Tonight I hope you can make it to the Cuddle Party at my home!
Yesterday I thought maybe that I would be able to see my 1:30 PM Cuddlist client and head over to High Falls NY (3.5 hr drive) where I had taken my Foundations of Facilitation training for a Cuddle Party there and overnight before returning home to host this evening. Monday I thought the Cuddle Party was going to be hosted at a bucolic farmstead about 30 minute drive from my home.
This post is about reminding you to join me for tonight's Cuddle Party, and the Cuddle Party I have planned in a couple weeks in Syracuse, but it is also about dealing with change and processing things as they are in this moment... less directly, this is also about why women still make only $0.70 to a man's dollar for the same work.
So I've been hosting Cuddle Party once or twice a month in my home since June, and I'm getting the hang of it. I completed my review quota (the practice parties we host and reflect on before completing the certification process) and received my place on the www.cuddleparty.com website in August. There have been a couple events that I didn't put in much effort to publicise and no one or only one guest attended, and some with just 2 or 3. In fact I never have met the 8 guest "ideal" number of guests. Smaller events have been lovely, and over all, I've been happy with this venture.
This week though, I've been reminded a few times to release attachment to outcomes. On Monday I found out that the farmstead venue was not going to be available, so I easily and logically changed the location on my online event and posted notifications to the groups on Facebook, Meetup, etc. where I had publicised it. No big deal - in fact I think I was a little relieved not to have to manage moving my materials to a new location. On Friday, yesterday, the story I really want to tell...
Like I said, there was another NY state Cuddle Party happening last night in the Hudson Valley, and I kind of wanted to go. I hadn't committed enough to have bought a ticket (thankfully), but I thought "If I feel up to it after my client, I'll go." And I wasn't able to because of a family emergency. And I wonder if I were male if I'd have had to be put through such a wringer. The school called me in the late morning, and I told them that I was busy and would get to the school to deal with the situation at 2:30PM. ..
What happened next probably happens to many women. My timeline was not good enough for the school. They called me back and implied that CPS would be called if I didn't cancel or drop my plans between noon and the time I said I'd be available. The school decided for me that my child needed to be taken to the hospital - not this is not from a physical injury and the child was not bleeding, puking, or causing any trouble to the other students at the school, they stopped taking their meds and did some cutting (which we've been dealing with for 6 years) that wasn't at all immediately life threatening. The school transported the child to the hospital, and then once already there they called me back to coerce me to change my plans.... No without going into too much details on that I wonder if a man who said "I'll be there at 2:30" when called after 11AM would be harrassed, insulted, and threatened in the same way. I had a client and I didn't want to cancel the appointment, but the administration used guilt - they said they had to go to the hospital to support my child because I was refusing, threats - they said it'd go badly for me politically (that CPS would be involved) if I didn't drop everything and get there NOW, and insults - implied that morally and ethically a good, loving, supportive, etc. parent wouldn't prioritize a $40 gig over being there for their child, to try and coerce me. Would such arguments sting so much, or even be used on a male counterpart?
That's the reason women make less for the same work - because we might miss work to have a baby, and then that baby might have stuff happen at school where the school administration is going to use these tactics on us. Men have as much or more control about making that baby, but society dictates that "in case of emergency, call mom."