It really is a lot of fun having and surviving my children but it's not all fun and games. Sometimes people need to survive me when they are involved with my children.
One of my friends is fond of saying that to be friends with me you need a healthy dose of fear, that is not true for my friends but for others...that might be a safe outlook.
I have gotten into some major throw-downs with teachers, doctors, nurses and the like. If you are someone's mother you better find the ability to not care what people think about you and be ready to open your mouth when your child needs you to. Motherhood is not for the mousey and meek.
Case in point, my oldest was hospitalized when he was five years-old for pneumonia. It was a big lesson for me in understanding that not all people who are supposed to have your child's best insterests at heart always do.We arrived via ambulance and my son's doctor was not on staff at this hospital so we had doctors appointed to us. One of his doctors took me aside and explained to me that he did not feel that my child had pneumonia, he felt that my son had allergies and wanted to have him tested. Allergies? I saw the chest x-ray, I knew what we were dealing with, besides, my son had never had so much as a cold or the sniffles in his life. I was not impressed with his assessment of my child's condition but I asked why he felt this way. To my surprise he simply said to me that I needed to trust him and let him do these tests on my child. Red flags were flashing all over the place as this irritating man spoke. Let him run tests on my kid? Just because he said so? No way. We continued to talk/argue for sometime when he finally admitted to me that none of his colleagues agreed with him. Not one person agreed to help him bamboozle me with his desire to guinea pig my child so he tried to push his luck and trick me into having my kid tested for allergies. That set me right off and I told him that he was not to cross the threshold to enter my child's room again. And he didn't, he sent one of his residents to do it for him...with a tray of needles to use on my little boy to test him for allergies. I failed to mention that this was a teaching hospital, the famed and glorious University of Iowa where all of my kids were born. Teaching is fine, I had had students talk to me and help take care of me and my children after they were born. I had been happy to do it but this was different. This was a kid, my kid, and a doctor was lying to me to get his way and have a body to work on. I didn't leave my kid's side knowing that the moment I was gone that the doctor would be on his way to use my unprotected child as a classroom teaching tool.
As we were leaving two days later I had a nurse approach me and tell me that she was proud that I had not just taken medical advice at face value and that it makes her sad that more parents are not advocates for their children. I had a long and loud talk with patient services once we were home.
Don't be afraid to yell and stand between your child and whoever is trying to push them (or you) around. My true regret would have been being suckered in and had my child suffer needlessly for a man who tried to convince me that I should just shut up and do what I was told.
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