The Husbands Were Not Too Sure

by Harold M. Updike

There's one thing that people were always interested to find out about male nursing students in the 50s: what were we going to do when it came to obstetrics?

It worked out fine. We had an O.B. instructor who was really very, very wonderful. She just told the mothers that we were students. She didn't say "nurses." So we were just students there, learning O.B.

We did antepartum, postpartum, nursery, labor, and delivery. The women didn't really care. In fact, they rather enjoyed it; it was something new.

But after the babies were born, of course, we had our nursery experience. We sometimes had eight or 10 babies all to ourselves. It was unusual for the women to see men in the nursery, taking care of their babies. They called their husbands over to see it - they thought it was quite a novel idea! Perhaps men too could care for babies.

The husbands were not too sure what to think about that.

We had our rocking chairs. We learned early in life how to take care of kids.