One Small Victory in the Ugly War for Equal Rights...

Yesterday, we were at the hospital with one of the children. We were surprisingly pleased when the staff addressed us both be as "Mom", referred to as The Moms, and actually looked both of us in the eye when discussing care for our child.

Too often this is what happens:
We fill out paperwork, one of our names goes in the Mom line, as there is not a space for two names in the Mom line...then the staff calls the one name and both of us get up. Then comes The Look..where they look at the other one with the "Who are you and why are you here". Sometimes we will get a particularly vocal staff member who comes right out and asks "Who are you and why are you here", ok really they usually say 'Who is the mom" and we both chime "We both are" and then there is the moment where the reaction of the staff determines the way the appointment will go. If the staff member is uncomfortable, s/he will only look at one of us when talking and ignore the other.

Yesterday, however, our co-mothering was not even an issue one way or the other. It was implied and assumed that we were both the mothers. At one time the intake counselor, after we had been chatting awhile, joked that I was the nice mom and Tina was the mean one. (NO THATS NOT WHAT SHE SAID, JUST KIDDING!) She really said that I was the more lax mom and Tina was the more structured mom. Which is so totally true. Sigh.

Perhaps a small victory in the ongoing war for equal rights...