cc: Men

For the sake of irony, I've decided to tell this story backwards. . .

In the end everything was okay, but it took a long time for the sting of humiliation to dissipate.

The social worker stood and looked at us shaking her head.  “I wish every home I investigated was like this,” she said.  “Unfortunately, most are far from it.”

“There is no legal standard that says when it is or isn’t acceptable to leave a child home alone,” she explained, adding “It really depends upon the child—whether they are ready to stay home or are being forced to.  Fortunately for you, your daughter said the magic words.”

“Tell me, honey,” the strange lady said to our daughter, “what happened on Tuesday night?”  Our daughter looked back and forth at my husband and me.  She seemed to understand that whatever she said would be weighed very carefully.  Uncomfortable speaking to strangers, she struggled to find her voice.  “I had been at the ice rink all day practicing,” she said.  “When Daddy needed to take my brother to hockey I didn’t want to get dressed and go back there.  I was so tired; I begged him to let me stay home and watch TV.”

The social worker arrived at our home at the appointed hour.  Although we exchanged pleasantries, her demeanor made it clear that this was not a social call.  She had already interviewed our children’s pediatrician, the elementary school principal, and our daughter’s classroom teacher.  She said that she had no legal obligation to disclose with us her findings.  Then she explained that she would interview our daughter in our presence, but that we would not be permitted to speak or coach her in any way. 

I was in Minneapolis, meeting with my client and the principals of a venture capital firm.  It was one of those all-day meetings where executive lunch boxes were ordered and coffee was refilled hourly like a bag of vital IV fluids.  We were arguing over everything from the name of the company to the cost-benefit analysis of the product.  The VCs were trying to teach the stubborn young entrepreneur how to give a presentation to investors.  “It is all about showing the value proposition, the market potential, and their return on investment,” they explained.  “This is not an exam where you get credit for showing your work.”  The CEO, who looked like he was still a teenager despite his being a licensed physician, could not get his brain around this.  He insisted on explaining all the cycles of development in infinite detail: the genesis of his idea, his many trials and errors, all the lessons learned in getting to this point.  In essence, he was looking for recognition of his genius; this is not how to get future development funded.  There would have been no convenient point for the marketing assistant to interrupt, calling me to an emergency phone call.  “You need to come home right away,” my husband demanded with a tone that left nothing open to debate.

My eight-year-old daughter was lying on the sofa watching Spongebob Squarepants.  She was comfortably wrapped in a soft pink nightgown, a fuzzy pink robe, and matching pink slippers.  Her waist-long hair was wet from her bath.  During the commercial, she stood up to go to the bathroom; in so doing she tripped the motion detector from our security system that was set when my husband left to pick up our son from hockey practice.  Alarms blaring, the tiny girl was too scared to answer the phone when the security company made their custodial call to the residence.  As a result, the local town police were dispatched to the house to check for intruders.  They made their way to the back of the house and spotted my daughter through the window.  Identifying themselves as officers, they signaled for her to come to the back door.  When she explained that her father would be home in a few minutes they waited outside to confront him.  They told him that he was being cited for child endangerment, an infraction that would be further investigated by the Department of Child Services.  There was no discussion; by policy, it was not their place to evaluate or judge.

Business travel was not new to our family.  I had been doing it for fifteen years, having reached Million Miler status on Delta five years earlier.  Men are wired to leave home to tend to business without worrying about the nest, but when a woman travels professionally it carries an added burden.  I always made sure the refrigerator was full, prepared several meals ahead and froze them in single-size portions, picked up the laundry, did several loads of wash, and wrote day-to-day lists of appointments, lessons, and homework deliverables—before every business trip.  At every meeting break I would check messages and emails for things that went awry.  There is never a moment when a mom stops being a mom.

As our two children got older and involved in their own activities, it became more and more difficult to maintain a two-career family at full throttle.  Our live-in nanny did not suffer the move to New England well; she returned to Atlanta after only three months up north with us.  We decided to go it alone.  My husband insisted that with good planning we could manage.   “After all,” he said, “I’m their parent, too.”

Back in the 60s and 70s, as women were waging the fight for equal rights, I used to argue that women’s liberation had already occurred.  We were enlightened; it was the men who needed to evolve and reset their expectations. I have never felt put on a pedestal.  If anything, women of my generation have drawn the short straws in life.  Along with greater opportunities for education and career advancement came greater responsibility.  If we can make an equal contribution to the household from a professional standpoint, we are nonetheless bound to maintain our disproportionate share of domestic responsibility.  Men, I am sorry to report, simply lack the requisite attention to detail.

“I can take care of everything,” my husband said as he pushed me out the door to catch my flight.  “Stop worrying.” 

Tomorrow's blog:  Mind the Handi-Gap