiences with K and preK, i have not had this problem. What I did see was largely tech-driven: The notifications sent to parent had 1 default, which was mom. Once we requested to have me in the loop, it happened as requested, but mom missed all the updates (and i had to fwd). We requested both to be updated, but this could not be done.

System only had space for 1 phone number.

I suspect with COVID, a lot of these preconceived notions have been brought down. However, we should recognize that giving tech to people that never had to manage it, its going to lead to problems. Let's be more patient and not assume bias to something that could very well lack of skill / training.

clarkevans4• 5 years ago

When my daughter was learning to use equipment on the playground, we discussed safety often and scripted moves -- she had lots of practice, confidence (and caution), with few limits.

One day we were at the playground and a mother expressed her disapproval that I was letting an ~20mo use the slide (she denied her 3yo son to use it). She exclaimed: "You are endangering your daughter! Where is your wife?". To which I said, "I'm the father. My daughter is being safe." She then wanted to know where my wife was... and threatened to call the police. I told her: "We live in the yellow house down the street, my wife is home."

After a few days, her son was climbing the ladder too; the woman became good playground company. I think there's all sorts of things people can learn from each other.

lostphilosopher• 5 years ago

Some anecdotes:

Called my daughter's pediatrician's office, left a message with one of her nurses with my question and my contact info so the doc could call back when she had time. She did, but she called my wife. (Has happened more than once. Has never happened "the other way.")

I work much closer to our day care than my wife and have a more flexible schedule, so if one of our kids gets sick and needs to be picked up I have done the pick up 100% of the time. Yet 100% of the time they call my wife, who then calls me. Also, 100% of the time they are a bit surprised when I show up to pick up the kid.

This hasn't caused us any harm, but I believe the phenomena is "real" and I could see scenarios where it does cause harm. It's also true that some instances have mundane causes as others have pointed out here.

rib3ye2• 5 years ago

In our case, my kid (age 4) would specify my wife as her primary parent anyway, so I can see why we got to where we are. For me it’s not just ignorant sexism, my daughter just prefers my wife (likely because I cannot sit through another viewing of Frozen 2).

Blikkentrekker2• 5 years ago

Are these U.S.A. horror stories of 1940s gender roles that one so often reads on the internet actually reflective of the country, or is this a case of “Something such as this can happen at least once everywhere.”?

I have even read stories of males complaining that they are held up by police and strangers, for committing the suspicious offence of being seen walking with their own children. Is this overdramatized?

P.s.: this thread at least seems to come with somewhat similar stories. — no idea where they are located.

Alex39172• 5 years ago

Is this overdramatized?

I took my daughter everywhere before COVID and never experienced this, even when she decides it's funny to scream things like "Help, this isn't my daddy!" But she also looks exactly like me, so there's that.

Blikkentrekker2• 5 years ago

Ah yes, there is always the other side of course.

From some of the horror stories I have seen posted on the internet, you would immediately be beaten by bystanders who'll not bother to ask any quæstions first.

WarOnPrivacy4• 5 years ago

I'm a dad who was always the primary parent. I arranged the births, changed most diapers, packed lunches, transport, meetings, homework, cubs, everything but nursing newborns. Over 30 years, I was usually the only parent that Drs, teachers, leaders ever saw.

This was because my wife had babies at home and had environmental allergies; I had the flexibility of self-employment.

Caregivers tended to be supportive. Occasionally tho, there were logistical issues with me being a man in women dominated environments.

One example: I wanted to monitor my young son's speech therapy (in/after school), so I could duplicate the teacher's methods. Apparently parents never did this and they had to find a hidden spot for me. This still left the teacher+child alone with a man in a closed classroom - which, reasonably, could make teachers less comfortable. A 2nd teacher had to be found to float in/out. This was a rare case where I was made to feel like I was imposing but it wasn't much of a dad thing.

This exception aside, I didn't run into a lot of issues. Surprise, yes. Lots of that.

JohnDeHope• 5 years ago

Yeah it's a really rough life. I'm the dad and handle most of the barn-related duties for my equestrian daughter. Also my wife makes more money than I do and has a position a few rungs up the corporate ladder from me. So I end up with a few more chores traditionally done by a mom. Over the weekend my daughter took a fall and (we thought) broke her foot. I brought her to her orthopedist appointment. The doctor asked a few questions and then turned to me and said, I kid you not, "Do you have any questions from mom? Usually the mom has more questions." Ha! She's probably right though. It's not mean-spirited chauvinism it's just business as usual. The next time the day care calls you, then tell them to call your spouse instead. If they can handle it, you'll only have to do this a few times, before the daycare starts going to them first. Lighten up folks. Cut some people some slack. Men and women have had their traditional roles in family and society since forever until the 60s and the invention of the birth control pill. It's going to take a few generations to settle into this new normal. In the mean time we'd all be a lot better off if we could assume best intentions and not jump to drama every time.

anotherevan2• 5 years ago

We had a similar issue with our school always ringing my wife first instead of myself - even though I was the one coming down to the school several times a week (sometimes several times a day) due to a high-needs situation.

Even after we asked them to put a big notice in our records saying to try ringing me first. This is in Melbourne, Australia.

anotherevan2• 5 years ago

While the article is good in that it highlights the issue, I found it disheartening that all the interviewees where mothers. Where's the interviews with the fathers saying how invalidated as a parent it makes them feel? Seems to be some irony there.

My child has two parents. Why does day care call only me? (2018)

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