93. "Partner" part one

I'm rounding on a recently delivered 34 year I had not yet met.  The father asks if I will write a note excusing him from work for another week since she had an unanticipated cesarean delivery.  Sure, I said, and returned to the nursing station to write a note (most companies don't mind a hand-written note for this purpose; as long as there is some paper trail).

Then I realized I forgot his name--no problem, I'll just check the admission record; his name should be on it.  But no, for emergency contact, just her mother was listed.  Too bad because I had already started a note: "Please excuse [blank] from work until Jan 9th because his wife underwent an unexpected operative delivery."  When I wrote "wife" I had a fleeting thought--"maybe I should write 'partner.'" But that didn't seem right in this setting.  During that brief encounter, they seemed... well, like a married couple.

A recent analysis of census data shows that 51% of all adult Americans are married, an all-time low.   In my state about half of all deliveries are to unmarried women.  My own records over the past 15 years show that 70% of the woman whose deliveries I have attended are married.  That number will probably decline.

Anyway, I left the note as written, asking for and adding his name when I returned to give it to him.  I doubt that he or anyone reading it will give a second thought to my outdated social prejudices.