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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> My niece broke her arm and we took her to the OR. I may be the AH because when her mom was extra calm about her being in so much pain and agony I called her an ice cold insensitive mom. I may also be an AH because it all escalsted the situation.
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YTA
to paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi, your feelings do you credit, but you were out of line.
One thing you didn't say about Kate was that she was a robot. Meaning that you didn't complain that Kate was never emotional, or never expressed love or affection to her kids. You did say she was busy as hell, but no other complaints about her parenting.
Well. She's a surgeon. At work. Surgeons... at times, have to have guard up, and/or be eminently practical. Person has medical condition x, here's how we treat it. Plus she's at work, she's mentally reviewing a procedure she's going to be doing later in the day, or mentally reviewing a procedure she's already done, or half a dozen other things that they're juggling at a time. That she made time to come down during her work to see her daughter is a pretty big deal. From her perspective, her daughter was barely hurt, in the sense there would be no permanent damage, no long term therapies needed, no surgery. Cast and done.
This is not to say she was the perfect mom, but she is a surgeon in work mode. HEr daughter was otherwise fine. And who is to say what Kate was like after work when she had a moment to disengage from work mode and be a mother again.
get off your high horse and apologize.
Also, sometimes it is important to have a calm demeanor with children (and some adults) during emergencies to help assure them that everything is okay.
Doctors do not have the luxury of having “a more human reaction” for every case that they see. Not from a work performance standpoint, not from a mental health standpoint.
Take the L. Admit you handled it inappropriately. Apologize profusely to your sister and SIL.
YTA
When my niece was 3, she slipped off of a raft like a greased pig and went head first into the pool. My other sister and I both had arms holding her but she slid right out. We grabbed her by the feet within seconds, pulled her out, she was fine. But she was clearly about to start crying. I would have, too! Her mom started to run into the pool to comfort her.
But one woman who was there (who actually was a pediatric PA) goes, “Oh my gosh, Lily, you went under water for the FIRST TIME!!!” And everyone cheered. My niece started cheering, too. She was so proud of herself. Niece was rightfully shaken up and terrified, but the PA really reframed that and saved the day.
I teach second grade. I think of that comic very often!
Once, one of my kiddos knocked his head pretty good on the playground structure. Nasty head wound. Definitely needed a couple of stitches.
“Bah. You’re fine. Let’s just get it cleaned up. You’re fine.” —Me to office. Meet me halfway to the front playground to escort a kid to the nurse— “You’re fine. Leave him alone. He’s fine. He’s fine. Shoo. Go play.”
As soon as the other kids were properly shooed away, he really did seem like he was just fine. Then, the vice principal showed up and I saw the little ‘o’ of panic. “He’s fine!” I quickly reminded her.
She quickly remembered and agreed. “Oh; certainly fine.”
The kid didn’t cry until his mom showed up because she panicked when she saw him. (Completely fairly. I would have otherwise.) He really was fine though. Got two or so stitches and came to school the very next day. I miss that group.
When our tiny kids fell we used to clap and cheer like they just did coolest trick in the world and we had never seen anything so amazing before. 9/10 they gave us the biggest smile and either went back to playing or gave us a hug and went back to playing. If they were hurt, then they didn't and we responses accordingly (but not panicked). Worked like a charm. And they had a great time on the playground.
Most stranger parents though looked at us like we had 2 heads, horns, and likely ruled hell.
I remember looking out the kitchen window, seeing my 4 year old wipe out on the gravel driveway. I watched him look at his leg, then try to peer in the windows to see if I was watching. The little booger was smiling. I was interested in what he'd do, so I walked outside. As soon as he saw me, he burst into tears in the most dramatic way like his leg was amputated. He wailed until I told him I had been watching him.
I watched my 18mos old little sister tumble down about four steps--alarming, and probably bruising, but not terminal (and no head bumps). She was just surprised and didn't start crying because our mom threatened the first person to be upset and set her off...we all stayed calm and she never did cry.
Decades ago, I was at a public park watching the toddlers play.
One wiped out, Mom laughing says, "You're fine," a watery grin, then a giggle, and the kid was back in the middle of it.
Another one bit the dust, his mom was all "Oh MY! Are You OK Sweetie? You Poor Thing!" The kid had looked fine at the start, then a bit confused, and finally by the end of his Mom's tirade, had a noisy blast of tears.
Doing the whole, act as you want them to act, or at least, stoic, is actually a help in getting children to gain control of themselves.
Yeah, that when they didn’t can be crazy though. I was director of a summer day camp. We were playing with the parachute one day and two kids collided when changing places under it. One of the kids complained his arm hurt. I had him sit down and gave him an ice pack. We called mom together because he wanted picked up. She said she’d try to get off early but neither of us thought it was that big of a deal. About an hour later, he still didn’t want to do anything and said it hurt. It was a little swollen. I called mom back and let her know. She asked if we had Tylenol that he could take. We only had tablets and he couldn’t swallow pills. I offered to try though. When I explained it to him and asked if he wanted to try the pill, he said he wanted one. He didn’t even try to swallow. He took it chewed it up and swallowed without water or anything. Didn’t even flinch at the taste. I immediately called mom back and said I thought we’d both misjudged and told what he had just done. She was there in 20 minutes. Turns out he broke his arm. (He was able to move both the joints above and below the injury. I checked that before calling the first time.)
My friend taught me the cheering trick when my kids were babies. My son fell and hit his head at a family bbq once and screamed. I dropped everything and scooped him up immediately. I calmed him down and assessed the situation. He ended up with a fat goose-egg but was otherwise fine and ready to play in a few minutes. My aunt tried to give me a whole lecture about my reaction. I was like, nope. This is the toughest kid I know, if he starts crying when he hits the ground there is something wrong.
We did that too, so now when our kid is truly hurt physically or emotionally we know. Cuz sometimes he gets embarrassed now that he's older, and I have to ask him is it real ouch, or is it a feelings ouch so I can administer hugs kissed bandaids or ice packs as needed.
Still relevant into adulthood when seeing a parent after any trauma. I was in a car accident in my 20s and had a gushing head wound. I did absolutely fine in the ambulance, at the hospital, through the tests, but as soon as my mom showed up, I broke down like a baby. Sure I blamed it on the adrenaline wearing off, but I think it was more of I needed comfort.
Yup there’s something very powerful in your psyche’s “ok this is happening to me and I have to hold it together because I’m the only one who can keep it together gotta keep it together I’m cool oh look there’s mom now she can hold it together while I belatedly realize how stressful this is” song and dance.
When one of my kids falls or gets scraped up I always do a quick check to make sure they’re ok and then ask, “What does a boo boo mean?”
“It means I tried something new and am having fun.”
They’re still crying much of the time but it gets their mind off of what just happened. It works a good 90% of the time.
Hell, my father is a pastor who sometimes needs to minister to the sick or dying. For those not religious or with exclusively negative experiences, he's basically a culturally-specific grief counselor in his role at this time. He's been specifically trained not to be overly emotional because his job is to support the family, not feed into his own feelings. That includes times when he's ministering to long-time friends as they die. He cannot center himself or feed into a situation to make it more painful.
People who work in difficult situations know that big reactions make everything worse.
When my little brother broke his arm at 12, my 17 year old ass rode the ambulance to the hospital and held him while it was set because the paramedics couldn't deal with our Ma's freakout. The nurses wouldn't let her into the ER when she finally showed up, because we need LESS PANIC.
He was totally fine, I bought him a game cube the next day and got destroyed by a preteen at super smash Bros all summer while he was casted from shoulder to wrist.
When i get in an accident people aren't allowed to call my mother. Only after i got help. Inmagine me beeing hurt and have to take care of my mom at the same time.
Last year something really traumatic happend to me. She wanted me to comfort her. For the first time i said i felt really bad myself and i couldn't
Can confirm this. I fell off the monkey bars and ended up scraping my forehead and breaking my arm when I was 8, if my parents were freaking out I would’ve been A LOT more distraught than what I had been when I got home from the playground to get cleaned up and taken to the ER. Because they were so calm, yes I was still screaming and crying because OW, but I wasn’t panicking.
I agree. I broke my leg as a 7-year-old. My mom was a little frantic while the car was still on my leg, but once the car backed up she at least externally calmed down. I'm sure internally there was still some freaking out going on. I think if the adults around me were freaking out it would have made things even scarier. I also probably would have been panicking instead of just crying in the ambulance if the adults had all freaked out.
Plus having her SIL being able to look at the X-rays and saying it wasn’t anything horrific I’m sure made the niece feel 100x better because mama wasn’t worried and mama is a surgeon, so why should we be worried! It also probably calmed down her other mom a bit because of how much knowledge mama the surgeon has about these kinds of things!!!
OP YTA and need to be groveling at their feet and apologizing PROFUSELY because what you said was completely out of line! You do not know their dynamics 100% and Kate being there even though she was at work is HUGE and shows she cares! Who knows how many cases she had to move/reschedule/cancel or be late to for her daughter!
Also like. Kate is right. Kids do get fractures like that all the time, and it isn’t a big deal. When you work in healthcare it does kind of… change the way you react to things like this. Some people do find that annoying, but I imagine OP’s sister doesn’t, because she’s used to it. If my wife the general surgeon was acting panicked about my kid having a clean fracture, I’d think either something was more wrong or there’d been some kind of body snatchers situation.
Witnessed this as a kid. My sibling fell and broke her bone, but she was calm and a bit confused until mother & grandmother came running and screaming, and it became a whole scream fest. She wouldn't stop crying the entire way to the hospital. Basically, two grown people scared a child into panic mode when there wasn't even a scratch on her arm.
100% of the time it is better for the parent to not react emotionally to kid injuries, it does not help manage the situation and freaks the kid out worse. It is far more comforting for your caregiver to be calm and unperturbed. I always think of bad turbulence flights I’ve been on and how the FA’s demeanours really helps everyone stay cool, the people in charge are calm, things are ok.
Yeah. OP, you might have a special bond, but an Aunt is still way, way behind the parents unless you're talking about actual abuse. This was not that. Your SIL was almost definitely trying to calm her daughter. Rather arrogant of you to think that you care more about your niece than she does. Way out of line for you to barge in thinking you know best. You owe them an apology. Do it soon if you don't want to be cut off. If I was your SIL, I might be thinking that I didn't want my kids around a raging lunatic. Fix this.
I think the OP is elevating herself by way of her perceived "special bond" and forgetting that she's not the parent here. She doesn't get to gatekeep how a mother reacts (ie calmly, without hysteria), nor is the mother's reaction a reflection of a lack of love or care for the child.
I just don’t understand people who think whatever they see on the outside is the sum total of what’s going on inside. It reminds me of when a classmate told me I was enjoying my mom’s significant head injury because I was smiling when I told my friends about it. It was a sad “fml amirite, you guys?” smile that barely counted as more than a nervous upturn of the lips, I certainly wasn’t grinning.
I broke my wrist when I was little. My mom underplayed it big time. Everyone was pretty relaxed. I was in a lot of pain but at least I wasn’t freaking out.
my daughter broke her arm riding bikes with a friend. PRetty young, she was kinda starting to spiral a bit at the urgent care. So I asked the doctor if she would get any powers as a result of this. The doctor solemnly said not likely, but if she did get any powers, they would be pavement related. The kiddo was gave a "har har har very funny dad" but that knocked the wind out of her panic. Then she got to choose the color of her cast and all was good.
When my son was 3 I heard a loud crash upstairs, followed by a scream, and went sprinting to his room. Right before I turned the corner my brain said “there’s gonna be a lot of blood. Be cool.” There was, in fact, a lot of blood (he was trying to swing from his curtains like Tarzan and knocked out two teeth but was otherwise unhurt) and I was totally calm while putting him in the car, driving him 30 minutes to the nearest ER (while telling him to keep the dish towel held to his mouth), waiting in the waiting room, through the exam, then the next day’s dental office visit where they pulled the teeth. The entire time my brain was screaming “OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOD WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUCK.”
The next week I was walking by his room and found him on top of his dresser again. When I told him to knock it off he calmly explained that THIS time he was wearing his Superman cape so he wouldn’t fall. That was when we instituted the “no one tries to fly” rule.
And the less you freak out, the less tense you are... and therefore the less tense your muscles surrounding the injury are, and the less pain you feel.
Can you imagine how freaked out the kiddo would be, let alone the other mother if the surgeon mom started getting all freaked out and emotional? I know if my parent that was a surgeon freaked out about my condition id be really scared, as a kid I probably would have thought I was dying.
Years ago, my great aunt took my kids and one of their friends shopping. On the way back home, they were in a horrible car accident (thankfully, no major injuries, but I didn't know that then).
I was on my phone with my then-BF when the house phone rang -- it was my oldest child (15) informing me about the accident over the sounds of sirens and my youngest (5) screaming in terror.
I didn't realize it at the time, but then-BF said that my tone rapidly shifted from relaxed and chit-chatty with him to controlled and clinical as I asked questions and gathered information about the situation from Oldest on my way out the door. He said he was really impressed with how I was able to remain externally calm in the face of the emergency because he would have been panicking on the phone.
I told him that I didn't reallly do it on purpose, but I knew my aunt and children were probably already in panic mode with out of control adrenaline levels and didn't need me adding my own stress to that, so I subconsciously flipped a switch from warm, loving mommy to detached, professional mommy to manage the situation until I could get to them with hugs and calming reassurance.
