Can we normalize having a “Which parent should we call first?” on forms?

[Anonymous]

Don’t they always call whomever is listed first on the form, unless specified?

[Anonymous]

If your kids have a true emergency at school they are going to call the 2nd parent immediately if the first one doesn't answer the phone. Our youngest child twice needed an ambulance called due to a medical emergency and the school reached both of us within minutes. Even when getting voice mail they kept calling...the last time I think I got 2 voice mails, a call from my husband, a call from the principal and a call from the nurse all within the 5 minutes it took to run out the door and arrive at the school just as the ambulance was pulling in.

Otherwise, does it actually matter? Most notifications we receive are automated even if they are important - school closing early, on lockdown (ugh), snow day, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Preface, I’m a dad and I handle most of the interactions with teachers, doctors, and other care providers for my kids. Despite this, they usually call, email, and leave messages for my wife instead of me. My info is always on the form, I filled it out. But she is the one they go to.

The problem is that my wife (whom I love very much) is the hot mess mom. Her phone number really only exists in theory. It basically exists to test how many badge notifications a device can handle.

Recently, I was waiting for a lab result to come back for one of my kids allergies. Turns out they called my wife a week ago and left a message. She missed it. I asked them to make a note to contact me first, so we’ll see how that goes. Poor kid has been on a fun free diet for 3 months and could’ve gotten dairy back a week ago.

Anyone else deal with this? What are your experiences? Ideas?

Can you please explain the hot mess mom phenomenon because I have been having much communication lately with dads of my dc’s friends and often wonder where is mom. I understand work is a factor, but still curious what are the other characteristics?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t they always call whomever is listed first on the form, unless specified?

No, because most school software doesn’t preserve that order. The teacher or nurse tech has no way of knowing who you listed first.

[Anonymous]

If you've tried the typical things, put dad's phone number under mom's name. And mom's phone number under dad's name. They might call dad's number first...but probably not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For nurse aide tech in a local school system. I had to make so many calls home (sometimes 12+ a day) during the day as mandated by a strict protocol. Head bump calls were the worst - required to call home to advise a parent. A vm was sufficient. Just had to document that call home/vm was made. Protocol was any injury occurring during the school day involving head/neck/face/mouth = call parent. I mean the most minor injury had to be called, even if kid went back to class. So I made thousands of these calls in my career.

For head bump calls home I always selected Dad if possible - call me sexist but one of three things happened: I’d get his vm immediately and leave my message and never hear back, he’d answer and we’d have the briefest, most pleasant chat or he’d call AS I was leaving the message and again, brief chat for the win.

Once JUST ONCE, this went awry: I left Dad a vm, he listened and called me back, pleasant chat. Then he called his DW to loop her in and all hell broke loose: DW called me back to shout at me and advise that her DH was very important, very busy AND WAS NEVER TO BE DISTURBED AT WORK BECAUSE SHE IS A SAHM AND IN CHARGE OF DC. I transferred her to the registrar who listened to DW tirade and basically removed dad from contact list and added ALL CAP NOTES!

I continued to call dads first though.

Head bump calls are the worst. I don't care if my kid was hit in the head by a frisbee. I really don't. I have one kid who seemed to bump his head on everything for a few years. I know these are required but I could really do without these.

My youngest was a crier as a kindergartner, adored the school nurse, and had a nervous teacher. That added up to double digit calls for head bumps. Meanwhile for my other 2 kids I only got one total when there was an actual injury.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Preface, I’m a dad and I handle most of the interactions with teachers, doctors, and other care providers for my kids. Despite this, they usually call, email, and leave messages for my wife instead of me. My info is always on the form, I filled it out. But she is the one they go to.

The problem is that my wife (whom I love very much) is the hot mess mom. Her phone number really only exists in theory. It basically exists to test how many badge notifications a device can handle.

Recently, I was waiting for a lab result to come back for one of my kids allergies. Turns out they called my wife a week ago and left a message. She missed it. I asked them to make a note to contact me first, so we’ll see how that goes. Poor kid has been on a fun free diet for 3 months and could’ve gotten dairy back a week ago.

