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

[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?

Tante her off contact list!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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).

Our nanny always texted both of us in a group chat and would call whoever was more accessible that day- one of us usually worked from home so she would call my husband first if the was him.

[Anonymous]

My questions is how and why OP puts up with such a hot mess mom for his children.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for Fighting the good fight for this. My husband has the flexible or come home job and is much better set up to deal with sick kids and we've gotten to the point where we have taught our kids to tell the school nurse to call Dad first

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My questions is how and why OP puts up with such a hot mess mom for his children.

This.