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My mother could have been a doctor—Purdue, premed, 1938—but like so many women of her era, she got married, started a family, and became a de facto pediatrician for six unruly and often calamity-prone children. She was the one to take us to the doctor for our shots and the one who trooped us down to the emergency room—conveniently just a block away from home—when we did something really stupid.
Mothers have long been recognized as healthcare decision makers within the family, and that may well be the case when COVID-19 vaccinations become available to children and adolescents. Kaiser Health News reports that more women than men are getting their COVID-19 vaccines, even though more men than women are dying of the disease, and that is about par for the course for us guys.