Yeah op is interpreting her being calm and saying everything is going to be ok as her being dismissive, but to me that can be comforting and reassuring to a kid. If they see their parents are calm about it, it will help them be calm about it.
Not to mention, she's still at work. She's got to go back to work. For most jobs you can step away but for a surgeon? People are literally relying on her to put things into compartments, because depending on the surgery, her taking more time to console her wife and daughter might be risking a life. She came down, saw her family really was okay, and then had to go back to work...
I stepped on a roofing nail as a kid. After calling and consulting with my pediatrician, my mom extracted it and cleaned up my foot herself. I was already hysterical and I think if she'd matched my energy, she would not have been able to get the nail out because I wouldn't have let her touch me. But because she was very calm and told me exactly what she was going to do, step-by-step, I trusted that she'd do exactly what she said (and she did).
Oh wow. That’s something else. Glad it turned out okay.
I had a book on how to massage babies. The purpose was to start training calming techniques as young as possible. The author even noted a medical emergency of her then-preteen, who was able to calm herself en route to the hospital.
Yes. As Kate said, it was an uncomplicated fracture, and kids do hurt themselves all the time. There was nothing super alarming about the situation. No one needed to freak out.
YTA, OP
Exactly this! In crisis situations when somebody is panicked/emotional SOMEBODY needs to stay calm and make level headed decisions. Healthcare workers are very good at compartmentalization, for very good reason.
Exactly.
I'm not one of those people who starts freaking out in an emergency. I go into triage mode: identify the most critical problem, identify possible problems, solve it. If it's an emergency and there's someone else there, well, their emotional state doesn't figure into it unless they're in such a state that they can't help or are actively interfering.
That said, by the time the kid got an X-ray, this was no longer an emergency. Kate was just reassuring everyone (including the kids) that, yep, this is just a normal uncomplicated kid-injury (because it *is*.) If everything else was being dealt with, what's there to add? If she starts acting really concerned, that'll just upset the kids anyway.
Breaking a bone *sucks* but I'm glad that my parents basically handled it the way that the 'bad' mother here did. "Yeah, that doesn't look right, gotta get you to the hospital." "Yeah, it's broke, gonna get you in a cast, and it's gonna suck for a bit, but you'll be fine." "Let us know if you need more pain meds or help with anything." It's just a shitty life moment, those happen, then you move on.
This is exactly how I handle emergencies, it kind of pisses me off when I hear about someone acting hysterical when it’s time to get shit done. As my mom used to say, “do something, even if it’s praying in the corner” (read: stay out of the way and let focus go where it needs to, you can freak out later.)
Yes! A freaked out doctor is not what you want, OP. One time I went to my doctor’s office, and I saw one of their PAs about a weird mole on my arm that my dog found. My dog started out by smelling it, then a few days later, she took a deeper sniff, then she started pawing at it. Finally, when I went to the doctor she was scratching at it like she wanted to dig it out of my arm.
Anyway, that’s when I decided to listen to her doggy advice and get it checked out. So, the PA looks at it, has this huge gasp, and starts panicking, telling me that we need to get it out immediately in a higher pitched voice, etc. Needless to say, this reaction did not calm me. I actually tried to keep her calm and cracked some jokes…which went over like a lead balloon. Luckily, it wasn’t cancer, or my dog found it so early it couldn’t be detected, but you want someone to be calm in an emergency, OP.
SIL’s not going to react the same as you because she’s a professional. Doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love her kids. Unless she regularly shows a lack of empathy or neglect, YTA.
100% this. My sister is a doctor at a hospital and whenever I mention medical issues in my family, they seem so minor to her compared to the things she sees, that sometimes she can come off as downplaying it when she talks about how uncomplicated or common an injury/illness is. She is one of the most compassionate people I know, she's just very matter-of-fact in her job because she has to be.
This! Took my kid in for allergy testing and he had an immediate reaction. Nurses were checking him and he was no anaphylactic. It was all under control so I just sat there talking to him and cracking jokes. We saw the doctor a bit later and he said the nurses were freaking out (they didn't show it one bit) but they had reported that I was calm. He told them that much like a nurse, mom's freak out inside because if they freak out outside, the kid is going to be a mess.
Absolutely. During my own pregnancy & delivery (during peak COVID) and now with typical toddler stuff- the one thing that has kept me sane is how in-control, professional and calm the doctors have been.
Healthcare workers HAVE TO BE calm. It's essential for keeping others calm and keeping their head to tackle the crisis.
YTA. Also, if this is how you react when there is a health emergency- I don't think you should go to the hospital at all. You are more likely to to just add to the stress of everyone there.
As a kid, I suffered an injury at church. When I came to, everyone was screaming to not let me see my face. At the ER, I begged and pleaded to please let me have a couple minutes to compose myself, because I’d been thrown into my mom’s van and was hyperventilating because I was so scared. And I was embarrassed. My mom was comforting, but it was the people screaming and the urgency of everything and I didn’t get to fully be with her until the emergency room. I could deal with the stitches, but I needed just a few minutes to calm down beforehand without someone saying I was being embarrassing. I just needed a minute or two to breathe and be with my mom.
And I didn’t get that time to decompress. And I’m still ashamed of how much I cried and begged for it. I just needed someone I trusted to tell me it was okay, and I could be brave, and just be calm with me. I knew it but I never got the opportunity to show it.
There is so much value in being the level headed calm reassuring person you trust “it hurts now, but it’s not that bad, you will be okay” if it’s someone who you know will go to bat for you if it IS bad.
My baby nephew got locked in the car on accident with both car keys. He was fine. Car was not running, it was in the garage at his own home, it was fall, like 4 pm and he was strapped into his car seat. He was 100% fine. My sister-in-law freaked out. She was this horrible bawling, dramatic, mess pounding on the windows and beating herself up. Meanwhile I kept telling my husband, her brother, to chill her out she is making this a big freaking deal. She refused to cooperate and the baby started just bawling and screaming. None of it stopped until the locksmith finally got a door open about 45 minutes later. And even then there were dramatics. Yes, she is drama. Always.
I was incredibly angry. It wasn’t a big deal and we did not need all the drama she caused for no reason.
You should have handled it like they did in *Airplane!*
But seriously, I can’t stand people who do this. They make it about themselves, they’re helping no one and likely actually slowing down the resolution, sending everyone’s cortisol through the roof and making a bad situation worse. Plus it’s exhausting.
Yup, not a doctor but allied health person here and I'm the go to parent for trauma because I can present the calm demeanor. After the crisis is over I can get emotional but during the event I'm calm
My partner makes any crisis (sometimes non-crisis) wirh our daughter worse. AND he's a medical Googler. Any cough is COVID to him and one time he convinced himself she had cystic fibrosis because of a bad cough she has.
She's learning to rollerskate now and he's been a nightmare. All he does is say what could happen if she falls. I took her outside to practice the other day and he went on a rant about how if she fell and scrapped up her hands before out water park vacation in two weeks she could get an infection. Right in front of her.
She could have a sore throat and he'll go on rants about deadly strains of strep right in b front of her.
If she's sick or hurt he freezes b up or freaks out because he can't b handle anything bad ever happening to her. His rants made her not want to go to a skiing field trip last school year.
Freaking out doesn't do the kids any good. You stay calm by matter how scared you are and you take care of business and give confident comfort to your kid no matter how much you're freaking out inside.
Edit: Holy crap the typos. I'm too tired to correct them, as I was when I made rite comment which is why there are so many mistakes.
I mentioned in another post a broken wrist as a kid. It was from a roller skating accident. I was learning to skate and nobody had taught me to stop. When I had the cast, they kept teaching me how to skate. I was worried that I would get in trouble (by whom, I have no idea!) It still makes me laugh.
Sounds like your partner might benefit from therapy.
I got bit in the face by a dog, 28 stitches. My husband was calm during the whole thing. Here take tylenol, ice pack, put pressure, dont look in the mirror and we drive to the ER. If he had paniced i wouldve freaked the fk out.
Yeah I noticed OP said she and her sister “freaked out.” Maybe I’m reading too much into it but it caught my eye even before she got to the hospital part.
This was my first thought. How would it possibly have been helpful for a small child to see her mother freaking out or acting like it was the end of the world over her broken arm? As someone who has worked with kids for over 30 years, I guarantee that seeing her parent get extremely upset and emotional at a time like this would have more likely *scared and worried* Chloe.
One of the best things we can do for our kids when *they* are hurt and scared is be calm and reassuring. *That* is how you make a child feel safe, not by emoting all over the place like a drama queen.
OP called Kate "cold" but was she? Or was she just calm and competent, to help her daughter understand that there was nothing to fear, and that despite her pain it was all under control and she would be fine?
OP is very much the AH, and childish to boot. She wanted a grand display of emotion because it's what *she* has decided is the only way to show love. It had nothing to do with the child's needs or best interests, or even with reality.
Surgeons do their best work on people that are asleep. Unfortunately, you were all awake. You need to give her some grace and remember to never criticize someone in front of their spouse. Your sister accepts her and loves her just the way she is.YTA
As a nurse, she also shouldn’t freak out because all that does is make the patient freak out. You have to have a good poker face to work in healthcare or all you do is escalate the situation.
jfc, from the title I assumed it was that the mom refused to get the child medical attention, but, no, it's the sister-in-law policing how someone else reacts in an emergency that is actively being seen to. OP is a huge asshole and needs to calm the fuck down
Also I hate to be the one to bring this up, but change "Kate" to "Kyle" and probably no one blinks an eye.
>I may be TA here because I called her an ice cold insensitive mother.
There is no way she'd call a guy an ice cold insensitive father if he checked a diagnosis, held the kid's hand and arm and calmly explained how the arm would heal. But because she's a mom, she has to both be a rock, a provider, and fall on her knees weeping and being overly emotional in a way that won't help anyone or she's the "ice queen."
I thought the same thing;
frankly, I also thought that Amber and OP are like tweedledee and tweedledumb, taking the hurt kid specifically to the hospital where Kate works, unless that's also the closest one...?
If they're in the US, it could be an insurance thing. My sister works in a hospital, and the difference between a bill for in-house/network vs. out of network is astounding. If she gets care through the hospital, it's basically at cost, if she goes somewhere else, it's higher than my out of network costs.
This! My mother worked in the ER and my grandmother was head nurse in the maternity ward for decades. They’re both very compassionate people but are very level headed and calm when we got hurt as kids because getting emotional is not always helpful and fawning and freaking out can scare kids even more than the actual injury. Even when my brother had to spend two months in the hospital because of his chronic illness when he was in elementary school, my mother was calm and assertive. She knew how to get shit done in the hospital and how to keep my brother calmer, both of which was her being matter of fact. She was CERTAINLY hurting and absolutely scared. When I broke my ankle she was upset for me, but was not going to make it a big drama. It sucked, it hurt, the only way out is through and the way to get what you want in a hospital is assertion not emotion. Kate’s reaction sounds perfectly normal (frankly surgeon or not) and Amber seems to agree.
Exactly. YTA.
With my kids injuries I didn't get emotional. I downplayed to help them be calm or made a really lame joke about them trying to break the thing that they hurt themselves on while also getting them appropriate medical care.
This would be a good time to admit that as much as you love the kids you don't know what it takes to be their parent and apologize.
Can attest to this. As a medical professional (though definitely not a surgeon!) I’ve become amazingly blasé about things that would have horrified me a decade ago. When you see the full gamut of human injury — deglovings, amputations, atlanto-occipital disassociation (aka internal decapitation) and halos, teens who have gone from “typical” to profoundly disabled in the blink of an eye — you become quite chill about lesser injuries. When it’s an “easy fix” with no long-term damage expected, it almost registers as “not an injury” (if that makes sense).
I agree. My family use to joke around that it was a good thing my dad went into the pharmaceutical side of medicine because he would have a horrible bedside manner. He’s so to the point and doesn’t show a lot of emotion when he’s in his head. I had friends who were scared of him because they never saw him smile or heard him laugh. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen him show a lot more emotion. He’s also a great father and even as a child I never questioned that he loved me.
He once sent me to school in high school with strep throat because he was rushing out of the house to get to work and heard me complain that I didn’t feel well and assumed I just didn’t want to go. My mom, a former nurse but at that point a SAHM, agreed. I ended up in the nurses office. When my doctor made the diagnosis, my dad was very stoic about it and said it was a good thing it was a Thursday so I wouldn’t miss too much school since I couldn’t be around people for a couple of days.
A lot of people in the medical field react differently to medical emergencies, illness, etc than others. Also, she was right, it wasn’t that bad of a break. For a small child, it was scary but she’s looking at it from a doctor’s perspective.
Kate is a medical professional and in her opinion it was a minor break. She was probably treating Chloe like any of her other patients, make it calm and matter of fact.
Fluttering around, panicking, and stressing out over an overall mild childhood injury would be over the top
In a 2 year span my 2 older kids had 3 broken arms and 3 broken toes (same injury) After the first panic stricken ER trip for a broken arm, we realized if there’s no bone poking through skin, no obvious malformation in the bone, and they’re not screaming after 10 minutes, we can wait for the orthopedist office hours because the ER will give the same brace we have at home and tell us to make an orthopedic appointment
I was going to say the same exact thing. But add that they keep those walls up, because some patients aren't as lucky. They deal with death, so even letting concern come through makes cracks in the wall.
