Today, I told Sammy that his show and tell for Friday had to be a drawing or picture of what he wants to be when he grows up. So I ask him….. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

He looks at me with his serious little face, and says “I want to be a nurse practitioner…”

I wasn’t expecting that… and neither was my 14 year old. He initially laughed… guffawed actually…. then asked me if I’d told Sammy to say that.

“Um, no….. why?”

“Oh, mom, don’t let him say that. They’ll laugh at him.”

“Why??!”

Well, because it’s a “girl” job……

Needless to say, that didn’t sit well with me. I explained there are plenty of male nurses, and male nurse practitioners… and Sammy can do whatever he wants. Apparently I didn’t get it…. so he goes on to say that if HE went to school and told people he wants to be a nurse practitioner, they would think it was stupid. Maybe he said dumb…

I would hope not…. why???

I didn’t get a great response from him. I guess that’s just the way it is. Of course I went on my little rant about how it must be horrible that I have a job that took many, many years of school to finish, and God forbid that I can support myself…because that really sucks… and does he even have a clue about what I do?

He tuned me out, apologized just to make me stop talking.

I told him I worry if that’s how the kids in his class really think. I worry because I can’t imagine why he would have such a low opinion of me, or my career without any real understanding of the job….or the work it took me to get here. I worry that I must have done something wrong for him to have this opinion. I need to figure out how to change his opinion….. It was threatening to his father when I went back to school years ago…. and I wonder how much of that fear of an “empowered woman” has shaped this boy???  I feel that because that is “my” job… he discounts it as stupid, or dumb, or something only for girls… and can’t see it for the challenging, rewarding, and respectable career it is.

He came up later and hugged me. Told me I’m the best mom in the world, trying to apologize for upsetting me.

I think he’d like me better if I stayed home and baked all day.