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 Psych ICU, addictions.

For 95% of the patients, if they ask me if I'm married or have kids, I politely tell them "I have a cat" and leave it at that. If the press it, I tell them about my cat in detail--most get the hint.

The other 5% are such frequent flyers that they're practically like family. To them, I say "I have two cats." And they may even get to see a photo of them.

Keep in mind that I'm also in psych.

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Specializes in Pedi.
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."

Who said anything about not liking kids?

I am a pediatric nurse and have been for my entire career... I have zero concerns about any patient or family member thinking that I do not "like" them or their child or kids in general simply because I don't have/don't want children.

The idea of having a child is terrifying when every child you see has cancer or some other potentially deadly illness. I have many reasons for not wanting to have children and none of them have to do with disliking kids.

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By definition, it is a personal question, but many people use it as a conversation-starter. The suggestion to reply with "Yes/No; tell me about yours" is usuallly a good diversion, and the best solution I've seen here.

Then you have the ones who are asking if you're married because they see you're a respected member of society and they want to fix you up with their little grandson Spike, when he gets out...

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Re: below; didn't they teach you about senilie dementia at your school?

...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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I just say that I'm in a relationship and have no kids, just some pets, and then just change the subject.

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I believe the "Are you married? Do you have kids?" conversation is small talk to a point, but also an effort to build trust and a bit of a bond with the person cleaning/looking at their junk on a regular basis. Having something in common with your caregiver, even if it's just sharing a joke, a little about their family, or whatever, can go a long way with making a scary situation a little more comfortable.

But I don't like talking about my personal life either. Sometimes they ask, and I answer with as little detail as possible, but am still friendly about it. There's a fine line between sharing and over-sharing in the professional world. As far as the religious questions go, it depends on the questions. I've had, "Do you know the Lord?" I answered yes. Not an outright lie (I'm atheist), as I know who the pt. was talking about. I also knew where that conversation was headed if I said no. That would not have been an appropriate discussion to have with a patient. I've had patients ask me if I was a specific religion, and I truthfully answer no. If they ask me what religion, I say I was raised in a Jewish family (truth!), but I'm afraid stating my atheism would cause problems. Since the majority of patients identify as Christian, very little religious conversation follows.

Political questions are interesting, as many of my patients spend a lot of time watching political TV. It's usually something like, "Can you believe this crap (political person) said/did?" My answer is usually, "That's just crazy." Fits pretty much everything.

I don't know. I'm sympathetic to both sides, the patient wanting to bond a little with their caregiver, and the nurse who is uncomfortable divulging too much personal information. I'm lucky in that my many tattoos provide an immediate distraction and I usually just get questions about those which aren't terribly personal. Yay tattoos!

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Specializes in Oncology.

People assume because I'm in my 20's and have a baby face I'm inexperienced. While I certainly don't have as much experience as many of the nurses I work with, I do have over 5 years of experience and know what I'm doing in most circumstances. I have more experience than some of our second career older nurses. People are shocked when I'm showing the 50 year old new grad what to do instead of vice versa.

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
The thing is, your patient may not know that.

They may think "my nurse doesn't want kids...that must mean she dislikes kids. I wanted to tell her about the cute thing my grandson did today but I guess I won't." And then that affects their care that you give them and they get from you if they are offended.

Therapeutic fibbing is a legit thing. This is like that.

I'll tell you a story as to why I have no problem lying. I'm a new nurse. One of my patients asked me if I had kids. I said "no, I'm much too young I'm only blah age." She looked at me and said "I had two kids by your age." Foot in mouth much??

With due respect, I think you're personalizing the question. I have never, in 28 years, had a patient have a meltdown because I said I never really wanted kids. They usually wound up telling me about someone in their family ( granddaughter, niece, etc., ) who felt the same.

Besides, I'm 50. That's a bit long in the tooth to be lying about planning on having a kid some day. I can't have them thanks to cancer, so again, why lie?

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Specializes in ICU.

I agree, they are just making "small talk." Besides, we ask them all kinds of personal questions, so maybe they think it is OK.

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
*shrugs* it's about the patient, not me. Unless they're being really inappropriate as opposed to curious and attempting to start friendly conversation and trying to relate to me, I don't feel the need to be true to myself at any cost. Patient's feeling vulnerable in the hospital and wants to engage in familiar and comfortable small talk with me? Sure, I can do that. Keeping my replies light and not always truthful and then turning the discussion back to them and their family always works better for me than telling them that I disagree with their life choices and dropping the subject.

I'm pretty sure I can be true to myself without hurting the patient's feelings.

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Specializes in LTC.

It gets so complicated, "Are you married?" "no, but I have a boyfriend" "oh where's he live" "ten hours way" "is he moving hre" ? Sigh. that's from coworkers tho

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I'm trying to wrap my head around why anyone would be offended by the reply "I don't really want kids". But I can't think of a single reason.

I think the patient would have to have a personality/psych/dementia issue to be offended by this.

I have no moral issue with a nurse lying about this one way or the other, but I can't imagine why anyone would want to.

I remember when I worked at the hospital, there were some alert patients who were way too nosy. Small talk is one thing, endless personal follow up questions are just socially inappropriate. I find the notion that a nurse has an obligation to respond to personal questions in order to establish some sort of "therapeutic rapport" to be kind of insulting. I certainly don't have any such obligation.

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