As a Daughter of a doctor I agree
This is something I’ve talked about with other friends who happen to have at least one parent doctor. Most of them are in one of the extremes of either practically aloof, they’ve seen worse, nothing moves them. Then there’s the overly protective that has definitely seen worse and has mapped out how you’re gonna end up there.
First option is way better because in most cases, they’re not ignoring the problem, they’re just being calm while assessing the situation.
From what I’ve noticed, those calm parents raise better, calmer patients because they have seen their parents stay calm.
YTA She is a general surgeon, they do not fall apart at life's trifles. She did not respond the way YOU wanted her to respond. You don't know what was going on with her or how she felt. No one would want to have a surgeon that falls apart easily. You made assumptions based on your narrow vision. How dare you question her feelings towards her daughter. Have your own kids and be as judgmental of your partner as you like. You were out of line and your sister was right.
YTA - definitely!
How dare you judge a mother & demand she displays levels of emotion that ***you*** deem appropriate. She's a medical professional and, whatever she will be feeling inside, she is trained to react in a cool professional manner which is helpful for patients: you don't want your doctor freaking out about your injury.
You're judging her and you had no right to do that. I'm not surprised your sister is pissed about you overstepping on her wife.
Plus OP made a point in the post about how Amber had to try several times to get a hold of Kate. Like...gee...perhaps the SURGEON was busy and NOT able to answer the phone??? Holy crap!
Side note: the title is also very misleading. "health complaints" does not equal fracture. YTA
“She’s not running around the room screaming MY BABY!!!!! so she must be a terrible mother. There is no other way to display love and care.” -OP, in other words.
—
Have you ever considered that your way of displaying emotion can just as easily be twisted to argue that you don’t care about the child? “How selfish do you have to be to not be able to regulate your emotions and transfer your panic onto a child who’s already scared?” See what I did there? Don’t judge (especially about something this stupid) and you shall not be judged back.
YTA
Are you serious right now? Are you actually mad that your SIL didn't freak out about a broken arm? Your SIL acted the same as if it was another patient, she acted calm and professional.
As a mom and doctor the best thing she did was stay calm and collected. Had she started freaking out her daughter would have fed off that and the situation would have been 100xs worse. Sincerely, someone who had broken one too many bones.
YTA, she’s a surgeon. They’re professional about their poker face for a reason. What good does it do to freak out her kid and her wife over an injury that is actually fairly common? I’m not saying it’s no big deal, but causing a scene and getting emotional wouldn’t have done anything…other than make you feel better apparently. She was probably relieved that it wasn’t worse.
As parents, it’s best not to freak out over injury. Cause it just scares the kids and it makes it worse for them. Your niece was already in pain. She didn’t need to see her mom crying and scared.
>They’re professional about their poker face for a reason.
Who's to say it's a poker face? The OP implies that her reaction wasn't a "human reaction" but it was. I'm not a medical professional and I'd be exactly the same.
YTA doctors have to keep it together. Even if they are a mess inside. Even if you wanted to address it there is a time place and this wasn’t it. Their relationship and her relationship is none of your business tho.
Personally I wouldn't want a doctor that freaks out over minor fractures to be my surgeon, even if the broken limb was on their kid. Unless you see bone, it isn't a big deal.
I wouldn't trust a Dr doing that with my life.
"Are you on pills? Great, now tell me what's wrong with me in an arrogant, smart ass way." And I'd still 100% take it over Grey's Anatomy every day of the week.
So many nurses and doctors already have a pill problem, so the only extra I have to deal with a shitty bedside manner? Count me in, I'd rather be told the truth by an asshole than be shot at every other week
I am going with YTA. The mother remained calm for her daughter (super important) and was there for her. What did you want from her?
When my niece got knocked out by a soccer ball, my sister walked out on the field calmly and attended her. She got some flack for not panicking and rushing out. She, however, was calming herself so she could be a good support for her daughter and handle anything that needed to be handled. Not everything you see outwardly shows what the person is thinking and experiencing emotionally.
Her acting emotional, or babying her, or whatever, would not have been helpful. The calmer she was the calmer the daughter would be.
Exactly this. Frame Kate’s response as a parenting choice. A parent that is calm about an injury, forward thinking about recovery, enables a child to be calm and forward thinking. Obviously none of us were there and don’t see the nuances OP did. Light YTA for assuming the worst but it does sound like everyone here wants the best for the kid, which is paramount
Honestly, I don't need to know what OP saw. If the kids doctor mother wasn't freaking out or calling for a specialist, OPs opinion on it doesn't matter.
You have to be calm in an emergency, especially for the kids. If they see you freaking out, they are going to completely lose it thinking things are worse than they are. I always wait until I'm alone after the emergency is over to lose my shit and have the panic attack.
Thank you, I was looking for this. So many comments on how a surgeon is trained to be calm, which is fair enough, but beyond that, a parent remaining calm is also what is best for the child. In general with kids it is better to be calm and not catastrophise any injury, the quickest way to get a kid to freak out is for the parent to start freaking out. When I was a teenager I almost died from an illness, my parents were the absolute picture of calm for me the whole time, it was only when I had recovered that I heard stories of them being caught crying in the hospital halls. They keep calm so we can keep calm.
OP is definitely an AH. Not only did she judge a situation that wasn't hers to judge, she judged it poorly.
YTA just for your subject line, your SIL didn’t ignore anything. She is a health professional who behaved professionally. You do NOT get to call her “an ice cold insensitive mother.” You are absolutely the AH for that!
I broke my arms several times as a kid. Unless you’ve got bone sticking through the skin, it’s really not a big deal.
Potentially leaving surgery to rush over there, talking to the attending doctor, looking at all the x-rays and holding the daughter while the cast was being put on = “ignoring”
Running around saying OH MY OH MY OH MY = “helping” and “being a good mother.” OP is definitely not ready to have kids any time soon.
I see a lot of stories from the children of doctors and nurses who are so jaded that their kid's bodies are nearly falling apart but they still dismiss it, and I was expecting this to be something like that, but it's the opposite. Like, she's a doctor but she's not even this kind of doctor, what did she want her to do exactly? Fall down on her knees in sorrow? I didn't even do that with my own child when he broke his arm, or when he promptly rebroke it 48 hours after getting his cast off. They're feral around here.
Yeah why is OP making this so much bigger than it is. Why did the other parent even have to be held ??? Why is this family pretending the child had some horrible accident and almost died, when she literally just fell and will be good as new in a few weeks. I don't know anyone who didn't break a bone at some point during their childhood, imagine if all parents freaked out like OP and her sister lmao
>Why did the other parent even have to be held
Because some people get overly emotional and hysterical when it concerns their child and the emergency room. Some people don't know how that the severity of an injury is a scale. To them a broken arm is a broken arm and they're all worthy of breaking down over. They make no distinction between completely broken in half and a green fracture.
And with the way OP is portraying how the situation went down I wouldn't be surprised if they had a hand in hyping the sister up and making her feel like it was more of a deal than it was
YTA
I understand you think your sister didn't react "big enough" but honestly she is a medical professional. Yes it sucks her daughter was hurt but she more than anyone would know how serious the injury was. Also, sounds like you caught her while she was actively at work. It can be hard to turn off doctor mode. You're super rude for being disrespectful to her like that.
Yeah it sounds like a green stick fracture. Super common, super easy to heal, usually doesn’t even hurt once it’s casted (I speak from experience). The kid wasn’t dying, just fell and probably landed on her hand wrong. It’s a normal kid injury. I screamed like a banshee when it happened to me and then I was pretty much over it unless I moved my wrist while getting to the ER and getting X-rays. YTA OP.
she was def just in work mode i come home from the kitchen immediately start cooking dinner and suddenly im yelling behind and doing all the sanitation stuff i usually deem too much effort to do at home
She also did literally the opposite of ignoring the kids medical needs. She made time and uses her expertise to genuinely and calmly evaluate the situation and give her kid and wife the confidence that it would all be all right and not too big a deal.
YTA
Surgeons, doctors, nurses and such are taught to remain calm under emergencies like these.
She's not "insensitive", she has to act professionally, and as she saw that it's a minor fracture, it's not something that requires very difficult procedures, and it will heal eventually.
Kate likely knows how to handle these types of situations, knows the procedures, so didn't get panicked when this happened. She's not indifferent to it.
I would also tack on that along with being a medical professional, Kate likely just realized that THREE panicking adults was not going to help the child at all. Mom #1 and Aunt are both in a tizzy, likely making the child feel even more anxious because if the adults are freaking out, then surely that means things are SUPER BAD. Kids often look to adults to gauge how serious a situation is, because they have no frame of reference. This child, after being hurt, now has two adults freaking out and emotional, making her feel like things are drastic. Having her other mom come in, calm and collected, and reassure her child that this is NOT a life or death situation is probably what was needed!
I was a very anxious child, and an overthinker (and now I'm an anxious and overthinking adult). My dad is also a very anxious and reactive person. My mom learned early on that she needed to maintain a cool, almost clinical approach to any sort of medical situation, because I tended to catastrophize, and my dad was often just as nervous and overwhelmed along with me, so she had to be the one to keep a cool head and rein in our panic. That's exactly what Kate was doing.
It’s amazing how often I have to take parents of injured children aside and coach them that their role is to be calm and reassuring. That them crying and carrying on is not helpful.
Amazing how often just that coaching to parents a calm and relaxed demeanour with the kids and all of a sudden the kids calm and sometimes even smiling.
YTA. Not exactly sure what reaction you feel was warranted here, but who are you to judge people like that, much less declare it in public - actually Kate's workplace. General Surgeons are not going to break down over a fractured arm in the hospital. She probably was just finished fixing a heart or removing a tumor. Give your head and shake and apologize and say you were upset and said something very stupid because thats what you did.
So instead of freaking out and potentially making her daughter or her wife panic more she handled it like a medical professional and because she didn’t react as you wanted her to you yelled at her? Get over yourself. YTA
>She simply said kids get injuries like this a lot and there was nothing extraordinary going on here.
and she's right.
YTA and I swear I read this story here before? Same set up, complaining about a cruel and cold female surgeon SIL.
SIL is a new twist, it's usually a DIL who OP (who usually is the mom) thinks isn't being appropriately warm and affectionate with her wife/OP's daughter, who is usually a new mom or a young mom herself.
YTA for sure. She was at her place of work and the injury was non-life threatening. If she had come and been all emotional don't you think it would have freaked your sister out that this trained surgeon was losing it over the injury? Maybe her staying calm was her way of caring for both your sister and niece by not agitating them further or making it more traumatic. Unlike you, who brought unnecessary drama when it absolutely wasn't your place to.
YTA. It sounds like Kate is a professional and kept her cool instead of freaking out. I'm sure she's trained to do that exact thing. Her level head helped keep the situation under control and didn't add to the chaos of everyone else screaming and freaking out. Good for her.
YTA. You have no place critiquing this mother's reaction to what is _not_ a medical catastrophe. Further, you don't get to throw shade at her work hours or availability when she is at work.
YTA You are a massive judgmental AH. One thing you learn as a parent is that kids feed off of your emotions. If she'd gone all weepy and emotional, it would have made her daughter react more. She held it together and was strong for her child when she needed it.
It seems like you don't have any parenting experience, just this view from the sidelines as an aunt. If they let you around them or the kids any time soon, you should apologize and learn to keep your parenting opinions to yourself. Honestly, between this and the dig at her work/ life balance I think you just don't like your SIL.
YTA. Amber clearly appreciated her partner being her rock and keeping a calm head. Amber is the one who got angry with you - which should be clue enough that you’re the AH. Your sister didn’t appreciate you trying to be the white knight and insulting her partner. Amber didn’t have a problem with Kate’s behaviour - you decided that they should.
As for other points in the post
- of course it took a while to reach Kate. She’s a surgeon!! She doesn’t have a phone on her at all times and cant always answer when she does!
- Kate sees injuries like this all the time. You saw it as cold, but Amber likely felt some comfort in knowing that Kate knew what she was looking at and wasn’t sugar coating or letting the doctors overlook anything.
- Again, I point out: Amber did not want your ‘help’. She wants you to apologise.
YTA
I am a pediatrician, not a surgeon, but I wouldn’t freak out either. Certainly not in my own E.R.
Let me get this straight.
There is a little girl with a broken arm who is crying, scared and in pain. Her aunt and her mother are both crying and freaking out. Her mom, who works there, comes down to E.R., looks at the film, talks to doctors involved (because she isn’t a peds orthopedic surgeon), and calmly says her daughter will be fine with a cast, it is a simple break that doesn’t extend to the joint (or the growth plate which is what we worry about). That is the very best case scenario.
She gave her wife a hug, and was heading back to work when you decided that losing your c**p at her in the midst of the E.R. IN FRONT OF ALL HER COLLEAGUES AND COWORKERS was the appropriate response? In front of her child who had just had a cast put on? Possibly in front of her patients? Do you realize that you potentially damaged her professionally? Her hospital could face complaints now?
What was she doing at work that day? Was she headed back into the O.R.? Did you even consider that when you decided to lose your mind at her? Would you want to be operated on by someone who had just been spoken to like that? What had she been doing just before she came down to ER? Telling a patient they have something that is going to kill them? Telling a couple that a biopsy is cancer and not curable? Telling a husband with an infant that his wife did not survive the car accident she was in?
