phone | Unmotherly Insights

You are still coming to your appointment? Aren't you???

I know times are tough. I know Doctors have been given the shaft. They’re getting squeezed by the government. They’re getting paid less and less by insurance companies. Patients are suing them over mis-diagnosed hang nails. It’s not easy. Believe me, with a husband in the biz, I see the problems within the healthcare industry on a daily basis.

But still, this is ridiculous. Doctors need to suck it up, pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and stop wearing their hearts on their sleeves. Showing your sensitivity and exposing your insecurities may be the ticket for dudes on the prowl, but it’s not an attractive physician feature. So I’m sorry if you docs out there are feeling insecure, but don’t be so obvious about it.

I do realize that people are flaky and often forget about appointments. I think that confirmation calls are a fine way to insure your schedule stays on track and doesn’t end up with holes the size of the Grand Canyon. But what’s with requiring patients to call back and confirm that they received the confirmation call and will actually be at the scheduled appointment? It’s a pain of colossal proportion and I resent it immensely.

I used to joke that my dentist had abandonment issues because he was the only one I knew who participated in this silly double confirmation call policy. I found it annoying albeit slightly amusing. But the practice has caught on and it seems that everyone from the kids’ orthodontist to the chiropractor is requiring patients to call back after receiving their reminder call to reconfirm their intention to show up at their appointment. Really?

It’s kind of like sending a thank you note to a bride for her thoughtful note of acknowledgement over the Lenox place-setting you sent her. It’s like an endless, interminable cycle. And honestly, I don’t have time to call back every friggin’ doctor my kids have appointments with. Look, I took the time to make the appointment. I’m a responsible adult. Have a little faith in me, for gosh sakes.

I know that life is tenable. Relationships are fleeting. Disappointment hurts. But, you can’t live your life worrying that everyone in it is going to let you down. It’s just not…healthy. This kind of cloying neediness is unattractive and I’m telling you, it’s gonna drive people away in the long run.

Trust that you are important and that people will show up at their scheduled appointment times . Believe in your own internal value. You don’t need this kind of redundant external reinforcement. Your good enough. You’re smart enough. And gosh darnit, people like you.

Listen; your kids might talk to you

A woman I know once told me not to talk on my cell phone while driving if my kids were in the car with me. The funny thing about it was that she wasn’t cautioning me at all about safety. She had older kids than me. And she said that driving in the car was always the place where her normally reticent children shared their most intimate life stories. She learned about bullies at school, first crushes, and all kinds of fascinating personal philosophies.

Lately I’ve really been working on this. And it’s paying off in spades! Last night, for example, I learned where my ten year old plans to go to college. It’s ASU, by the way, and he plans on only living in a dorm his freshman year because he wants to have a really nice kitchen where he can cook delicious meals. “Mom, did you ever eat uncooked Ramen when you were in college?” he asked me. “I’ve heard that lots of college kids eat that.”

“No, sweetie,” I smiled. “I always made it a point to take 30 seconds and cook the noodles before eating them.” But then, recounting my earlier days, I added, “But they sure were a great value. We used to buy 10 packs for a buck. That could feed you for a week back in the day.”

After discussing his future menu selections, we moved on to intermarriage; he thought it was not the right choice for him since he wants to raise his kids Jewish. Then he told me about a girl who wasn’t terribly kind in his class, his future career aspirations, what his perfect wife would be like, and how disgusting the egg frittata at school was that day.

It was a mixed bag of somewhat scattered thoughts, yearnings, and beliefs. On the more banal matters, I needed to read between the lines and ferret out the deeper truths that lurked within his complex psyche. Like his obsession with how he would ever be able to pay for auto insurance. It reminded me how much of a planner he is and how uncomfortable he is with uncertainty. His focus on having the consummate spouse represented his ever-growing anxiety around making mistakes; a topic we surely need to raise next week at the talking doctor.

I learned an inordinate amount. And by the time we got home, I felt certain that I knew him better. The mere 10 mile trip that could’ve easily been occupied with a phone call to my mom or a quick voicemail message to a friend, had served as a safe haven for a deep and meaningful dialogue. His off-handed sharing about the everyday facts of his life, his worries and future aspirations, had served to open a portal into his soul and I was deeply grateful for having been granted access to this private sanctum.

I’m not deluded enough to think that this kind of sharing will go on forever. I’m painfully aware of what happens to heart-sleeved little boys who all too often grow into “strong, silent” young men. But for now, I’ll stay off the cell phone. I’ll keep asking the questions. And I’ll keep listening, hard, for the truth behind the words, the essence beneath the answers. Because after all, is there anything more important than that?