Did I Miss Something?

[AngelfireRN, MSN, RN, APRN]

Because I'd be willing to swear that this is the year 2009. The reason I ask is, yesterday, I went to my MIL's house with hubby (Oh, JOY!), and we had lunch. I was in the kitchen, helping cook, and my grandmother in law, who I love comes in. My MIL was explaining (ad nauseum) how to prepare steak and gravy (dis-GUST), since it is one of hubby's favorites. I don't touch red meat, have never eaten a hamburger, so there's no way I'd know how to fix that.

I digress. So anyway, there I am, cooking away, minding my business, and my GIL pipes up to ask how my new NP job is going. I tell her all about it, and say that I like it, and she seems happy about that, then asks the question that made my jaw drop.

"Well, do you have dinner waiting on DH every night?"

Excuse me?

Did we just warp back to 1950?

Did we not just establish the fact that we BOTH work? How his job disables him from cooking was never determined. The fact that I now hold 2 Master's degrees and an NP job, forget it. I'm a horrible wife because I have a career and don't accept the role of some Stepford Suzy Homemaker.

Have dinner waiting on him every night, my foot!

So, all you medical professionals out there, what's the absolute DUMBEST thing a family member has said to you with regard (or no regard) to the work we do?

[PostOpPrincess, BSN, RN]

How are you able to be a mom if you work?

I dunno...change brains when I finish my shift and put on my apron?????

[nrsgnerd]

Well, my brother once said to me that he answered an online survey and it asked him who he admired more than anyone else and he said, "Doctors, because they sacrifice so much for their patients and they are like the smartest people on the planet." Now, I agree Doctors are extremely intelligent but as his sister, I thought well I guess I'll just go fluff some pillows for 12 hours now since that seems to be what nurses do! People just don't realize what nurses do.

[newohiorn, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

This was before I became a nurse but...my sister-in-law called our house one evening and my husband was talking to her. She asked him what he was doing and he told her he was ironing his shirt for work the next day. She asked him why I didn't do that--I was working full-time and in school at the time. That was almost ten years ago and it still ****** me off.

[AngelfireRN, MSN, RN, APRN]

When DH and I were still dating, his mother came to his apartment one day and washed a sink full of dirty dishes he had let sit. I walked in about the time she finished, fresh from a double shift at the hospital, to see him for a few before I went home and went to bed. I was tired, and she grates on my nerves in my BEST day, but when I walked in, she looked over and commented:

"Do you not know how to wash dishes?"

I rounded on her and fired back,

"Does this look like MY house to you?

I should say that she was married to DHs father, a male chauvinist of the first water, and I loved the man dearly, simply because he never tried to pull that stunt with me. He was too mystified I had a career, I wore pants, I had an opinion and I voiced it, LOUDLY for the most part. I was such an anomaly to him, he never knew quite what to think of me.

[HeartsOpenWide, RN]

I did not work while I was in nursing school so I was a house wife. Now that I am working full time I have to train my husband. I explained to him that I am not going to work full time and do EVERYTHING around the house...he is having a hard time catching on, I am doing the laundry until we get our own house but I put all his in a laundry basket and leave it in his closet. We had a discussion the other night about how he got all mad about "whats with the laundry basket???" I told him that I work full time too and I don't like doing everything when I come home so he can put his own laundry away...he said "Its not that big of a deal, I can do it" but not even a few mins later he was like "If its not a big deal I don't see why you can't do it"...there is a big basket sitting in his closet right now...

[Whispera, MSN, RN]

My mom said, "why in the world do you want to clean up poop and vomit as a job?"

[llg, PhD, RN]

I've spent most of my career in CNS or Staff Development roles. My mother used to say "back when you were a nurse ..." to refer to the 2 years during which I was a staff nurse right after college. I used to have to remind her that I was still a nurse even though I was working in a different nursing role after I got my MSN.

Of course, staff nurses sometimes make that mistake, too. They would say things like ... "Oh, you're working today" if I was doing anything that involved direct patient care. I learned to respond, "I work every day. I just don't do the exact same job you do."

[SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN]

Husbands I would train. Old folks from my generation or later I can not, frankly, imagine wasting the energy to get upset at their attitudes. "Don't worry, Grandma, I take good care of Jimmy." It how they were raised and my goodness, my mother still can't figure out the now-defunct VCR. I should expect her to grasp changing social mores?

Not worth the energy.

[AngelfireRN, MSN, RN, APRN]

I did not work while I was in nursing school so I was a house wife. Now that I am working full time I have to train my husband. I explained to him that I am not going to work full time and do EVERYTHING around the house...he is having a hard time catching on, I am doing the laundry until we get our own house but I put all his in a laundry basket and leave it in his closet. We had a discussion the other night about how he got all mad about "whats with the laundry basket???" I told him that I work full time too and I don't like doing everything when I come home so he can put his own laundry away...he said "Its not that big of a deal, I can do it" but not even a few mins later he was like "If its not a big deal I don't see why you can't do it"...there is a big basket sitting in his closet right now...

Have the same issue with mine, he just brought a load of my stuff in and threw it on the bed. I wash mine and his separately, per his request, so that the chemicals he works with will not get into my clothes. He walkd out and I followed his and asked..."What do I do with YOUR clothes when I take them out of the dryer? I fold them or hang them and put them up, that's what. Does it not go two ways?"

His response..."I didn't know if you were going to do anything with them, they were just sitting there in the dryer."

He gets out the clothes, put towels in to dry, and then leaves the washer lid up and meanders off, with 3 loads of laundry waiting. And I know he knows how to wash, sorta. We're still trying to get the pink outta where he washed a red sweatshirt with his whites because "it don't matter what you put in there, it gets soap".

[SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN]

I don't allow my husband to touch laundry any longer. He's an idiot. His idea of "helping" is to do a load, put it in the dryer and do another load, stack the dry load on top of the dryer without folding, put another load in the dryer and another in the washer and then leave them.

Thanks a whole lot, nimrod.

And he's actually pleased with himself for doing it. He doesn't get that I now have to iron it all because he let the wrinkles set. And then kill him.

[newohiorn, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

I'm laughing out loud at some of your stories and your responses to husbands and in-laws. I guess I should count myself lucky that my husband was ironing his own shirt--of course his options were iron his own shirt or go to work looking mighty wrinkled. To his credit, he never expected me to do it so obviously his mother did a good job with him--wonder what went wrong with his sister.