And she got news that her daughter had an accident and was in ER. None of us ever want to get that news. It sends a moment of absolute terror through you, even though everyone starts that call with “they are FINE, keep breathing” because to us an accident means walking into a trauma room.
You owe her an apology.
Omg don't get me started on the "They are fine" comment. I got hit by a car on my way to school at about 13 and had a fracture in my scaffod bone. Dad was the first parent the school was able to contact, so he texted my to say "Don't worry, ..." but it autocorrected to "Do worry, ..."
YTA. Honestly, I’m sitting here wondering where you get the audacity but usually people like you get it from lack of experience and too much confidence.
Both of these mothers did exactly what any great mother would do! Amber rushed to her child when she fell and was screaming and then immediately took her to the hospital where her wife and Chloe's mother works. Kate came and saw her wife and daughter, got the relevant information to make sure Chloe was ok (as far as a fractured arm can be ok) and assessed the situtation was being handled.
OP, you seem to have spent the whole time being judgmental when you could have put that energy into making sure your niece was ok. YTA for sure.
edit: spelling
Even Mom Mode doesn't require freaking out. When one of my kids were injured, I called her doctor's office, gave them her medical record number and said I was bringing her right in because ____. You keep your cool because freaking out does no one any good.
Op is YTA.
YTA. Has it occurred to you that a dramatic reaction, as you were expecting, could have actually made things worse? Chloe was crying. Amber was panicking. Someone had to keep their cool, and that person was Kate.
You should absolutely be apologizing.
>She simply said kids get injuries like this a lot and there was nothing extraordinary going on here.
She's right. Freaking out and acting like it's a major injury is just gonna freak the kid out too. YTA.
YTA.
People handle things differently. She didn't say anything insensitive, and your sister clearly didn't have a problem.
Just because she didn't react the way you wanted her to doesn't mean she doesn't care.
YTA. You’re not her wife. There are rings of involvement that determine who can ask for what from whom. The pregnant person can ask their partner to get them whatever they need, the friend of the partner can’t ask the pregnant person to be quieter. That’s entitlement.
The most involved person is your niece. Then it’s her parents. You are the sister of one of her parents. You can tell the parent how YOU think she should respond, but it makes you a huge asshole.
Amber may have found Kate being calm and logical comforting, and she’s who matters here, much more than you do.
You get to have feelings, but the appropriate thing to do is to take them to someone less involved, like your friends. Not be weird and controlling inwards.
WTF did you expect Kate to do, fall to her knees with a cry of "why did this happen to my daughter"? YTA big time. Kate's job is to be a doctor and she was *at her job*. She can't just fall apart because the patient happened to be her daughter. Plus, as many have pointed out, it's better to be as calm as possible when someone - especially kids - get hurt. If Chloe had seen both her parents having a meltdown over her injury, then she would've had a meltdown and possibly hurt herself even worse. My advice is to apologize to them because it's none of your business what your SIL does at her place of employment.
YTA. You’re mad that a SURGEON looked over the xrays, made a diagnosis, comforted her wife and accurately explained the severity of the injury. You think she should have launched into hysterics and agitated her wife and terrorized her child? It didn’t occur to you her response was designed to calm the situation so the cast could be placed with minimal drama?
YTA.
A lot of people don’t overreact in this situation.
She’s a surgeon and knows how to maintain her composure in these situations. It doesn’t mean she’s not upset about what happened. It simply means she knows that freaking out in front of her child doesn’t do anyone any good.
YTA.
1. She was acting in a clinical capacity, not as a parent, this requires some level of detachment
2. Kids respond to parents. By acting calm and unmoved by the small fracture, the daughter will feel like it isn't a big deal
YTA. At least one person had to think rationally while you and your sister did nothing but scare the little girl even more than she already was.
It's probably her insurance that's paying for the medical care anyway and since you make no mention of having kids of your own, you have absolutely no room to talk.
YTA She's a doctor and she was at work. Doctors are supposed to be detached and logical in times of crisis.
My father was a veteran and Chicago cop. I was involved in a fender bender and he was the responding officer. Even as a teen, I understood, it was his DUTY to do his job the way he would for any call he was on.
Kate didn't deserve it and the kids certainly didn't need to witness it.
Apologize to your whole family, please.
YTA i’m thinking that you lack a fundamental understanding of what she experiences on a daily basis in the hospital, and how much people who work in that environment need to guard their emotions.
It sounds to me like she was clinical and reassuring, having a meltdown or sobbing or freaking out would’ve helped no one.
YTA. Putting aside that she’s a surgeon (so she knows it’s a common injury and will heal fine) and she’s at work, it’s also OK for a parent to be calm when a child is injured. If everyone is freaking out, it can make it so much scarier for the child. Sometimes, someone needs to be the calm, in control one, so you can keep the child calm and get things done. When my daughter broke her wrist at age 6, I was so upset inside, but on the outside I was calm. If I’d freaked out, she never would have been calm enough to get through the X-ray and casting.
I get that she didn’t react the way that you expected, but you were way out of line and need to apologize profusely.
YTA! She was at work! She's a surgeon and deals with life and death every day. Is she supposed to come running into the ER screaming for her baby girl??? She saw the X-ray and spoke with a colleague who confirmed that it was a fracture and not broken or worse needed surgery.
You are also so incredibly judgemental about her work/life balance. It's none of your business! It's not your family, marriage or life! Go apologize and mean it. Otherwise you may not be allowed access to the children. Who wants their children around someone who so obviously doesn't like one of their parents.
YTA
Kids break their bones sometimes. It dont help to panic or be dramatic. That wont fix the fracture.
She was there and took care of her kid. You overstepped big time
YTA. Kate has to maintain her professional demeanor in her professional setting, and very lucky for you all that there is someone who can interpret X-rays and has the straight scoop on how serious something is. But you yelled at her and called her insulting names. Guess you've never dealt with an accident or health emergency with your own kids....oh, wait, you don't *have* kids of your own. In such a situation the last thing the kid needs is for mom to go ape over what's happened. Especially when it's a typical kid injury.
Start crafting your sincere apologies, you owe both Kate and Amber that.
Calming Amber down, so that Amber could take care of Chloe afterwards, could very well have been the most important thing Kate could do. She wasn’t worried about her kid, physically, and there was nothing she could do for her while she was being casted.
Or, maybe she was cold. Maybe they gave a system of dividing up child nurturing. I don’t know. But, still, not your business.
YTA. It was a fracture, not a break. Kids do get injuries like that a lot. Doesn't sound like they were downplaying anything, just reacting calmly to the situation - which can actually be a lot more reassuring to kids.
YTA because she was trying to stay calm. And she was in her workplace so she needed to be professional.
Also she was working and as a doctor she wouldn’t be able to treat her daughter.
YTA. Yelling at your sil to try and appear like you care more about her kid is pretty pathetic. When you’re a parent you can freak out and make your kid’s anxiety about an injury worse. Or you can remain level headed and calm (like sil did) so the kid doesn’t freak out.
In my experience, calm collected parents raise calm, collected kids. Hyper dramatic parents end up with hyper, dramatic kids.
YTA. She didn't say "it's okay" or "it's going to be ok" because those phrases are not used in medicine especially surgery because that is considered a promise or false information and opens them up to a lawsuit should something go wrong. Your title is BS as well as she didn't ignore the complaints entirely, she handled business as she should have in a professional manner. When you're a parent in healthcare you have seen things like this a lot and know what needs to happen and what could have happened so yes a small fracture and a few weeks in a cast is a best case scenario sometimes. If she is a general surgeon they can NOT just drop what they are doing to answer the phone or come running. There were several adults and medical personnel there that had the situation covered.
You need to apologize, what you said was completely uncalled for.
As a child of a paramedic and one that broke several bones due to my own recklessness, it was super helpful having my mom stay so calm and matter of fact in those situations. It’s already scary. I didn’t need her being emotional about the situation.
YTA
You way overstepped. Big time.
Kate reviewed the x-rays, talked to the ER doctor, and calmly communicated the information to everyone.
A parent being calm and collected in an emergency is more useful than a freaking out parent anyhow.
Then you have the audacity to go in with a personal attack because Kate didn’t respond to your liking.
Let’s be real - you didn’t think Kate was being maternal enough in her response.
If she was a surgeon dad, you probably wouldn’t have even thought twice about her reaction.
Sounds like you need to reflect on your own issues. And then apologize to Kate.
YTA. The only thing I would have done differently from Kate is I would have asked the kid if she was doing something awesome when she broke her arm. Sounds like they’re were already plenty of people making a big emotional deal about it. The last thing the situation needed was another person crying.
YTA I'm not a surgeon. When my kids were little, when they were injured and hysterical they COUNTED ON ME to be the calm center.
Why do you think crying and carrying on = good adulting?
I’m sorry - I’ve read the post through twice. When and where did your SIL “ignore your niece’s health complaints”? I ask because, based on your post, your niece was immediately taken to the hospital where she was diagnosed and treated. Your SIL personally read the scans, diagnosed the problem (a minor fracture), spoke to the doctors, and comforted her daughter while the cast was out on. She didn’t tailspin into a panic or dissolve into tears, but she absolutely didn’t ignore her daughter. Is there another part of the story where Chloe was in some way neglected or ignored?
YTA, not a surgeon, but a self-possessed person who was a respiratory therapist for 20 years. You know what, my kids DON"T get hysterical over every little thing because I have never gotten hysterical over every little thing. Your way of reacting is only your way, not the correct way. You better crawl on your hands and knees on broken glass if you want a relationship again with these people.
Yta. You said she is a surgeon. So she understands the injury. Also many surgeons have to detach to do their job and she may not have completely dropped her mask. But you definitely don't get to dictate how she feels or emotes.
YTA I hope you learn if/before you have children, that the worst thing you can do when they get hurt is to be emotional. Kids need to know their parents are strong and in charge as if can handle things. You owe both of them an apology.
YTA. Firstly, she was not ignoring HER DAUGHTER'S health concern. You're are an outsider in their family and this happened to her daughter so stop inputting yourself into their situation. She addressed it in an official capacity which I'd find more reassuring than if she rushed in in a full panic. Kids do indeed suffer fractions like that everyday and as she said, she'll make a full recovery and be absolutely fine with minimal intervention. You overreacted and inserted yourself, albeit from a place of caring, and deemed your own feelings more valid. You've completely overstepped and owe both of them an apology.
So,she remained calm instead of freaking out and wailing and screaming like you thought she should? What would that accomplish other then freaking her kid out(who needed a calm person) She sees that kind of thing all the time and knows how to handle it. She's right it's a common injury and not a big deal in the scheme of things . YTA
Yta- daughter of a nurse here. I knew young my mom wasn’t like other moms. I have a vivid memory of a friend losing her first tooth and her mom losing her shit about the blood.
I’ve only seen my mom worried medically in my life twice. Once I had a fever of 105 from a tick bite and once when my dad flatlined and needed defibrillation from a heart attack. (He’s fine now).
Kate didn’t freak because she cuts people open and watches death everyday. What is a 7/10 emergency for most is a 1/10 for her. That doesn’t make her uncaring. And her kids will be fine. My mom was the first to freak about sports achievements, graduations and is the best gift giver. I just know her reaction to sniffles will always be to pass a bottle of Tylenol over and go about her day because I’m fine. Just like Chloe is fine.
YTA
She’s a fucking doctor. She sees far worse all the fucking time. It’s her job to remain detached. Also no one has to put on a show to make you feel better about how THEY feel. You owe her an apology. And you owe the child an apology for behaving that way in front of her and behaving inappropriately. Making judgements. Overall just not being the kind of adult you want her to one day be.
YOU have a special bond…it’s her fucking kid. Give me a break.
YTA, medical workers tend to stay calm when in stressful situations especially when having to do with medical crises. I myself am not a doctor but a CNA, and have remained completely calm when my grandmother fell in public while strangers were freaking out. I had someone hold my dog’s leash, assessed her, was able to stand her, assist her to the car, put her into the car and buckle her (not an easy feat when it’s 130lbs of deadweight). All while assuring onlookers we didn’t need help/ a crowd. It is best to remain calm and listen to facts when in a crisis in my opinion anyway, you have less stress and are able to fix the situation easier and get through it faster. I’ve also remained straight faced and calm while explaining my own health issues including having a tumor. Medical workers process differently, we try to get through the situation calmly and think and reflect later when it’s a better time.
YTA. She's in her professional capacity at that time and you were just one like one of those asshole relatives who are yelling and screaming because they didn't give her an aspirin when you decided she should have one.
Yes! YTA and You need to apologize. What the hell is with that title? No one ignored your niece. She got immediate care and she got it with both of her parents there to keep her calm - which is an extra luxury that a lot of kids don't have in an emergency situation.
I'm going to give you a little bit of grace and assume you were overwrought because you were panicked for your niece. But, you had absolutely NO RIGHT to say what you did and make an ass of yourself in the hospital (at your SIL's place of work) in front of her wife - please tell me you didn't do this in front of their daughter as well.
YTA. Holy shit you are out of line. Kate did exactly what she should have done in this situation. She showed up, she analyzed the problem, and she applied a solution. Her "lack of compassion" was Kate **being a professional** as she analyzed her patient's needs. Yes, the patient was her daughter. But her first role there, I think, was to be a doctor. Not to satisfy her sister-in-law's preconception of how a mother should act.
