7 signs dad’s a nurse

There’s probably a danger of oversimplifying the obvious signs a person's dad works as a nurse. But let's be honest. These men who make up just 9% of the female-dominated nursing field do tend to become a certain type of parent. It's a mostly good one, okay? (Except maybe in the long minutes after you're pretty sure you have a broken arm and he's pretty sure you don't.)

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But the indicators your dad's a nurse also tend to be quirky, if you ask people like Charles Long. He's the adult child of Nelson Long, who has worked as a nurse in ER, trauma/recovery and now on Lifestar much of the younger man's life. That's how Charles knows dad-nurses tend to distill advice into nuggets like, "Don't do drugs, it's really annoying to treat someone with a high tolerance for pain medication and a low tolerance for pain."

In oversimplified terms, dads who are nurses tend to be matter-of-fact, extra-inclusive and maybe a little nonchalant about their kid's possible sprain or imminent skydiving adventure. Not all of them, not all the time. But if you want to determine whether you or someone else likely had a dad who worked as a nurse, check out these seven possible clues from kids and the dads themselves:

Growing up, you didn't witness much medical advice being doled out.

Like any sharp, work-life balanced medical professional, dad learned to adeptly dodge those inane medical questions that crop up the second someone learned he's a nurse. (Right after the social acquaintance is done calling him "murse" and comparing him to Ben Stiller/Greg Focker on "Meet the Parents.")

Swollen limb, bizarre discharge, possible world-record-setting menopausal symptoms? His dad had the same response for all of them, Charles Long noted: "All I know is life-threatening and non-life-threatening. You're probably fine."

Your dad never marveled at the grime involved in childbirth.

Unless he's a nurse at a camp or maybe some sort of legal consultant who's been away from hospitals for decades, labor and delivery probably didn't alarm your pops. New dad cjcsoon2bnp, who works as a ED NP and Clinical Instructor, shared this unique dad-nurse perspective on allnurses: "My wife actively labored (pushing at 10 CM and 100 percent effaced) for 2 hours before our son was ready to come out," he said. "For the first hour and a half, it was her nurse and I coaching her, holding her legs and helping her to push before the OB arrived in the last 30 minutes to catch the baby. In my wife's own words, the whole ordeal was hot, sweaty, messy and a 'crime scene of body fluids.'"

For the dad-nurse though, "it wasn't a big deal," he said. "All I can say is that even when she felt 'hot, sweaty and disgusting' I was in complete awe of her and couldn't have been prouder of her."

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You probably never made an unnecessary trip to the ER. 

Your dad the nurse probably ah, "tended to ignore scrapes and bumps and what have you," Athens Pulmonary Critical Care and Sleep Medicine nurse practitioner John D. Cary said unapologetically.

As for warning you against the risk-taking behavior in the first place? More than one male nurse has probably prevented dangerous or sort-of-stupid behavior with these 10 words a-la Nelson Long: "Today's my day off, I'm not going to the ER."

Your dad showed up during daylight hours.

Kindergarten graduation at 3 p.m.? Those 12-hour shifts three days per week mean dads "may get to do things that normal 9-5 dads don't get to do, such as pick them up from school or watch their afternoon soccer games. You get to actually spend time with your kids, not just eat dinner with them and put them to bed," according to Nightingale College.

Gushing remarks about your newborn beauty came from only one parent.

As a nurse dad, he notices stuff that accountant and golf pro dads might overlook, like your malformed hours-old head. Here's how our man cjcsoon2bnp summed it up: "If a woman is delivering vaginally, there is no way in heck that the baby isn't going to have the characteristic baby cone head," he said. "Cone head is expected and will resolve within the first few days of life but I have yet to see a television show or film that depicts a real cone head baby."

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You came into the world only after your mom's OB team was questioned relentlessly.

Guys whose wives go into labor are in a unique position to pester the heck out of the midwife/OB/nursing healthcare team leading up to the big day and also during labor and delivery. Your dad just might be a nurse if your family lore includes lots of annoyed midwife or OB anecdotes.

"For the entirety of my wife's pregnancy, I read everything I could get my hands on about babies and fatherhood and my free time was spent reviewed the current literature and evidence-based practices about childbirth and care of neonates," cjcsoon2bnp said. "As you can imagine, my wife's OB/midwife and the nursing care team found my incessant questions helpful, thought-provoking and refreshing." (Good one!)

But once you were born, your male nurse father no doubt transitioned into a typical sleep-deprived, terrified and joyous parent. "I am an experienced ED nurse, I have cared for children of various ages and when it is someone else's child I can remain calm and collected even when they cry and appear in great distress," cjcsoon2bnp added. "When I hear my boy cry I become a stupid and clueless mess. On some level I know logically that as long as he is clean/dry, warm and fed that he is not suffering and just needs to be held and settled, but that doesn't stop me from going into crisis mode."

» RELATED: Why you need 'soft skills' to thrive in health care

You understand the relationship between health and choices.

Your dad might be a nurse if you absorbed the "actions have health consequences" lesson early on. Cary, for example, is married to a women's health PA and has three young sons who all understand choice. "We try not to be too judge-y, but when the talk is 'So and so gets ice cream every night for dinner' we talk about 'This is why we don't do that,'" he said.

He works with a lot of cancer patients. "My wife and I don't discuss the actual aspects of cancer with the boys but we talk about what I do at my job, getting more specific when they reach 2nd or 3rd grade. My son was taking 5th grade health and wrote a report on COPD. I was able to tell him how everyday choices lead to COPD and how I care for patients with that. He also knows there are some medical issues we can avoid and some we can't."

Charles Long says his father parlayed his work experience as a nurse into an effective, if repetitive, bit of wisdom about making choices. When his patients complained about a course of treatment or tried to defy it, Nelson had a standard response. "'You chose medicine, medicine didn't choose you.' And he then applied that same line of reasoning to most of our complaints in life," Charles said with a laugh. "For example: 'You chose college, college didn't choose you.'"

An appreciation for non-traditional roles is the family standard.

Pau Gasol, a pro basketball player for the San Antonia Spurs, felt compelled to pen an open letter when the league was debating whether to expand gender diversity efforts. Gasol, who grew up outside of Barcelona, drew from his experience as the child of a female doctor and a male nurse. His dad was mistaken as the doctor and his mom as the nurse on more than one occasion, but both set an example he and his brother still look up to, he explained in a letter highlighted in an America Out Loud podcast.

"It's a standard by which the only question worth asking — it isn't about if you're the right 'kind' of person for your job. Rather, it's about how well-equipped you are for the job," Gasol wrote. "Now that I'm an adult, and looking forward to being a parent in the near future myself, I realize even more how lucky I am to have been raised to that standard.”