- I remember my mother
talking about when she was growing up, the kinds of jobs that women could have. She thinks of herself (I think correctly) as one of the last generations of middle and upper middle class white families that taught their daughters that you could become a teacher, a secretary, or a nurse. Then you would work for a few years, get married, and stop working to raise children. If, God forbid, you were widowed or (*gasp*) divorced, at least you'd have something to fall back on.
My mother is incredibly intelligent and driven to seek out challenges. She loved history (her father taught history, or was it geography? I should ask), and got a degree studying it. She got a job and moved from Virginia to New Orleans, working for Sears and Roebuck. I've never asked what she did, but I suspect that if she started as a secretary, she didn't stay there for very long. By the time I came along, my mother had indeed married and moved again to Colorado. She then went to night classes to earn her masters degree, carting around toddler me while still being very much the stereotypical American housewife who cooked and cleaned and took care of me and my father. She graduated when I was about 3 or 4, it's one of my earliest memories wanting to go on stage with her and not quite understanding why I didn't get to. My dad told me that it was her moment to be in the spotlight, and indeed it was.
I grew up in a different situation entirely. I was always told that I could do whatever I wanted to do when I grew up. I participated in Take Your Daughter To Work Day, was encouraged in my outlandish dreams when I drew pictures of my future as an actress-veterinarian-princess, and didn't learn until much later that being a girl sometimes came with disadvantages and assumptions about my ability. I excelled in school, not without drawbacks and unhappiness, but my academic ability has felt like a defining feature of who I am for pretty much as long as I can remember.
My mother is incredibly intelligent and driven to seek out challenges. She loved history (her father taught history, or was it geography? I should ask), and got a degree studying it. She got a job and moved from Virginia to New Orleans, working for Sears and Roebuck. I've never asked what she did, but I suspect that if she started as a secretary, she didn't stay there for very long. By the time I came along, my mother had indeed married and moved again to Colorado. She then went to night classes to earn her masters degree, carting around toddler me while still being very much the stereotypical American housewife who cooked and cleaned and took care of me and my father. She graduated when I was about 3 or 4, it's one of my earliest memories wanting to go on stage with her and not quite understanding why I didn't get to. My dad told me that it was her moment to be in the spotlight, and indeed it was.
I grew up in a different situation entirely. I was always told that I could do whatever I wanted to do when I grew up. I participated in Take Your Daughter To Work Day, was encouraged in my outlandish dreams when I drew pictures of my future as an actress-veterinarian-princess, and didn't learn until much later that being a girl sometimes came with disadvantages and assumptions about my ability. I excelled in school, not without drawbacks and unhappiness, but my academic ability has felt like a defining feature of who I am for pretty much as long as I can remember.
From little snippets of conversations that I've had with her, it sounds like it was hard for my mom to
pursue a different route than the expected one, and she fought her way up in the business world. By the time I was in high school and college she was very successful, consulting as a project manager and clearly holding many responsibilities. But it
seems like she really struggled with that internalized sense of “women don’t do
that." She obviously feels like she could have gotten a lot further up the corporate chain if she had been born
just a little later, into an era where women weren't overtly denied jobs outside of "caretaker" roles.
Sitting in a class we had about the history of nursing, it made me wonder how my mother feels about my desire to be a nurse. It feels like a very different situation than the one she faced – I have so many other options, and this is the one I choose out of all of them. I can tell myself (and her) that I’m going into a more “respected” part of the field as a nurse practitioner, which I can assure people is “almost like a doctor” because even though I could be a doctor, I’ve decided not to. (I know I'm making the smart choice, and it's frustrating when I have people ask why I'm not going to medical school "because you're so smart!" I know I'm smart, that's why I know better than to go to med school when what I really want to do is be an NP.)
But even though those kinds of justifications seem oddly to mollify people, it feels almost painful to say them and I don't anymore except to explain what an NP actually is. Nursing - as a nurse practitioner, a nursing assistant, a registered nurse, a clinical nurse leader or specialist, a doctorate of nursing practice - is not a job to be pitied or looked down upon. Nursing is an incredibly powerful position, the chance to provide care to people in their most vulnerable moments, to help them reach for the healthiest life they can live. Nurses train incredibly hard - I still have to learn all of the same drugs and interactions and doses as the med students do, I will be able to diagnose most diseases, illnesses, and side effects that a doctor does, and as a nurse practitioner I will be the primary care provider to my clients just as a general practitioner or internal medicine practitioner would. (remind me to unpack the "mid-level" care provider box soon.) We are not "just nurses." If you haven't noticed, over the past few decades, nurses have become a vitally important member of health care. Doctors don't work alone, nor does any care provider. We need each other, as colleagues, not as mindless servants who just do what the doctor tells us to do. Nurses get sued for not advocating for their patients when doctors make a bad diagnosis - we are all responsible for protecting the health and safety of the patient.
One of my professors pointed out those moments when people say "Oh, you're a nurse! I could never do something like that." Our inclination, as generally people-pleaser types, is to assure them "Of course you could! It's really not that hard, you get used to the (sights/smells/sounds/etc)." I have done the same thing regarding being a Peace Corps volunteer on many occasions. Our professor said that now she replies with what she sees as the truth. "You're right. You couldn't."
Sitting in a class we had about the history of nursing, it made me wonder how my mother feels about my desire to be a nurse. It feels like a very different situation than the one she faced – I have so many other options, and this is the one I choose out of all of them. I can tell myself (and her) that I’m going into a more “respected” part of the field as a nurse practitioner, which I can assure people is “almost like a doctor” because even though I could be a doctor, I’ve decided not to. (I know I'm making the smart choice, and it's frustrating when I have people ask why I'm not going to medical school "because you're so smart!" I know I'm smart, that's why I know better than to go to med school when what I really want to do is be an NP.)
But even though those kinds of justifications seem oddly to mollify people, it feels almost painful to say them and I don't anymore except to explain what an NP actually is. Nursing - as a nurse practitioner, a nursing assistant, a registered nurse, a clinical nurse leader or specialist, a doctorate of nursing practice - is not a job to be pitied or looked down upon. Nursing is an incredibly powerful position, the chance to provide care to people in their most vulnerable moments, to help them reach for the healthiest life they can live. Nurses train incredibly hard - I still have to learn all of the same drugs and interactions and doses as the med students do, I will be able to diagnose most diseases, illnesses, and side effects that a doctor does, and as a nurse practitioner I will be the primary care provider to my clients just as a general practitioner or internal medicine practitioner would. (remind me to unpack the "mid-level" care provider box soon.) We are not "just nurses." If you haven't noticed, over the past few decades, nurses have become a vitally important member of health care. Doctors don't work alone, nor does any care provider. We need each other, as colleagues, not as mindless servants who just do what the doctor tells us to do. Nurses get sued for not advocating for their patients when doctors make a bad diagnosis - we are all responsible for protecting the health and safety of the patient.
One of my professors pointed out those moments when people say "Oh, you're a nurse! I could never do something like that." Our inclination, as generally people-pleaser types, is to assure them "Of course you could! It's really not that hard, you get used to the (sights/smells/sounds/etc)." I have done the same thing regarding being a Peace Corps volunteer on many occasions. Our professor said that now she replies with what she sees as the truth. "You're right. You couldn't."
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