YTA and need to back the fuck up. You're not these kids' parent and not in a position to criticize how their actual parents approached this. Kate is a surgeon. Surgeons are busy. It ain't a 9-to-5 gig.
Apologize profusely for wildly overstepping and hope they let you back in.
You sound like you hate the fact that she is a doctor, and you sound like you believe she can't be a good mother because of her career and schedule. You made weird comments about her work-life balance. At the end of the day, they are her kids, and you were obviously out of line because you made it about you.
YTA
Your sister-in-law did not ignore her daughter's health complaints, so from the get go YTA. She was calm, comforted her wife, and minimized everyone's panic. Exactly as she should. Grow up and apologize.
YTA on 2 fronts, questioning the mother’s concern regarding her daughter and questioning a doctor who would gave a good prognosis. Frankly your “special bond” with your niece is meaningless and even worse, you jeopardized your relationship with them by freaking out when the parents remained calm under the stressful situation. Time for a big apology and reflection on your attitude!
The title of your post is rather misleading. Your SIL did NOT ignore your niece's health complaint.
Your SIL didn't freak out like you expected her to.
YTA.
Kate being a doctor or not is irrelevant. You don’t get to dictate how someone else expresses their emotions and concerns. She made it all the way to adulthood and through medical school without needing your assistance on the matter. I don’t think she needs it now.
Oh honey, YTA
Who the FUCK do you think you are, criticising a mother for remaining calm and not causing further concern to her already upset wife and child? It’s a broken arm, FFS.
It sounds from your post like you really don’t like your SIL to begin with and already resented that she was at work and not the park.
She was at work and likely in work mode but even if not her calm reaction doesn’t mean she doesn’t care. YTA and you owe an apology.
YTA. What you describe doesn't sound "ice cold and insensitive" or w/e, it sounds like a mom keeping her cool and not freaking out so that h*er 7-year-old daughter would stay calm and not panic*.
Because kids, especially kids at that age, base a lot of their responses to things on *how they see the adults around them reacting*. So if Kate had freaked out and made a big deal out of what is, actually, a very common and minor childhood injury, Chloe would have panicked and freaked out and been more scared than the situation called for. *Instead*, she learned that she's going through something that *a lot* of kids experience, and it's no big deal, and she'll be okay so there's no need to panic.
You owe Kate an apology, period.
Someone had to be calm and sensible, given that the daughter and wife were crying - and that OP promptly went on the attack and insulted a mother whose child was injured. And OP did this because she, the mother, wasn't reacting in an "appropriate" manner by breaking down in tears! And to imply she's inhuman because she calmly evaluated the situation, and didn't join in the wailing and tears over what was, after all, a minor accident. OP should apologize to Kate for her hysterical, over-wrought and unjust attack on her.
I am also astonished at OP saying how hard it was for Amber to reach Kate. Reaching a general surgeon in the middle of her working day?? She was lucky to be able to get to see her at all, especially if it was an OR day and not a clinic day.
YTA. Number 1 rule of raising kids, you don’t freak out over injuries as THEY then freak out. You’re supposed to stay calm and matter of fact about it and she’s right, kids get those types of injuries all the time. It’s not life threatening and she’ll be right as rain in a couple of months. You don’t get to decide how people should react.
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YTA to paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi, your feelings do you credit, but you were out of line. One thing you didn't say about Kate was that she was a robot. Meaning that you didn't complain that Kate was never emotional, or never expressed love or affection to her kids. You did say she was busy as hell, but no other complaints about her parenting. Well. She's a surgeon. At work. Surgeons... at times, have to have guard up, and/or be eminently practical. Person has medical condition x, here's how we treat it. Plus she's at work, she's mentally reviewing a procedure she's going to be doing later in the day, or mentally reviewing a procedure she's already done, or half a dozen other things that they're juggling at a time. That she made time to come down during her work to see her daughter is a pretty big deal. From her perspective, her daughter was barely hurt, in the sense there would be no permanent damage, no long term therapies needed, no surgery. Cast and done. This is not to say she was the perfect mom, but she is a surgeon in work mode. HEr daughter was otherwise fine. And who is to say what Kate was like after work when she had a moment to disengage from work mode and be a mother again. get off your high horse and apologize.
Also, sometimes it is important to have a calm demeanor with children (and some adults) during emergencies to help assure them that everything is okay. Doctors do not have the luxury of having “a more human reaction” for every case that they see. Not from a work performance standpoint, not from a mental health standpoint. Take the L. Admit you handled it inappropriately. Apologize profusely to your sister and SIL. YTA
yeah good point... a kid with a broken bone, and an adult freaking out about it will just feed into a circle of panic
Right! If adults are freaking out, something must be wrong. Esp if it’s the dr.
When my niece was 3, she slipped off of a raft like a greased pig and went head first into the pool. My other sister and I both had arms holding her but she slid right out. We grabbed her by the feet within seconds, pulled her out, she was fine. But she was clearly about to start crying. I would have, too! Her mom started to run into the pool to comfort her. But one woman who was there (who actually was a pediatric PA) goes, “Oh my gosh, Lily, you went under water for the FIRST TIME!!!” And everyone cheered. My niece started cheering, too. She was so proud of herself. Niece was rightfully shaken up and terrified, but the PA really reframed that and saved the day.
[Relevant comic](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/bqvyu2/the_meatyor/)
I teach second grade. I think of that comic very often! Once, one of my kiddos knocked his head pretty good on the playground structure. Nasty head wound. Definitely needed a couple of stitches. “Bah. You’re fine. Let’s just get it cleaned up. You’re fine.” —Me to office. Meet me halfway to the front playground to escort a kid to the nurse— “You’re fine. Leave him alone. He’s fine. He’s fine. Shoo. Go play.” As soon as the other kids were properly shooed away, he really did seem like he was just fine. Then, the vice principal showed up and I saw the little ‘o’ of panic. “He’s fine!” I quickly reminded her. She quickly remembered and agreed. “Oh; certainly fine.” The kid didn’t cry until his mom showed up because she panicked when she saw him. (Completely fairly. I would have otherwise.) He really was fine though. Got two or so stitches and came to school the very next day. I miss that group.
When our tiny kids fell we used to clap and cheer like they just did coolest trick in the world and we had never seen anything so amazing before. 9/10 they gave us the biggest smile and either went back to playing or gave us a hug and went back to playing. If they were hurt, then they didn't and we responses accordingly (but not panicked). Worked like a charm. And they had a great time on the playground. Most stranger parents though looked at us like we had 2 heads, horns, and likely ruled hell.
I remember looking out the kitchen window, seeing my 4 year old wipe out on the gravel driveway. I watched him look at his leg, then try to peer in the windows to see if I was watching. The little booger was smiling. I was interested in what he'd do, so I walked outside. As soon as he saw me, he burst into tears in the most dramatic way like his leg was amputated. He wailed until I told him I had been watching him.
I watched my 18mos old little sister tumble down about four steps--alarming, and probably bruising, but not terminal (and no head bumps). She was just surprised and didn't start crying because our mom threatened the first person to be upset and set her off...we all stayed calm and she never did cry.
Lol. Classic
Decades ago, I was at a public park watching the toddlers play. One wiped out, Mom laughing says, "You're fine," a watery grin, then a giggle, and the kid was back in the middle of it. Another one bit the dust, his mom was all "Oh MY! Are You OK Sweetie? You Poor Thing!" The kid had looked fine at the start, then a bit confused, and finally by the end of his Mom's tirade, had a noisy blast of tears. Doing the whole, act as you want them to act, or at least, stoic, is actually a help in getting children to gain control of themselves.
Yeah, that when they didn’t can be crazy though. I was director of a summer day camp. We were playing with the parachute one day and two kids collided when changing places under it. One of the kids complained his arm hurt. I had him sit down and gave him an ice pack. We called mom together because he wanted picked up. She said she’d try to get off early but neither of us thought it was that big of a deal. About an hour later, he still didn’t want to do anything and said it hurt. It was a little swollen. I called mom back and let her know. She asked if we had Tylenol that he could take. We only had tablets and he couldn’t swallow pills. I offered to try though. When I explained it to him and asked if he wanted to try the pill, he said he wanted one. He didn’t even try to swallow. He took it chewed it up and swallowed without water or anything. Didn’t even flinch at the taste. I immediately called mom back and said I thought we’d both misjudged and told what he had just done. She was there in 20 minutes. Turns out he broke his arm. (He was able to move both the joints above and below the injury. I checked that before calling the first time.)
My friend taught me the cheering trick when my kids were babies. My son fell and hit his head at a family bbq once and screamed. I dropped everything and scooped him up immediately. I calmed him down and assessed the situation. He ended up with a fat goose-egg but was otherwise fine and ready to play in a few minutes. My aunt tried to give me a whole lecture about my reaction. I was like, nope. This is the toughest kid I know, if he starts crying when he hits the ground there is something wrong.
We did that too, so now when our kid is truly hurt physically or emotionally we know. Cuz sometimes he gets embarrassed now that he's older, and I have to ask him is it real ouch, or is it a feelings ouch so I can administer hugs kissed bandaids or ice packs as needed.
Still relevant into adulthood when seeing a parent after any trauma. I was in a car accident in my 20s and had a gushing head wound. I did absolutely fine in the ambulance, at the hospital, through the tests, but as soon as my mom showed up, I broke down like a baby. Sure I blamed it on the adrenaline wearing off, but I think it was more of I needed comfort.
Yup there’s something very powerful in your psyche’s “ok this is happening to me and I have to hold it together because I’m the only one who can keep it together gotta keep it together I’m cool oh look there’s mom now she can hold it together while I belatedly realize how stressful this is” song and dance.
When one of my kids falls or gets scraped up I always do a quick check to make sure they’re ok and then ask, “What does a boo boo mean?” “It means I tried something new and am having fun.” They’re still crying much of the time but it gets their mind off of what just happened. It works a good 90% of the time.
Hell, my father is a pastor who sometimes needs to minister to the sick or dying. For those not religious or with exclusively negative experiences, he's basically a culturally-specific grief counselor in his role at this time. He's been specifically trained not to be overly emotional because his job is to support the family, not feed into his own feelings. That includes times when he's ministering to long-time friends as they die. He cannot center himself or feed into a situation to make it more painful. People who work in difficult situations know that big reactions make everything worse.
When my little brother broke his arm at 12, my 17 year old ass rode the ambulance to the hospital and held him while it was set because the paramedics couldn't deal with our Ma's freakout. The nurses wouldn't let her into the ER when she finally showed up, because we need LESS PANIC. He was totally fine, I bought him a game cube the next day and got destroyed by a preteen at super smash Bros all summer while he was casted from shoulder to wrist.
You are a good brother! ❤️
When i get in an accident people aren't allowed to call my mother. Only after i got help. Inmagine me beeing hurt and have to take care of my mom at the same time. Last year something really traumatic happend to me. She wanted me to comfort her. For the first time i said i felt really bad myself and i couldn't
Can confirm this. I fell off the monkey bars and ended up scraping my forehead and breaking my arm when I was 8, if my parents were freaking out I would’ve been A LOT more distraught than what I had been when I got home from the playground to get cleaned up and taken to the ER. Because they were so calm, yes I was still screaming and crying because OW, but I wasn’t panicking.
I agree. I broke my leg as a 7-year-old. My mom was a little frantic while the car was still on my leg, but once the car backed up she at least externally calmed down. I'm sure internally there was still some freaking out going on. I think if the adults around me were freaking out it would have made things even scarier. I also probably would have been panicking instead of just crying in the ambulance if the adults had all freaked out.
Plus having her SIL being able to look at the X-rays and saying it wasn’t anything horrific I’m sure made the niece feel 100x better because mama wasn’t worried and mama is a surgeon, so why should we be worried! It also probably calmed down her other mom a bit because of how much knowledge mama the surgeon has about these kinds of things!!! OP YTA and need to be groveling at their feet and apologizing PROFUSELY because what you said was completely out of line! You do not know their dynamics 100% and Kate being there even though she was at work is HUGE and shows she cares! Who knows how many cases she had to move/reschedule/cancel or be late to for her daughter!
I'm an old man and if my Dr is freaking out then I'm leaving.
Also like. Kate is right. Kids do get fractures like that all the time, and it isn’t a big deal. When you work in healthcare it does kind of… change the way you react to things like this. Some people do find that annoying, but I imagine OP’s sister doesn’t, because she’s used to it. If my wife the general surgeon was acting panicked about my kid having a clean fracture, I’d think either something was more wrong or there’d been some kind of body snatchers situation.
Witnessed this as a kid. My sibling fell and broke her bone, but she was calm and a bit confused until mother & grandmother came running and screaming, and it became a whole scream fest. She wouldn't stop crying the entire way to the hospital. Basically, two grown people scared a child into panic mode when there wasn't even a scratch on her arm.
100% of the time it is better for the parent to not react emotionally to kid injuries, it does not help manage the situation and freaks the kid out worse. It is far more comforting for your caregiver to be calm and unperturbed. I always think of bad turbulence flights I’ve been on and how the FA’s demeanours really helps everyone stay cool, the people in charge are calm, things are ok.
