The Worry-Wart Receptor

 

Ok.  Here it is.  Straight out of my “The Treatment of Gynecology Disorders with Herbs and Essential Oils” notes by Peter Holmes, “The highest progesterone receptors are found in the limbic system, the center of emotion and bonding; women have more progesterone receptors in the brain than men.  Maternal progesterone is partly responsible for the structural and neurobiological gender differences in the brain” (15).  This means that the poor dears can’t help it that they lack the capacity to go “mama bear” on some person who dared to mess with the happiness of their child, which also means that men and women react to certain challenges from completely different angles.  For instance, a woman faced with the same problem as a man may think of any children involved, where as if children aren’t directly involved in the problem, men wouldn’t even assume that they could be involved.  The man would probably simply think what’s best for himself in the situation, whereas the woman is thinking of everyone, worrying.  No wonder men and women may have trouble seeing another’s point of view!  We don’t even realize the extent of the possible differences.

I work in an elementary school as a sign language interpreter.  The other interpreter, a man, has children at this school on a permit, which means that because this school isn’t in his district, special circumstances have been established through his employment so his kids may attend this school.  We were informed that one interpreting position is closing at our school and that since I have seniority, I can decide which one of us stays and which one of us goes.  You guessed it.  (That is, if you’re a woman, you may have guessed it.)   I said that I would most likely be leaving because he’s got kids at the school.  I mean, what if they get kicked out of their very own school next year all because their dad no longer works there and it’s all because I decided to stay?  You know what he said to me?  That a job is a job, and it’s separate.  Something like that.  My ears lack male logic receptors, so I’m not too sure about what he said exactly.  Thank goodness his children aren’t girls!  Perhaps his boys won’t think it’s a big deal either, where as a girl might cry crocodile tears that her school is being taken away from her.  I asked him what he’d have done had he had the seniority and I had had the children at the school.  He was silent.  I’m pretty sure I read his mind, though.  If he really wants to stay—children having nothing to do with that desire—he would send me packing.  There would have been a big fight.  No wonder men think women unreasonable.  What I would’ve seen as him sending me away from my babies, he would’ve seen as simply deciding to stay.  Here I am, needing a reason for one of us to stay, or a reason for one of us to go, not basing the decision on seniority at all, with him telling me not to worry so much.  He wouldn’t worry.  He’d just decide.   No surprise: men and women are different.  Men lack the worry-wart receptor.

Sure, I’d like to stay.  My daughter’s school is across the street from the school where I presently work, but it’s her home school.  She may continue to attend, no matter where her mother works.  It’s hard for me to watch no teaching happening in a deaf and hard of hearing class, though and at least at the high school, the deaf kids would be in a room with hearing kids where all would be expected to work and to be responsible.  At my school, the kids’ brains may buzz with a sugar high, but certainly not from academic stimulation.  I see this as child abuse and it stresses me out.  At this school, I am being stopped from taking kids to the next level.  This school is close to my home, though.  The other is far and in a more challenging neighborhood.  A long drive, though while eating gas, offers an opportunity to listen to my cassette tapes, whereas now, I get one song in before I arrive and I’m lucky if my daughter lets that be one of my songs.  How I miss my daily sing-a-longs with my tapes!  But, the last high school in which I worked, an 18-year-old student, Abraham, who had been in a class with my client, stabbed Cindi, a seventeen-year-old who had been in a class with my client, to death during lunch.  The kids had vandalized the room when we were on lockdown.  There were gang fights, even some organized by parents, all the time.  I saw drug deals and other things so often, I had asked for a walkie-talkie, but administration said that only administrators could have one.  I had been accused of meeting a male student at lunch, too.  Adults who I didn’t even know saved me from the accusation, because everyone at every school in which I have worked have known where Debbie’s tree or grassy spot was.  Every lunch, I was at my spot, even if I was fasting from water and food.  Have I recovered enough to go back to a high school environment?  I am better at anchoring Light.  Perhaps not as much gunk will fly up in my face this time.  I’d love to interpret all day, which does not happen at this elementary school, but am I physically strong enough for that?  (I learned recently when I had my insides all cut up that sign language interpreting uses abdominal muscles.)  The other interpreter has a time restraint, but the high school job shouldn’t interfere with that.  He also could work a little bit longer hours per month there, so would get closer to retirement faster.  (A plus for any LAUSD employee.)  This would be the third high school for each of us.  Neither is more experienced with the age group, well, except I’ve had a teenaged daughter since she was two!  But, his kids...!  Neither of us is better than the other with the elementary age group.  He is more flexible and allows things to roll off his shoulders without any worry, so both schools are better suited for him, since everything unjust upsets me.  Either could go or stay.  The worry-wart receptor says that his kids are the only factor to be considered.  He keeps repeating that a job is a job and separate from them.  The decision has to come from what is best for me…only.  Usually, I get sent to a new school, because my client culminated/graduated and I am sent to where there is need.  I should enjoy the opportunity to choose and not worry.

 

I have decided.  After I chose who is leaving and turned in my answer, he told me he would have liked to have stayed.  I told him his kids would have been enough to have given him his wish if he’d just let me do that for them.  The thing is.  If it had been his decision, he would have stayed, so it’s easy for him to accept me saying that I’d like to stay.  He can take what he would have dished out.  I still worry about the kids, but I feel none of us, his kids included, will lose.  And, even though we would have approached seniority differently, our elementary school has just lost a terrific interpreting team.