Did I Miss Something?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

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?

Three weeks from graduation my husband said, "I thought you had another year to go" -------(thanks dear for participating in my life)

then follows that up with my favorite comment: (in all seriousness)

"So, when you're done, are you gonna be an LPN...an RN....or just an N?":icon_roll

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Specializes in Charge Nurse, OB.

"are you going to go on and become a doctor?"

"is a CNA and an RN the same thing?"

"do nurses have to go to college?"

"why do you only have one child?"

I've been asked these more than once.

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Specializes in GI, internal medicine.

My fiancee told me that once we have children I'm not allowed to work holidays anymore. The funny part is he knows it doesn't work that way because his mom is a nurse of 20+ years!

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I went to college straight out of highschool. One school break I went back to my highschool to visit and my chemistry teacher asked me why I was "just" going for nursing... he said I was selling myself short by not going to be a Dr... "because nurses don't really have to be that smart". Really folks. This man is educating highschoolers.

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Specializes in None.
I went to college straight out of highschool. One school break I went back to my highschool to visit and my chemistry teacher asked me why I was "just" going for nursing... he said I was selling myself short by not going to be a Dr... "because nurses don't really have to be that smart". Really folks. This man is educating highschoolers.

Ouch, that smarts.

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Yes you did miss something. First of all the passage of time doesn't negate the reality you are someone else's wife and have duties and responsibilities. Second of all, your attitude is inappropriate. Thirdly, being a wife isn't, together with its duties and responsibilities, isn't a "role": it's a reality. Finally, women have been outstanding nurses and outstanding wives for years. I find this article disheartening and depressing.

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Specializes in med-surg, psych, ER, school nurse-CRNP.
Yes you did miss something. First of all the passage of time doesn't negate the reality you are someone else's wife and have duties and responsibilities. Second of all, your attitude is inappropriate. Thirdly, being a wife isn't, together with its duties and responsibilities, isn't a "role": it's a reality. Finally, women have been outstanding nurses and outstanding wives for years. I find this article disheartening and depressing.

Then you don't have to read it. Your attitude is not exactly to my liking, either. And I take my "duties and responsibilities" as a wife seriously, but at no time did it say in my wedding vows that I was the only one allowed to be chief cook and bottle washer. Your "reality" of what a wife should or should not be is obviously worlds apart from mine and the respondents that have spoken thus far. And as far as being outstanding, well, my hubby thinks so , as do my patients That's what matters to me. That, and the fact that my DH has "duties and responsibilities" as a husband, and he understands that as well.

Bottom line, if you don't like it, X out of it, and kindly let what was started as a vent thread BE a vent thread.

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Specializes in med-surg, psych, ER, school nurse-CRNP.
Ouch, that smarts.

Don't it, though?

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Specializes in Hospice.
Then you don't have to read it. Your attitude is not exactly to my liking, either. And I take my "duties and responsibilities" as a wife seriously, but at no time did it say in my wedding vows that I was the only one allowed to be chief cook and bottle washer. Your "reality" of what a wife should or should not be is obviously worlds apart from mine and the respondents that have spoken thus far. And as far as being outstanding, well, my hubby thinks so , as do my patients That's what matters to me. That, and the fact that my DH has "duties and responsibilities" as a husband, and he understands that as well.

Bottom line, if you don't like it, X out of it, and kindly let what was started as a vent thread BE a vent thread.

Geez, AngelfireRN. Didn't your vows say "to have and to hold, to honor and cherish, to wash your dirty underwear, and have a hot dinner on the table every night - all while working a very strenuous job?" Where did you get married?? LOL

You put it very nicely. The only people that can validate me as a wife are 1. my husband and 2. myself. Everybody else can "X out of it".

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The last time I checked, I had a right to speak my mind! Clearly, however, we are worlds apart. If what you have is working for you, Amen.

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After several years working ICU/CCU I began teaching nursing. I cannot tell you how many people, including very dear relatives, have asked me "Don't you miss nursing?" I have to stop and explain that not only am I still nursing, I sometimes have 20 patients (10 studentsX2 patients each) as well as being responsible for supervising the students. Yes, I know that the hospital nurses still have the patients, but I feel strongly that they are in my care as well. Just as I tell my students that no one who has not been to nursing school will ever understand what they go through, no one outside of nursing truly understands the variety of nursing roles and all that we do. Gotta love'em!

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Specializes in medical, hematology/oncology, pulmonary.

When I told my dad I was going to be a nurse, he exclaimed, "a nurse! Why don't you be a doctor if your going to hang around hospitals all the time!"

Then years later, when I left the hospital for a desk job in an HMO, he asked me if I was ever going back to real nursing.

On the other hand, he's proud of me since I went to college and "made something of myself" and can support myself without having to depend on anyone else.

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