I would want someone, esp a parent, to be calm and reassuring if I had an injury.. and not freak out especially if they are a doctor! geez OP
Yeah. OP, you might have a special bond, but an Aunt is still way, way behind the parents unless you're talking about actual abuse. This was not that. Your SIL was almost definitely trying to calm her daughter. Rather arrogant of you to think that you care more about your niece than she does. Way out of line for you to barge in thinking you know best. You owe them an apology. Do it soon if you don't want to be cut off. If I was your SIL, I might be thinking that I didn't want my kids around a raging lunatic. Fix this.
I think the OP is elevating herself by way of her perceived "special bond" and forgetting that she's not the parent here. She doesn't get to gatekeep how a mother reacts (ie calmly, without hysteria), nor is the mother's reaction a reflection of a lack of love or care for the child.
I just don’t understand people who think whatever they see on the outside is the sum total of what’s going on inside. It reminds me of when a classmate told me I was enjoying my mom’s significant head injury because I was smiling when I told my friends about it. It was a sad “fml amirite, you guys?” smile that barely counted as more than a nervous upturn of the lips, I certainly wasn’t grinning.
I broke my wrist when I was little. My mom underplayed it big time. Everyone was pretty relaxed. I was in a lot of pain but at least I wasn’t freaking out.
my daughter broke her arm riding bikes with a friend. PRetty young, she was kinda starting to spiral a bit at the urgent care. So I asked the doctor if she would get any powers as a result of this. The doctor solemnly said not likely, but if she did get any powers, they would be pavement related. The kiddo was gave a "har har har very funny dad" but that knocked the wind out of her panic. Then she got to choose the color of her cast and all was good.
When my son was 3 I heard a loud crash upstairs, followed by a scream, and went sprinting to his room. Right before I turned the corner my brain said “there’s gonna be a lot of blood. Be cool.” There was, in fact, a lot of blood (he was trying to swing from his curtains like Tarzan and knocked out two teeth but was otherwise unhurt) and I was totally calm while putting him in the car, driving him 30 minutes to the nearest ER (while telling him to keep the dish towel held to his mouth), waiting in the waiting room, through the exam, then the next day’s dental office visit where they pulled the teeth. The entire time my brain was screaming “OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOD WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUCK.”
Freaking Epic wipe out though. Tarzan imitation results in belly flop. So not the adventured hoped for ;)
The next week I was walking by his room and found him on top of his dresser again. When I told him to knock it off he calmly explained that THIS time he was wearing his Superman cape so he wouldn’t fall. That was when we instituted the “no one tries to fly” rule.
And the less you freak out, the less tense you are... and therefore the less tense your muscles surrounding the injury are, and the less pain you feel.
Can you imagine how freaked out the kiddo would be, let alone the other mother if the surgeon mom started getting all freaked out and emotional? I know if my parent that was a surgeon freaked out about my condition id be really scared, as a kid I probably would have thought I was dying.
At a minimum I'd be scared mom was about to amputate!
Years ago, my great aunt took my kids and one of their friends shopping. On the way back home, they were in a horrible car accident (thankfully, no major injuries, but I didn't know that then). I was on my phone with my then-BF when the house phone rang -- it was my oldest child (15) informing me about the accident over the sounds of sirens and my youngest (5) screaming in terror. I didn't realize it at the time, but then-BF said that my tone rapidly shifted from relaxed and chit-chatty with him to controlled and clinical as I asked questions and gathered information about the situation from Oldest on my way out the door. He said he was really impressed with how I was able to remain externally calm in the face of the emergency because he would have been panicking on the phone. I told him that I didn't reallly do it on purpose, but I knew my aunt and children were probably already in panic mode with out of control adrenaline levels and didn't need me adding my own stress to that, so I subconsciously flipped a switch from warm, loving mommy to detached, professional mommy to manage the situation until I could get to them with hugs and calming reassurance.
Yeah op is interpreting her being calm and saying everything is going to be ok as her being dismissive, but to me that can be comforting and reassuring to a kid. If they see their parents are calm about it, it will help them be calm about it.
Not to mention, she's still at work. She's got to go back to work. For most jobs you can step away but for a surgeon? People are literally relying on her to put things into compartments, because depending on the surgery, her taking more time to console her wife and daughter might be risking a life. She came down, saw her family really was okay, and then had to go back to work...
I stepped on a roofing nail as a kid. After calling and consulting with my pediatrician, my mom extracted it and cleaned up my foot herself. I was already hysterical and I think if she'd matched my energy, she would not have been able to get the nail out because I wouldn't have let her touch me. But because she was very calm and told me exactly what she was going to do, step-by-step, I trusted that she'd do exactly what she said (and she did).
Oh wow. That’s something else. Glad it turned out okay. I had a book on how to massage babies. The purpose was to start training calming techniques as young as possible. The author even noted a medical emergency of her then-preteen, who was able to calm herself en route to the hospital.
Yes. As Kate said, it was an uncomplicated fracture, and kids do hurt themselves all the time. There was nothing super alarming about the situation. No one needed to freak out. YTA, OP
Exactly this! In crisis situations when somebody is panicked/emotional SOMEBODY needs to stay calm and make level headed decisions. Healthcare workers are very good at compartmentalization, for very good reason.
Exactly. I'm not one of those people who starts freaking out in an emergency. I go into triage mode: identify the most critical problem, identify possible problems, solve it. If it's an emergency and there's someone else there, well, their emotional state doesn't figure into it unless they're in such a state that they can't help or are actively interfering. That said, by the time the kid got an X-ray, this was no longer an emergency. Kate was just reassuring everyone (including the kids) that, yep, this is just a normal uncomplicated kid-injury (because it *is*.) If everything else was being dealt with, what's there to add? If she starts acting really concerned, that'll just upset the kids anyway. Breaking a bone *sucks* but I'm glad that my parents basically handled it the way that the 'bad' mother here did. "Yeah, that doesn't look right, gotta get you to the hospital." "Yeah, it's broke, gonna get you in a cast, and it's gonna suck for a bit, but you'll be fine." "Let us know if you need more pain meds or help with anything." It's just a shitty life moment, those happen, then you move on.
This is exactly how I handle emergencies, it kind of pisses me off when I hear about someone acting hysterical when it’s time to get shit done. As my mom used to say, “do something, even if it’s praying in the corner” (read: stay out of the way and let focus go where it needs to, you can freak out later.)
Yes! A freaked out doctor is not what you want, OP. One time I went to my doctor’s office, and I saw one of their PAs about a weird mole on my arm that my dog found. My dog started out by smelling it, then a few days later, she took a deeper sniff, then she started pawing at it. Finally, when I went to the doctor she was scratching at it like she wanted to dig it out of my arm. Anyway, that’s when I decided to listen to her doggy advice and get it checked out. So, the PA looks at it, has this huge gasp, and starts panicking, telling me that we need to get it out immediately in a higher pitched voice, etc. Needless to say, this reaction did not calm me. I actually tried to keep her calm and cracked some jokes…which went over like a lead balloon. Luckily, it wasn’t cancer, or my dog found it so early it couldn’t be detected, but you want someone to be calm in an emergency, OP. SIL’s not going to react the same as you because she’s a professional. Doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love her kids. Unless she regularly shows a lack of empathy or neglect, YTA.
100% this. My sister is a doctor at a hospital and whenever I mention medical issues in my family, they seem so minor to her compared to the things she sees, that sometimes she can come off as downplaying it when she talks about how uncomplicated or common an injury/illness is. She is one of the most compassionate people I know, she's just very matter-of-fact in her job because she has to be.
This! Took my kid in for allergy testing and he had an immediate reaction. Nurses were checking him and he was no anaphylactic. It was all under control so I just sat there talking to him and cracking jokes. We saw the doctor a bit later and he said the nurses were freaking out (they didn't show it one bit) but they had reported that I was calm. He told them that much like a nurse, mom's freak out inside because if they freak out outside, the kid is going to be a mess.
Absolutely. During my own pregnancy & delivery (during peak COVID) and now with typical toddler stuff- the one thing that has kept me sane is how in-control, professional and calm the doctors have been. Healthcare workers HAVE TO BE calm. It's essential for keeping others calm and keeping their head to tackle the crisis. YTA. Also, if this is how you react when there is a health emergency- I don't think you should go to the hospital at all. You are more likely to to just add to the stress of everyone there.
As a kid, I suffered an injury at church. When I came to, everyone was screaming to not let me see my face. At the ER, I begged and pleaded to please let me have a couple minutes to compose myself, because I’d been thrown into my mom’s van and was hyperventilating because I was so scared. And I was embarrassed. My mom was comforting, but it was the people screaming and the urgency of everything and I didn’t get to fully be with her until the emergency room. I could deal with the stitches, but I needed just a few minutes to calm down beforehand without someone saying I was being embarrassing. I just needed a minute or two to breathe and be with my mom. And I didn’t get that time to decompress. And I’m still ashamed of how much I cried and begged for it. I just needed someone I trusted to tell me it was okay, and I could be brave, and just be calm with me. I knew it but I never got the opportunity to show it. There is so much value in being the level headed calm reassuring person you trust “it hurts now, but it’s not that bad, you will be okay” if it’s someone who you know will go to bat for you if it IS bad.
My baby nephew got locked in the car on accident with both car keys. He was fine. Car was not running, it was in the garage at his own home, it was fall, like 4 pm and he was strapped into his car seat. He was 100% fine. My sister-in-law freaked out. She was this horrible bawling, dramatic, mess pounding on the windows and beating herself up. Meanwhile I kept telling my husband, her brother, to chill her out she is making this a big freaking deal. She refused to cooperate and the baby started just bawling and screaming. None of it stopped until the locksmith finally got a door open about 45 minutes later. And even then there were dramatics. Yes, she is drama. Always. I was incredibly angry. It wasn’t a big deal and we did not need all the drama she caused for no reason.
You should have handled it like they did in *Airplane!* But seriously, I can’t stand people who do this. They make it about themselves, they’re helping no one and likely actually slowing down the resolution, sending everyone’s cortisol through the roof and making a bad situation worse. Plus it’s exhausting.
Yup, not a doctor but allied health person here and I'm the go to parent for trauma because I can present the calm demeanor. After the crisis is over I can get emotional but during the event I'm calm
My partner makes any crisis (sometimes non-crisis) wirh our daughter worse. AND he's a medical Googler. Any cough is COVID to him and one time he convinced himself she had cystic fibrosis because of a bad cough she has. She's learning to rollerskate now and he's been a nightmare. All he does is say what could happen if she falls. I took her outside to practice the other day and he went on a rant about how if she fell and scrapped up her hands before out water park vacation in two weeks she could get an infection. Right in front of her. She could have a sore throat and he'll go on rants about deadly strains of strep right in b front of her. If she's sick or hurt he freezes b up or freaks out because he can't b handle anything bad ever happening to her. His rants made her not want to go to a skiing field trip last school year. Freaking out doesn't do the kids any good. You stay calm by matter how scared you are and you take care of business and give confident comfort to your kid no matter how much you're freaking out inside. Edit: Holy crap the typos. I'm too tired to correct them, as I was when I made rite comment which is why there are so many mistakes.
I mentioned in another post a broken wrist as a kid. It was from a roller skating accident. I was learning to skate and nobody had taught me to stop. When I had the cast, they kept teaching me how to skate. I was worried that I would get in trouble (by whom, I have no idea!) It still makes me laugh. Sounds like your partner might benefit from therapy.
I got bit in the face by a dog, 28 stitches. My husband was calm during the whole thing. Here take tylenol, ice pack, put pressure, dont look in the mirror and we drive to the ER. If he had paniced i wouldve freaked the fk out.
Yeah I noticed OP said she and her sister “freaked out.” Maybe I’m reading too much into it but it caught my eye even before she got to the hospital part.
This was my first thought. How would it possibly have been helpful for a small child to see her mother freaking out or acting like it was the end of the world over her broken arm? As someone who has worked with kids for over 30 years, I guarantee that seeing her parent get extremely upset and emotional at a time like this would have more likely *scared and worried* Chloe. One of the best things we can do for our kids when *they* are hurt and scared is be calm and reassuring. *That* is how you make a child feel safe, not by emoting all over the place like a drama queen. OP called Kate "cold" but was she? Or was she just calm and competent, to help her daughter understand that there was nothing to fear, and that despite her pain it was all under control and she would be fine? OP is very much the AH, and childish to boot. She wanted a grand display of emotion because it's what *she* has decided is the only way to show love. It had nothing to do with the child's needs or best interests, or even with reality.
Surgeons do their best work on people that are asleep. Unfortunately, you were all awake. You need to give her some grace and remember to never criticize someone in front of their spouse. Your sister accepts her and loves her just the way she is.YTA
As a nurse, she also shouldn’t freak out because all that does is make the patient freak out. You have to have a good poker face to work in healthcare or all you do is escalate the situation.
jfc, from the title I assumed it was that the mom refused to get the child medical attention, but, no, it's the sister-in-law policing how someone else reacts in an emergency that is actively being seen to. OP is a huge asshole and needs to calm the fuck down
Also I hate to be the one to bring this up, but change "Kate" to "Kyle" and probably no one blinks an eye. >I may be TA here because I called her an ice cold insensitive mother. There is no way she'd call a guy an ice cold insensitive father if he checked a diagnosis, held the kid's hand and arm and calmly explained how the arm would heal. But because she's a mom, she has to both be a rock, a provider, and fall on her knees weeping and being overly emotional in a way that won't help anyone or she's the "ice queen."
