So many friends and family have sent me the video of Professor Robert Kelly on the BBC, interrupted by his kids, I am beginning to think they are trying to tell me something.
John F. Kennedy, of course, loved the picture of his son at work with him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh4f9AYRCZY
There is an analysis online which elaborates on how many sacrifices Professor Kelly has made to become a professor of political science and how this sort of interview is for him likely one of the few real rewards of all that effort, and how his children have spoiled the moment, but he manages a suffering smile through it all.
The fact is, a lot of professions depend on the stage art of creating an illusion of expertise: Judges wear black robes; doctors wear white coats; pundits on TV dress up in their snazzy clothes and use carefully chosen phrases and vocabulary to create the impression (on might say the "illusion") of knowing something more than other people.
But then you have kids intruding and the pundit has to shift gears.
I once worked with a woman physician who brought her kids, about age 6 and 4 not only to the office, but into the exam room with her. She just loved being with her kids and it never seemed to dawn on her her patients might not be as pleased to have her children in the exam room as their mother was. I had to close my door when her kids were scampering up and down the hallway and I was trying to talk to a patient, some under secretary of something, who had come to my office to talk about his health and now heard a commotion that sounding like a day care center over his shoulder.
Kids at work in that setting struck me as a mother over indulging her kids, unable to draw necessary lines, willfully proclaiming her priority of motherhood over physicianhood.
On the other hand, this was the 1990's, and a place where doctors practiced not from their homes but from offices in large office buildings--in the days when doctors had their offices in their homes, children intruding might have been more commonplace.
Occasionally, I had to bring one of my sons on rounds with me to the hospital. The nurses thought that was unprofessional and they hated being left with doctors' kids at the nursing station as if because they were women they had nothing better to do than to play nursemaid to the kids of any doctor who happened by. So I made an effort to not do that and I stationed my kid outside the patient's room near the door way so I could keep an eye on him while I dealt with the patient.
One of my patients, who was in the hospital a lot, insisted I invite the kid in. She was diabetic, spent many weekends in the hospital and she was one of the finest people I've ever had the privilege to know. When I did not bring the kid with me, she would say, "Oh, this is so disappointing. I just don't know I'm going to talk with you today, unless you go home and get your son."
One day, I finished with a patient and swept out of the room, having lost sight of him and found him talking to an old lady who was sitting in a "cardiac chair" a few yards down the hall. They were in deep and earnest discussion when I arrived and when I tried to yank him away and apologize, she never took her eyes from his and held up her hand to wave me off. When she finished listening to whatever this 5 year old was saying, she looked up to me with visible indignation.
She was not indignant that I had brought my son to the hospital; she was indignant because I had attempted to interrupt him.
"I am eighty-nine years old," she told me. "I raised four kids and I taught grade school for forty years. When I tell you this is a very extraordinary child, I know of what I speak."
"Well, thank you," I said, trying to drag the kid off by an elbow.
"No," she said. "You think I'm just some old lady who likes kids and he is like one of those companion dogs. But you ought to take some time to listen to that child. If you did, you'd be surprised, I'd bet."
Once I had him locked in his car seat I got back behind the wheel and looked up at him in the rear view mirror.
"What were you talking about with that lady?" I asked.
"Oh, politics," he said.
"Politics?"
"Yes, and the meaning of life."
I told his mother about that when I got home. She was not at all surprised.
"You ought to talk to your son sometime," she said. "None of this would surprise you."
John F. Kennedy, of course, loved the picture of his son at work with him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh4f9AYRCZY
There is an analysis online which elaborates on how many sacrifices Professor Kelly has made to become a professor of political science and how this sort of interview is for him likely one of the few real rewards of all that effort, and how his children have spoiled the moment, but he manages a suffering smile through it all.
The fact is, a lot of professions depend on the stage art of creating an illusion of expertise: Judges wear black robes; doctors wear white coats; pundits on TV dress up in their snazzy clothes and use carefully chosen phrases and vocabulary to create the impression (on might say the "illusion") of knowing something more than other people.
But then you have kids intruding and the pundit has to shift gears.
I once worked with a woman physician who brought her kids, about age 6 and 4 not only to the office, but into the exam room with her. She just loved being with her kids and it never seemed to dawn on her her patients might not be as pleased to have her children in the exam room as their mother was. I had to close my door when her kids were scampering up and down the hallway and I was trying to talk to a patient, some under secretary of something, who had come to my office to talk about his health and now heard a commotion that sounding like a day care center over his shoulder.
Kids at work in that setting struck me as a mother over indulging her kids, unable to draw necessary lines, willfully proclaiming her priority of motherhood over physicianhood.
On the other hand, this was the 1990's, and a place where doctors practiced not from their homes but from offices in large office buildings--in the days when doctors had their offices in their homes, children intruding might have been more commonplace.
Occasionally, I had to bring one of my sons on rounds with me to the hospital. The nurses thought that was unprofessional and they hated being left with doctors' kids at the nursing station as if because they were women they had nothing better to do than to play nursemaid to the kids of any doctor who happened by. So I made an effort to not do that and I stationed my kid outside the patient's room near the door way so I could keep an eye on him while I dealt with the patient.
One of my patients, who was in the hospital a lot, insisted I invite the kid in. She was diabetic, spent many weekends in the hospital and she was one of the finest people I've ever had the privilege to know. When I did not bring the kid with me, she would say, "Oh, this is so disappointing. I just don't know I'm going to talk with you today, unless you go home and get your son."
One day, I finished with a patient and swept out of the room, having lost sight of him and found him talking to an old lady who was sitting in a "cardiac chair" a few yards down the hall. They were in deep and earnest discussion when I arrived and when I tried to yank him away and apologize, she never took her eyes from his and held up her hand to wave me off. When she finished listening to whatever this 5 year old was saying, she looked up to me with visible indignation.
She was not indignant that I had brought my son to the hospital; she was indignant because I had attempted to interrupt him.
"I am eighty-nine years old," she told me. "I raised four kids and I taught grade school for forty years. When I tell you this is a very extraordinary child, I know of what I speak."
"Well, thank you," I said, trying to drag the kid off by an elbow.
"No," she said. "You think I'm just some old lady who likes kids and he is like one of those companion dogs. But you ought to take some time to listen to that child. If you did, you'd be surprised, I'd bet."
Once I had him locked in his car seat I got back behind the wheel and looked up at him in the rear view mirror.
"What were you talking about with that lady?" I asked.
"Oh, politics," he said.
"Politics?"
"Yes, and the meaning of life."
I told his mother about that when I got home. She was not at all surprised.
"You ought to talk to your son sometime," she said. "None of this would surprise you."
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