I Hate Calling My Kid from the Road
Given the choice of parenting or room service...
by Rebecca Walker
October 8, 2009
Fall is here, which means a lot of us are hitting the trail to teach, speak, meet, and conduct all manner of business that keeps money and professional mobility flowing in our households. My slate is full this year and while I'm excited to be on the road — all those Bliss Spa beauty products and random talks with cab drivers in Midwestern towns — I dread not only saying goodbye to my four-year old, but saying hello. From my Blackberry at the airport, the phone in my hotel room, Skype on the screen of my MacBook, no matter the medium, I'd rather eat my arm than talk to my kid while I'm out of town.
Seriously.
You know how it is fellow sojourners: you long for your children the moment you see the airport sign on the highway. Suddenly nostalgic for the twang of the 5:45 alarm and epic daily corralling through teeth-brushing, face-washing, yogurt- and apple-eating, lunch-bagging and surreptitious eyelash-curling, you have inexplicably romantic thoughts about waiting for the bus or catching the subway with five million other people. You forget holding your breath when the man next to you sneezes five times in a row, and how often you wonder if you can get swine flu more than once. Or if you live outside of the city, you forget the pang of guilt you feel (the ozone, the future of the planet!) every time you turn on the air conditioner for the seemingly endless drive to school on nauseatingly curvy roads.
But these moments of waxing rhapsodic are fleeting, are they not? Mere hours later, comfortably ensconced in a room with a Heavenly Bed and a willing room-service delivery person, things change. There are movies on demand, movies you want to watch! The Wifi is perfect and you can work when you want to, at three a.m. say, without worrying about passing out the next day after morning drop-off. Did I mention you can pick up a phone, tell someone what you want to eat and then they . . . bring it to your door? A door you can answer in a long shirt and tights?
Yes, my friends. Things are good. Until the hideous red LED clock on the dark wood veneer nightstand creeps closer to what you have calculated to be bedtime at home. First you have an hour. Then twenty minutes. Five. Three. One. You pick up the phone with a heavy hand. Your mate answers, you brace yourself, and then you’re off to the races.
"Hello!"
Sounding like you’re having fun could cause jealousy and possibly even long-lasting feelings of betrayal.
You say this first word cheerfully, with great excitement, because you know the first rule of calling home is sounding as if you have been waiting to talk to your spouse and children since the moment you kissed them goodbye at the airport when the truth is you haven’t thought of them for hours.
"How am I?"
You say this with a little more than a soupcon of aggravation because rule number two dictates you sound as if being away is positively awful, the worse thing EVER. Sounding like you’re having fun could cause jealousy and possibly even long-lasting feelings of betrayal. And so, even though you have largely recovered from the atrocities of air travel, you share only the truly dreadful details.
"Uch, the trip was terrible. Bad food. My seat was in the back of the plane, and the flight attendant treated me like I had leprosy. They tried to give me a room ten miles from the elevator. When I told the person at the desk, he moved me to a non-smoking room that smelled like an ashtray. You know how it is."
Instead of pity, you are treated to a recounting of all of the extra work done in your absence. Adhering to rule three, you sympathize and share, from the bottom of your heart, how much you wish you were home to help. Which is more or less true, but the movie you’re watching on-demand has clicked back on after its three-minute pause, and you have to rush to silence it lest your partner think you’re luxuriating while he or she scrapes the burnt oatmeal out of the pot you left on the stove this morning.
©2009 Rebecca Walker and Babble Media
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