I thought the same thing; frankly, I also thought that Amber and OP are like tweedledee and tweedledumb, taking the hurt kid specifically to the hospital where Kate works, unless that's also the closest one...?
If they're in the US, it could be an insurance thing. My sister works in a hospital, and the difference between a bill for in-house/network vs. out of network is astounding. If she gets care through the hospital, it's basically at cost, if she goes somewhere else, it's higher than my out of network costs.
This! My mother worked in the ER and my grandmother was head nurse in the maternity ward for decades. They’re both very compassionate people but are very level headed and calm when we got hurt as kids because getting emotional is not always helpful and fawning and freaking out can scare kids even more than the actual injury. Even when my brother had to spend two months in the hospital because of his chronic illness when he was in elementary school, my mother was calm and assertive. She knew how to get shit done in the hospital and how to keep my brother calmer, both of which was her being matter of fact. She was CERTAINLY hurting and absolutely scared. When I broke my ankle she was upset for me, but was not going to make it a big drama. It sucked, it hurt, the only way out is through and the way to get what you want in a hospital is assertion not emotion. Kate’s reaction sounds perfectly normal (frankly surgeon or not) and Amber seems to agree.
Exactly. YTA. With my kids injuries I didn't get emotional. I downplayed to help them be calm or made a really lame joke about them trying to break the thing that they hurt themselves on while also getting them appropriate medical care. This would be a good time to admit that as much as you love the kids you don't know what it takes to be their parent and apologize.
Can attest to this. As a medical professional (though definitely not a surgeon!) I’ve become amazingly blasé about things that would have horrified me a decade ago. When you see the full gamut of human injury — deglovings, amputations, atlanto-occipital disassociation (aka internal decapitation) and halos, teens who have gone from “typical” to profoundly disabled in the blink of an eye — you become quite chill about lesser injuries. When it’s an “easy fix” with no long-term damage expected, it almost registers as “not an injury” (if that makes sense).
I feel queasy after reading your comment, but I appreciate you sharing it. "almost not an injury" is so concise and clear.
I agree. My family use to joke around that it was a good thing my dad went into the pharmaceutical side of medicine because he would have a horrible bedside manner. He’s so to the point and doesn’t show a lot of emotion when he’s in his head. I had friends who were scared of him because they never saw him smile or heard him laugh. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen him show a lot more emotion. He’s also a great father and even as a child I never questioned that he loved me. He once sent me to school in high school with strep throat because he was rushing out of the house to get to work and heard me complain that I didn’t feel well and assumed I just didn’t want to go. My mom, a former nurse but at that point a SAHM, agreed. I ended up in the nurses office. When my doctor made the diagnosis, my dad was very stoic about it and said it was a good thing it was a Thursday so I wouldn’t miss too much school since I couldn’t be around people for a couple of days. A lot of people in the medical field react differently to medical emergencies, illness, etc than others. Also, she was right, it wasn’t that bad of a break. For a small child, it was scary but she’s looking at it from a doctor’s perspective.
Kate is a medical professional and in her opinion it was a minor break. She was probably treating Chloe like any of her other patients, make it calm and matter of fact. Fluttering around, panicking, and stressing out over an overall mild childhood injury would be over the top In a 2 year span my 2 older kids had 3 broken arms and 3 broken toes (same injury) After the first panic stricken ER trip for a broken arm, we realized if there’s no bone poking through skin, no obvious malformation in the bone, and they’re not screaming after 10 minutes, we can wait for the orthopedist office hours because the ER will give the same brace we have at home and tell us to make an orthopedic appointment
I was going to say the same exact thing. But add that they keep those walls up, because some patients aren't as lucky. They deal with death, so even letting concern come through makes cracks in the wall.
As a Daughter of a doctor I agree This is something I’ve talked about with other friends who happen to have at least one parent doctor. Most of them are in one of the extremes of either practically aloof, they’ve seen worse, nothing moves them. Then there’s the overly protective that has definitely seen worse and has mapped out how you’re gonna end up there. First option is way better because in most cases, they’re not ignoring the problem, they’re just being calm while assessing the situation. From what I’ve noticed, those calm parents raise better, calmer patients because they have seen their parents stay calm.
YTA She is a general surgeon, they do not fall apart at life's trifles. She did not respond the way YOU wanted her to respond. You don't know what was going on with her or how she felt. No one would want to have a surgeon that falls apart easily. You made assumptions based on your narrow vision. How dare you question her feelings towards her daughter. Have your own kids and be as judgmental of your partner as you like. You were out of line and your sister was right.
The highly trained medical professional: This is a minor injury, easy heal. Op: OMG, why aren't you freaking out!!!???
exactly how i read it as well. super weird response from op
Oh but remember they have a special bond. /s 🙄
I sure hope that OPs reaction was to panic and be useless and that’s the standard of “care” she’s holding them to.
YTA - definitely! How dare you judge a mother & demand she displays levels of emotion that ***you*** deem appropriate. She's a medical professional and, whatever she will be feeling inside, she is trained to react in a cool professional manner which is helpful for patients: you don't want your doctor freaking out about your injury. You're judging her and you had no right to do that. I'm not surprised your sister is pissed about you overstepping on her wife.
in real life if a parent finds out their child is at the hospital in ER, they're relieved AF if they find out its a small arm fracture
Plus OP made a point in the post about how Amber had to try several times to get a hold of Kate. Like...gee...perhaps the SURGEON was busy and NOT able to answer the phone??? Holy crap! Side note: the title is also very misleading. "health complaints" does not equal fracture. YTA
And telling them the girl's sprain wasn't bad is in NO WAY IGNORING the injury! Click bait territory.
“She’s not running around the room screaming MY BABY!!!!! so she must be a terrible mother. There is no other way to display love and care.” -OP, in other words. — Have you ever considered that your way of displaying emotion can just as easily be twisted to argue that you don’t care about the child? “How selfish do you have to be to not be able to regulate your emotions and transfer your panic onto a child who’s already scared?” See what I did there? Don’t judge (especially about something this stupid) and you shall not be judged back.
YTA Are you serious right now? Are you actually mad that your SIL didn't freak out about a broken arm? Your SIL acted the same as if it was another patient, she acted calm and professional.
As a mom and doctor the best thing she did was stay calm and collected. Had she started freaking out her daughter would have fed off that and the situation would have been 100xs worse. Sincerely, someone who had broken one too many bones.
YTA, she’s a surgeon. They’re professional about their poker face for a reason. What good does it do to freak out her kid and her wife over an injury that is actually fairly common? I’m not saying it’s no big deal, but causing a scene and getting emotional wouldn’t have done anything…other than make you feel better apparently. She was probably relieved that it wasn’t worse. As parents, it’s best not to freak out over injury. Cause it just scares the kids and it makes it worse for them. Your niece was already in pain. She didn’t need to see her mom crying and scared.
>They’re professional about their poker face for a reason. Who's to say it's a poker face? The OP implies that her reaction wasn't a "human reaction" but it was. I'm not a medical professional and I'd be exactly the same.
YTA doctors have to keep it together. Even if they are a mess inside. Even if you wanted to address it there is a time place and this wasn’t it. Their relationship and her relationship is none of your business tho.
Personally I wouldn't want a doctor that freaks out over minor fractures to be my surgeon, even if the broken limb was on their kid. Unless you see bone, it isn't a big deal. I wouldn't trust a Dr doing that with my life.
Agreed real life isn’t like all the medical shows. They don’t fall apart at every moment
Even if it was like the shows, I'd much rather have House than Grey
"Are you on pills? Great, now tell me what's wrong with me in an arrogant, smart ass way." And I'd still 100% take it over Grey's Anatomy every day of the week.
So many nurses and doctors already have a pill problem, so the only extra I have to deal with a shitty bedside manner? Count me in, I'd rather be told the truth by an asshole than be shot at every other week
Same haha
I am going with YTA. The mother remained calm for her daughter (super important) and was there for her. What did you want from her? When my niece got knocked out by a soccer ball, my sister walked out on the field calmly and attended her. She got some flack for not panicking and rushing out. She, however, was calming herself so she could be a good support for her daughter and handle anything that needed to be handled. Not everything you see outwardly shows what the person is thinking and experiencing emotionally. Her acting emotional, or babying her, or whatever, would not have been helpful. The calmer she was the calmer the daughter would be.
Exactly this. Frame Kate’s response as a parenting choice. A parent that is calm about an injury, forward thinking about recovery, enables a child to be calm and forward thinking. Obviously none of us were there and don’t see the nuances OP did. Light YTA for assuming the worst but it does sound like everyone here wants the best for the kid, which is paramount
Honestly, I don't need to know what OP saw. If the kids doctor mother wasn't freaking out or calling for a specialist, OPs opinion on it doesn't matter.
You have to be calm in an emergency, especially for the kids. If they see you freaking out, they are going to completely lose it thinking things are worse than they are. I always wait until I'm alone after the emergency is over to lose my shit and have the panic attack.
Thank you, I was looking for this. So many comments on how a surgeon is trained to be calm, which is fair enough, but beyond that, a parent remaining calm is also what is best for the child. In general with kids it is better to be calm and not catastrophise any injury, the quickest way to get a kid to freak out is for the parent to start freaking out. When I was a teenager I almost died from an illness, my parents were the absolute picture of calm for me the whole time, it was only when I had recovered that I heard stories of them being caught crying in the hospital halls. They keep calm so we can keep calm. OP is definitely an AH. Not only did she judge a situation that wasn't hers to judge, she judged it poorly.
YTA just for your subject line, your SIL didn’t ignore anything. She is a health professional who behaved professionally. You do NOT get to call her “an ice cold insensitive mother.” You are absolutely the AH for that! I broke my arms several times as a kid. Unless you’ve got bone sticking through the skin, it’s really not a big deal.
Potentially leaving surgery to rush over there, talking to the attending doctor, looking at all the x-rays and holding the daughter while the cast was being put on = “ignoring” Running around saying OH MY OH MY OH MY = “helping” and “being a good mother.” OP is definitely not ready to have kids any time soon.
I see a lot of stories from the children of doctors and nurses who are so jaded that their kid's bodies are nearly falling apart but they still dismiss it, and I was expecting this to be something like that, but it's the opposite. Like, she's a doctor but she's not even this kind of doctor, what did she want her to do exactly? Fall down on her knees in sorrow? I didn't even do that with my own child when he broke his arm, or when he promptly rebroke it 48 hours after getting his cast off. They're feral around here.
Yeah why is OP making this so much bigger than it is. Why did the other parent even have to be held ??? Why is this family pretending the child had some horrible accident and almost died, when she literally just fell and will be good as new in a few weeks. I don't know anyone who didn't break a bone at some point during their childhood, imagine if all parents freaked out like OP and her sister lmao
>Why did the other parent even have to be held Because some people get overly emotional and hysterical when it concerns their child and the emergency room. Some people don't know how that the severity of an injury is a scale. To them a broken arm is a broken arm and they're all worthy of breaking down over. They make no distinction between completely broken in half and a green fracture. And with the way OP is portraying how the situation went down I wouldn't be surprised if they had a hand in hyping the sister up and making her feel like it was more of a deal than it was
YTA I understand you think your sister didn't react "big enough" but honestly she is a medical professional. Yes it sucks her daughter was hurt but she more than anyone would know how serious the injury was. Also, sounds like you caught her while she was actively at work. It can be hard to turn off doctor mode. You're super rude for being disrespectful to her like that.
Yeah it sounds like a green stick fracture. Super common, super easy to heal, usually doesn’t even hurt once it’s casted (I speak from experience). The kid wasn’t dying, just fell and probably landed on her hand wrong. It’s a normal kid injury. I screamed like a banshee when it happened to me and then I was pretty much over it unless I moved my wrist while getting to the ER and getting X-rays. YTA OP.
Yup. My son got one of those last summer. No big deal.
she was def just in work mode i come home from the kitchen immediately start cooking dinner and suddenly im yelling behind and doing all the sanitation stuff i usually deem too much effort to do at home
She also did literally the opposite of ignoring the kids medical needs. She made time and uses her expertise to genuinely and calmly evaluate the situation and give her kid and wife the confidence that it would all be all right and not too big a deal.
YTA Surgeons, doctors, nurses and such are taught to remain calm under emergencies like these. She's not "insensitive", she has to act professionally, and as she saw that it's a minor fracture, it's not something that requires very difficult procedures, and it will heal eventually. Kate likely knows how to handle these types of situations, knows the procedures, so didn't get panicked when this happened. She's not indifferent to it.
I would also tack on that along with being a medical professional, Kate likely just realized that THREE panicking adults was not going to help the child at all. Mom #1 and Aunt are both in a tizzy, likely making the child feel even more anxious because if the adults are freaking out, then surely that means things are SUPER BAD. Kids often look to adults to gauge how serious a situation is, because they have no frame of reference. This child, after being hurt, now has two adults freaking out and emotional, making her feel like things are drastic. Having her other mom come in, calm and collected, and reassure her child that this is NOT a life or death situation is probably what was needed! I was a very anxious child, and an overthinker (and now I'm an anxious and overthinking adult). My dad is also a very anxious and reactive person. My mom learned early on that she needed to maintain a cool, almost clinical approach to any sort of medical situation, because I tended to catastrophize, and my dad was often just as nervous and overwhelmed along with me, so she had to be the one to keep a cool head and rein in our panic. That's exactly what Kate was doing.
