I had an amazingly nice phone conversation today, with the doctor I took VelcroBoy to for a diagnosis (aside: he has ADD -- no hyperactivity to contend with, just attention deficit. Which almost makes it sound like a bank account; as if it were possible to simply deposit more attention...) Anyway.
Usually, when I take one of the kids to the clinic for whatever... when I would take my hubby to his appointments after his surgery last fall... pretty much anytime, ever, I have to spend time with a professional person, whether it's as a customer/client/patient or simply as a person, it seems like the moment they find out I'm a SAHM, they assume my brain was disengaged at infancy and I'm less capable of understanding complex ideas like what they *do* all day than a five-year-old.
The worst offenders? Moms and men over 50.
I can understand the men. I mean, there are still societal conventions in place urging men to treat women like Delicate Flowers who need special, kid-glove, cotton-wrapped handling. And men of A Certain Age were pretty much drowned in that mentality from a young age, so they're at a disadvantage. Many of them still have difficulty coping with the idea that women are, in fact, capable of deep, rational thought. They don't exactly get a pass on this one, but I'm less likely to let my prickles out.
The women, on the other hand? No.
Just.
No.
Y'know what? Maybe I don't have a degree. Maybe I don't have a whole STRING of letters after my name, or a fancy engraved nameplate on the door of my office. Hell, my "office" is the most comfortable chair in my living room, plus a storage ottoman and a kitty condo (don't judge. It's a convenient height for my tea). The thing is, the lack of those superficial outward signs of privilege (yes, even if you were a scholarship student, you were privileged enough to receive that scholarship, weren't you?) don't mean a thing. I don't have a degree, officially, but that doesn't mean I don't possess the knowledge. I grew up in a lab while my mother was doing the research for her dissertation -- my mom the PhD. I pretty much didn't bother in most of my science classes throughout school because I already knew the material. Mom's a bit of a bookworm (the attic and the living room are crammed full, and that doesn't count the foot-high currently-reading stack by her bed, her home office, her work office, or the overflow in the basement) so even through two years of being a college student myself there were very few books I was reading for the first time -- or even had to actually purchase -- for any of my literature classes. I remember reading medical journals for no particular reason in my teens (ok, they helped me fall asleep. What? Is truth!)
So, yeah. I may not have quite as many years of official training for some career or another, but that does not actually mean I don't understand what's going on when you talk to me.
Ironically, many of these people would give me a pass if I were homeschooling my kids for religious reasons -- I know a few families who do this, and, frankly, I know the way they spell. Their kids are going to be in TROUBLE. Not to mention narrow-minded, but that's a whole 'nother argument. Oh, or if I were a very obviously hippie-dippie Earth Mother type, or otherwise "artistic." Or if I had a job, but lost it, and decided that, given the way the economy is, SAHM-ing was a more graceful acceptance of defeat in the job market, thus choosing to leave the Real Jobs So The Men Can Have Them, There's A Good Girl. (Which, just... GRRRRRR.)
Anyway, I was impressed, because the particular doctor I spoke to today chose not to speak down to me. She spoke to me as if she expected me to be perfectly capable of understanding her if she used multi-syllabic words. She expected me to be capable of asking questions if I didn't understand something she said. She was, quite frankly, amazing! And you don't find amazing like that all that often in the military health-care system.
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