Are you married sweetie?"

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I'm always asked by my patients " are you married " every time I work, I feel so uncomfortable explaining my personal life to these people! does anyone else feel this way.. I have my own view on marriage and equality for people that I wont share with patients but what do we do when asked personal questions about our life..:sarcastic: Some nurses go into great detail about all their kids all that... am I not being personable to my patients

Specializes in Pedi.
I guess I don't see the problem lying.

I don't see the problem telling the truth and I don't see why it would be insulting or offensive to someone to learn that a stranger has no desire to have children. I couldn't care less about the general population's desire to have children or lack thereof. It doesn't offend me when people tell me about their children or their desire to have children, so why should it offend someone else if I say I don't desire to have them?

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I don't see the problem telling the truth and I don't see why it would be insulting or offensive to someone to learn that a stranger has no desire to have children. I couldn't care less about the general population's desire to have children or lack thereof. It doesn't offend me when people tell me about their children or their desire to have children, so why should it offend someone else if I say I don't desire to have them?

The problem is they are your patient. No need to give your personal opinions on things to your patients. If they told you first "I don't want children" then I think it's okay to say "I agree." But I don't think someone asking you if you have children is your opportunity to say "yeah I don't like kids/don't want them."

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I don't see the problem telling the truth and I don't see why it would be insulting or offensive to someone to learn that a stranger has no desire to have children. I couldn't care less about the general population's desire to have children or lack thereof. It doesn't offend me when people tell me about their children or their desire to have children, so why should it offend someone else if I say I don't desire to have them?

When people are asking personal questions and you don't want to go down that road with them, a simple white lie can sometimes satisfy their curiosity and change the subject better than the truth.

I lie all the time about religion. And when I was struggling to get pregnant and people asked "Don't you want kids?" I'd answer "oh, maybe someday" instead of "yes, desperately."

I don't think it's necessarily better to lie, but I feel no moral objection to lying to a patient when it involves questions about my personal life and not anything related to their care and condition.

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I get asked this all the time about husband, kids, where I live, etc just because patients are trying to strike up conversation (I try to be short and sweet then turn it back around to them) but about a month ago this 80 something bedridden incontinent man was getting discharged to a nursing home and all of a sudden became upset because I wasn't going to go with him and said he thought he had a chance with me! I'm like yikes-um no! He wanted to know why and I explained it was because I was married (since he never considered I might not be interested in a man his age in his condition!) He repeated that he really thought he had a chance with me. I did not flirt with him or lead him on in any way. I guess because I was nice to him (even though he was a grouch) he took it the wrong way. I've had other old men try to cop a feel. What's up with this? I set them straight right away. There's personal and then there's way too personal!

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When people are asking personal questions and you don't want to go down that road with them, a simple white lie can sometimes satisfy their curiosity and change the subject better than the truth.

I lie all the time about religion. And when I was struggling to get pregnant and people asked "Don't you want kids?" I'd answer "oh, maybe someday" instead of "yes, desperately."

I don't think it's necessarily better to lie, but I feel no moral objection to lying to a patient when it involves questions about my personal life and not anything related to their care and condition.

Exactly.

I work in a religious facility and if someone were to ask me "are you religious?" I would white lie a little (I am not religious whatsoever) or change the subject. It doesn't affect their care and I wouldn't tell someone religious and valued that in their life that I don't believe.

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
I guess I don't see the problem lying.

Well, I'm not a liar, even if it's just a small matter.

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
The problem is they are your patient. No need to give your personal opinions on things to your patients. If they told you first "I don't want children" then I think it's okay to say "I agree." But I don't think someone asking you if you have children is your opportunity to say "yeah I don't like kids/don't want them."

I never said I told patients I didn't like children. Whatever, I wouldn't lie.

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I just change the subject, I guess I never thought it was a big deal. If I need to tell a white lie as to not get too personal, I will. I don't see the need why a patient needs to know what I got going on in my life.

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I wouldn't tell a patient I didn't want kids. Might be seen as insulting if they have children or love children. I would just say, "no I do not, maybe in the future" even if you have no intentions of children.

I might love children, and not want any. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. I don't know why that would be insulting. Perhaps I don't see myself as a mother that way.

I actually DO want kids, but not everyone does.

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Why not? They opened the door. I would never lie and say I might have kids in the future if I had not earthly plan of doing so. I've told patients that I never had the desire to have children and no one ever became offended.

This is exactly what I was thinking.

To me, the kid question is almost personal. You can't let someone's answer to a personal question insult you - when you ask a question of that caliber, you can't brace for the answer. You opened the gate.

I agree with you. If Mary Jo doesn't want kids, Sally Sue - mom of three - has no reason to be offended by that. It has no bearing on either Sally Sue's choices or even her own kids. Mary Jo has just chosen to remain childless - and that's okay. It has always been okay, even though I think society may have at one time thought otherwise.

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The problem is they are your patient. No need to give your personal opinions on things to your patients. If they told you first "I don't want children" then I think it's okay to say "I agree." But I don't think someone asking you if you have children is your opportunity to say "yeah I don't like kids/don't want them."

Saying you don't want children isn't a personal opinion.

It's a personal CHOICE, like choosing to wear your hair in a pixie cut or choosing blue underwear to wear to work on Tuesday or buying Nikes instead of Reeboks. 'I'm choosing to not have children.'

Now if you think Reeboks are crap, long hair is so twentieth century, and blue underwear are the absolutely only color that normal people should wear and if you wear purple you're mentally unstable - THESE are personal opinions.

And anyway, the patient asked in the first place. I don't think folks are advocating just whipping out the information. I think most of us childless folks (either by choice or, as in my case, by circumstance so far) picture/have heard an exchange like this: "Do you have any children?"

"No, I don't."

Invariably an awful lot of people feel the need to ask, "Why not?"

To which some answer, "I don't want any."

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Another answer I frequently use was that all our children had whiskers and when we added the dog(s) I'd say all our kids had furcoats.

LOL I call my dog my son!!

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