Anyone else deal with this? What are your experiences? Ideas?

Can you please explain the hot mess mom phenomenon because I have been having much communication lately with dads of my dc’s friends and often wonder where is mom. I understand work is a factor, but still curious what are the other characteristics?

As someone who often thinks I am a hot mess mom and whose DH is far more organized (sometimes):

- inattention to details
- inability to attend to things in a timely manner
- inability to keep track of too many things at once
- overlooks things and is unable to truly handle the mental load of modern family life without scaling it WAY back

[Anonymous]

Oof totally agree. It's so frustrating. I'm the mom, and I handle doctors/dentists, so that works out okay, but my husband is in charge of school stuff and I cannot get them to call him. A few weeks ago, my kid was sick at school, I was unreachable - they left me two voice mails, two remind messages, and three texts, and finally called my husband nearly 30 mins later. Meanwhile, he's working from home, easily accessible, and could have been at the school to get the kid in less than 10 minutes.

If you're going to call the mom first, and you get voice mail, you should at the very least immediately call dad. Why on earth they twiddled their thumbs for 30 minutes I have no idea.

Oh, and forget about it with nannies. I know there are cultural differences at play (both our nannies were immigrants) but you cannot get a nanny to call a dad. Not humanly possible. Doesn't matter that dad is UPSTAIRS and mom is unreachable. I think they literally would have called 911 before calling my husband. (Which they can do OUT LOUD from the stairwell).

[Anonymous]

This is stupid.

You should list the parent you want called first as the first contact. Every form is like this. If you list mom’s contact information first, don’t be mad that she’s called first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution here is to put your phone number for both parents. Moms do this all the time.

Yup. Either you have to keep track of who you need to follow up with, or you put your number for both. And reserve your wife’s number for “in case of emergency”. I think it’s too much to expect that every doctor’s office receptionist, every seasonal summer camp counselor, every teenaged office assistant, etc, will abide by a flowchart of who to call.

husband's?

It's too much to expect them to see "primary" next to a number and call that one instead of default to the woman? If so, we have serious problems with education.

I didn’t say that. I said that they are not bothered to follow a flow chart, which is why some moms, including me, are saying to put their own number down for both.

That’s what I do, because even though I’m the primary contact, they often call my frequently out of the country husband. He’s listed as secondary, but he still got called and emailed first about 20-30% of the time. I list my number for both primary and secondary, list his for emergency, and list a family email that we share for email contact. That’s what I would suggest for OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is stupid.

You should list the parent you want called first as the first contact. Every form is like this. If you list mom’s contact information first, don’t be mad that she’s called first.

Every form is like this, but that isn't followed. My kid's school forms don't have "Primary" and "secondary" they just have two slots for parent contact info. We always put my husband's name first. It DOES NOT MATTER. They still call me. Presumably, that information gets entered into a database somewhere and the order is not preserved, and they just call the mom. Every. Time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is stupid.

You should list the parent you want called first as the first contact. Every form is like this. If you list mom’s contact information first, don’t be mad that she’s called first.

Every form is like this, but that isn't followed. My kid's school forms don't have "Primary" and "secondary" they just have two slots for parent contact info. We always put my husband's name first. It DOES NOT MATTER. They still call me. Presumably, that information gets entered into a database somewhere and the order is not preserved, and they just call the mom. Every. Time.

I don't put a phone # for DH. I'm the parent they need to call so I don't even give them a second phone #

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t they always call whomever is listed first on the form, unless specified?

No, that is the whole point of OP’s thread. The way it is set up at many schools from the tbe teacher or nurse or office staff perspective you can’t tell which name is first, and so people default to calling mom. There should be a way to signal which one to call first.

[Anonymous]

Skip your wife's contact info.

My husband has ADHD and is not the go-to parent. But even when I put down his contact info, they call me, because I'm the mother. So you have to give only one phone number - yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Skip your wife's contact info.

My husband has ADHD and is not the go-to parent. But even when I put down his contact info, they call me, because I'm the mother. So you have to give only one phone number - yours.

This is the way. Only give them the one phone number you want them to call.