It’s 10:00PM. The deadline is 11:59, but I still haven’t received from one of the candidates her responses to the League of Women Voters’ questionnaire that I sent fourteen days ago. I leave my lap top and head to bed, praying that she will make the deadline. Otherwise, I face a difficult decision.

I know the candidate’s child came down with a fever and stayed home from school today. Family first! I should give her a break…. But what about the League’s policy of fairness to all candidates: the same word limit, deadline, and time allowed for answering the questions? Out of fairness to all, when setting the deadline, I take into account weekends and the Jewish holidays, which always interrupt election season. And I know that the other candidates also have family health issues and constraints like moving. Couldn’t this candidate have started on the questionnaire earlier?

How to tell a sweet person, a loving mother that her responses will not be included in the Voters’ Guide because, in nursing her child, she missed a deadline? But, if I give her a break, am I not damaging the League’s reputation for impartiality? Isn’t what makes fairness fair allowing no excuses? I return to my laptop and whip off an appeal. “The hardest thing about League is that fairness to all candidates means I cannot give any one candidate any slack. So I hope you can email your written responses before the 11:59 deadline tonight.”

Family first, the mantra at Trenton High School. I was a misfit because I couldn’t understand why my mentor, during my first year of teaching, missed the first eight days of school. Unprofessional! Or why my aide missed class to get shoes dyed for her daughter’s wedding. Perhaps I didn’t understand because my family and I enjoyed good health, and I got my shoes dyed on a weekend. I retired with a year’s worth of unused sick days, and when I was hospitalized for a week, I demanded and got a substitute whom I trusted to make my kids work and wrote lesson plans from my bed.

Is it just me? Uptight? Maybe, but this summer I was the person who looked after a paralyzed friend because her family could not. They had jobs and nothing was going to get in the way of their going to work. They couldn’t afford to get fired or lose their pensions. I understand that. But what if there had been no one to look after my friend, trapped in bed, hungry, soiled, and at the mercy of fire? What if a sick child is crying while Mommy tries to compose responses to a League questionnaire? How to give a break to a misguided teenager without teaching him that he can depend on getting breaks? What about the unemployed father who steals bread to feed his family?

It’s morning. I approach my lap top with trepidation. I read a subject line, “Candidate Questionnaire Response.” The time recorded is 11:50PM. I’m saved! An accompanying email says, “Thanks for the tough love.”