...Unless Dad talks to them first.
Just about every conversation my wife and I have with doctors, nurses or anyone else who represents the hospital they always speak directly to my wife, almost as if I'm not there at all. My guess is this policy, but I have not yet Googled it.
I find this phenomenon very interesting for gender role reasons, especially since we are currently in a Silicon Valley hospital. Intuitively, prior to my son's hospitalization, I would have assumed that when parents have situations and scenarios presented to them by hospital representatives that the intended audience would be Team Parents. Maybe that is actually the case and it's just a matter of presenting items directly to Mom as representing Team Parents is seen as the most effective way of getting the message across, but I don't know.
It's just been my experience that everyone working for the hospital always looks at my wife and not me, unless I am the one speaking. I actually don't have a problem with it, just very interesting. Basically the implication is that in areas of child health, there may not be equality in decision making across parents. I'd be interested in seeing how this would work with same sex parents.
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