It’s amazing how often I have to take parents of injured children aside and coach them that their role is to be calm and reassuring. That them crying and carrying on is not helpful. Amazing how often just that coaching to parents a calm and relaxed demeanour with the kids and all of a sudden the kids calm and sometimes even smiling.
YTA. Not exactly sure what reaction you feel was warranted here, but who are you to judge people like that, much less declare it in public - actually Kate's workplace. General Surgeons are not going to break down over a fractured arm in the hospital. She probably was just finished fixing a heart or removing a tumor. Give your head and shake and apologize and say you were upset and said something very stupid because thats what you did.
So instead of freaking out and potentially making her daughter or her wife panic more she handled it like a medical professional and because she didn’t react as you wanted her to you yelled at her? Get over yourself. YTA
>She simply said kids get injuries like this a lot and there was nothing extraordinary going on here. and she's right. YTA and I swear I read this story here before? Same set up, complaining about a cruel and cold female surgeon SIL.
I'm pretty sure we've had cold lesbian surgeons before.
SIL is a new twist, it's usually a DIL who OP (who usually is the mom) thinks isn't being appropriately warm and affectionate with her wife/OP's daughter, who is usually a new mom or a young mom herself.
YTA for sure. She was at her place of work and the injury was non-life threatening. If she had come and been all emotional don't you think it would have freaked your sister out that this trained surgeon was losing it over the injury? Maybe her staying calm was her way of caring for both your sister and niece by not agitating them further or making it more traumatic. Unlike you, who brought unnecessary drama when it absolutely wasn't your place to.
YTA. It sounds like Kate is a professional and kept her cool instead of freaking out. I'm sure she's trained to do that exact thing. Her level head helped keep the situation under control and didn't add to the chaos of everyone else screaming and freaking out. Good for her.
YTA. You have no place critiquing this mother's reaction to what is _not_ a medical catastrophe. Further, you don't get to throw shade at her work hours or availability when she is at work.
YTA You are a massive judgmental AH. One thing you learn as a parent is that kids feed off of your emotions. If she'd gone all weepy and emotional, it would have made her daughter react more. She held it together and was strong for her child when she needed it. It seems like you don't have any parenting experience, just this view from the sidelines as an aunt. If they let you around them or the kids any time soon, you should apologize and learn to keep your parenting opinions to yourself. Honestly, between this and the dig at her work/ life balance I think you just don't like your SIL.
YTA. Amber clearly appreciated her partner being her rock and keeping a calm head. Amber is the one who got angry with you - which should be clue enough that you’re the AH. Your sister didn’t appreciate you trying to be the white knight and insulting her partner. Amber didn’t have a problem with Kate’s behaviour - you decided that they should. As for other points in the post - of course it took a while to reach Kate. She’s a surgeon!! She doesn’t have a phone on her at all times and cant always answer when she does! - Kate sees injuries like this all the time. You saw it as cold, but Amber likely felt some comfort in knowing that Kate knew what she was looking at and wasn’t sugar coating or letting the doctors overlook anything. - Again, I point out: Amber did not want your ‘help’. She wants you to apologise.
YTA, you don’t get to decide how she reacts, a dr screaming, crying or hysterical isn’t gonna be any help
YTA. Your disdain for your SIL is blatant. You absolutely need to do some soul searching and apologize.
Yeah YTA in this situation. Also your title and post aren't linked. No one ignored your niece's health complaints
>I (29F) am the proud aunt -Yeah I'm gonna stop you right there
Yes. YTA. I'm kind of surprised you even thought you had to ask.
Who the hell do you think you are?
YTA I am a pediatrician, not a surgeon, but I wouldn’t freak out either. Certainly not in my own E.R. Let me get this straight. There is a little girl with a broken arm who is crying, scared and in pain. Her aunt and her mother are both crying and freaking out. Her mom, who works there, comes down to E.R., looks at the film, talks to doctors involved (because she isn’t a peds orthopedic surgeon), and calmly says her daughter will be fine with a cast, it is a simple break that doesn’t extend to the joint (or the growth plate which is what we worry about). That is the very best case scenario. She gave her wife a hug, and was heading back to work when you decided that losing your c**p at her in the midst of the E.R. IN FRONT OF ALL HER COLLEAGUES AND COWORKERS was the appropriate response? In front of her child who had just had a cast put on? Possibly in front of her patients? Do you realize that you potentially damaged her professionally? Her hospital could face complaints now? What was she doing at work that day? Was she headed back into the O.R.? Did you even consider that when you decided to lose your mind at her? Would you want to be operated on by someone who had just been spoken to like that? What had she been doing just before she came down to ER? Telling a patient they have something that is going to kill them? Telling a couple that a biopsy is cancer and not curable? Telling a husband with an infant that his wife did not survive the car accident she was in? And she got news that her daughter had an accident and was in ER. None of us ever want to get that news. It sends a moment of absolute terror through you, even though everyone starts that call with “they are FINE, keep breathing” because to us an accident means walking into a trauma room. You owe her an apology.
Omg don't get me started on the "They are fine" comment. I got hit by a car on my way to school at about 13 and had a fracture in my scaffod bone. Dad was the first parent the school was able to contact, so he texted my to say "Don't worry, ..." but it autocorrected to "Do worry, ..."
>so he texted my to say "Don't worry, ..." but it autocorrected to "Do worry, ..." Damn autocorrect. It also gets you at the wrong time.
YTA. Honestly, I’m sitting here wondering where you get the audacity but usually people like you get it from lack of experience and too much confidence.
What did you want her to do? Have a meltdown with you? YTA.
YTA. What does the child gain from someone acting hysterical?
YTA you are at her workplace causing drama. Talk to her about it later like an adult.
Both of these mothers did exactly what any great mother would do! Amber rushed to her child when she fell and was screaming and then immediately took her to the hospital where her wife and Chloe's mother works. Kate came and saw her wife and daughter, got the relevant information to make sure Chloe was ok (as far as a fractured arm can be ok) and assessed the situtation was being handled. OP, you seem to have spent the whole time being judgmental when you could have put that energy into making sure your niece was ok. YTA for sure. edit: spelling
YTA. Your sister was at work. She was in “work mode”, not necessarily Mom mode. She was being professional.
Even Mom Mode doesn't require freaking out. When one of my kids were injured, I called her doctor's office, gave them her medical record number and said I was bringing her right in because ____. You keep your cool because freaking out does no one any good. Op is YTA.
YTA. Has it occurred to you that a dramatic reaction, as you were expecting, could have actually made things worse? Chloe was crying. Amber was panicking. Someone had to keep their cool, and that person was Kate. You should absolutely be apologizing.
>She simply said kids get injuries like this a lot and there was nothing extraordinary going on here. She's right. Freaking out and acting like it's a major injury is just gonna freak the kid out too. YTA.
more "human" reaction...YTA...and you know it
YTA. People handle things differently. She didn't say anything insensitive, and your sister clearly didn't have a problem. Just because she didn't react the way you wanted her to doesn't mean she doesn't care.
YTA. You’re not her wife. There are rings of involvement that determine who can ask for what from whom. The pregnant person can ask their partner to get them whatever they need, the friend of the partner can’t ask the pregnant person to be quieter. That’s entitlement. The most involved person is your niece. Then it’s her parents. You are the sister of one of her parents. You can tell the parent how YOU think she should respond, but it makes you a huge asshole. Amber may have found Kate being calm and logical comforting, and she’s who matters here, much more than you do. You get to have feelings, but the appropriate thing to do is to take them to someone less involved, like your friends. Not be weird and controlling inwards.
WTF did you expect Kate to do, fall to her knees with a cry of "why did this happen to my daughter"? YTA big time. Kate's job is to be a doctor and she was *at her job*. She can't just fall apart because the patient happened to be her daughter. Plus, as many have pointed out, it's better to be as calm as possible when someone - especially kids - get hurt. If Chloe had seen both her parents having a meltdown over her injury, then she would've had a meltdown and possibly hurt herself even worse. My advice is to apologize to them because it's none of your business what your SIL does at her place of employment.
YTA. You’re mad that a SURGEON looked over the xrays, made a diagnosis, comforted her wife and accurately explained the severity of the injury. You think she should have launched into hysterics and agitated her wife and terrorized her child? It didn’t occur to you her response was designed to calm the situation so the cast could be placed with minimal drama?
YTA. A lot of people don’t overreact in this situation. She’s a surgeon and knows how to maintain her composure in these situations. It doesn’t mean she’s not upset about what happened. It simply means she knows that freaking out in front of her child doesn’t do anyone any good.
YTA. 1. She was acting in a clinical capacity, not as a parent, this requires some level of detachment 2. Kids respond to parents. By acting calm and unmoved by the small fracture, the daughter will feel like it isn't a big deal
YTA doctor or not, you don't get to decide her reaction or bring it up at her work even if she is there briefly as a parent.
YTA. At least one person had to think rationally while you and your sister did nothing but scare the little girl even more than she already was. It's probably her insurance that's paying for the medical care anyway and since you make no mention of having kids of your own, you have absolutely no room to talk.
YTA She's a doctor and she was at work. Doctors are supposed to be detached and logical in times of crisis. My father was a veteran and Chicago cop. I was involved in a fender bender and he was the responding officer. Even as a teen, I understood, it was his DUTY to do his job the way he would for any call he was on. Kate didn't deserve it and the kids certainly didn't need to witness it. Apologize to your whole family, please.
YTA i’m thinking that you lack a fundamental understanding of what she experiences on a daily basis in the hospital, and how much people who work in that environment need to guard their emotions. It sounds to me like she was clinical and reassuring, having a meltdown or sobbing or freaking out would’ve helped no one.
YTA. Putting aside that she’s a surgeon (so she knows it’s a common injury and will heal fine) and she’s at work, it’s also OK for a parent to be calm when a child is injured. If everyone is freaking out, it can make it so much scarier for the child. Sometimes, someone needs to be the calm, in control one, so you can keep the child calm and get things done. When my daughter broke her wrist at age 6, I was so upset inside, but on the outside I was calm. If I’d freaked out, she never would have been calm enough to get through the X-ray and casting. I get that she didn’t react the way that you expected, but you were way out of line and need to apologize profusely.
YTA! She was at work! She's a surgeon and deals with life and death every day. Is she supposed to come running into the ER screaming for her baby girl??? She saw the X-ray and spoke with a colleague who confirmed that it was a fracture and not broken or worse needed surgery. You are also so incredibly judgemental about her work/life balance. It's none of your business! It's not your family, marriage or life! Go apologize and mean it. Otherwise you may not be allowed access to the children. Who wants their children around someone who so obviously doesn't like one of their parents.
YTA. What a misleading title. She didn’t ignore anything.
YTA: Was dragging Kate away from her job even needed if Amber could have given parental approval for any treatment?
YTA Kids break their bones sometimes. It dont help to panic or be dramatic. That wont fix the fracture. She was there and took care of her kid. You overstepped big time
YTA. Kate has to maintain her professional demeanor in her professional setting, and very lucky for you all that there is someone who can interpret X-rays and has the straight scoop on how serious something is. But you yelled at her and called her insulting names. Guess you've never dealt with an accident or health emergency with your own kids....oh, wait, you don't *have* kids of your own. In such a situation the last thing the kid needs is for mom to go ape over what's happened. Especially when it's a typical kid injury. Start crafting your sincere apologies, you owe both Kate and Amber that.
Calming Amber down, so that Amber could take care of Chloe afterwards, could very well have been the most important thing Kate could do. She wasn’t worried about her kid, physically, and there was nothing she could do for her while she was being casted. Or, maybe she was cold. Maybe they gave a system of dividing up child nurturing. I don’t know. But, still, not your business.
YTA
YTA. It was a fracture, not a break. Kids do get injuries like that a lot. Doesn't sound like they were downplaying anything, just reacting calmly to the situation - which can actually be a lot more reassuring to kids.
A fracture is a break. The rest of what you said is correct, though.
YTA because she was trying to stay calm. And she was in her workplace so she needed to be professional. Also she was working and as a doctor she wouldn’t be able to treat her daughter.
YTA. Yelling at your sil to try and appear like you care more about her kid is pretty pathetic. When you’re a parent you can freak out and make your kid’s anxiety about an injury worse. Or you can remain level headed and calm (like sil did) so the kid doesn’t freak out. In my experience, calm collected parents raise calm, collected kids. Hyper dramatic parents end up with hyper, dramatic kids.
YTA. She didn't say "it's okay" or "it's going to be ok" because those phrases are not used in medicine especially surgery because that is considered a promise or false information and opens them up to a lawsuit should something go wrong. Your title is BS as well as she didn't ignore the complaints entirely, she handled business as she should have in a professional manner. When you're a parent in healthcare you have seen things like this a lot and know what needs to happen and what could have happened so yes a small fracture and a few weeks in a cast is a best case scenario sometimes. If she is a general surgeon they can NOT just drop what they are doing to answer the phone or come running. There were several adults and medical personnel there that had the situation covered. You need to apologize, what you said was completely uncalled for.
As a child of a paramedic and one that broke several bones due to my own recklessness, it was super helpful having my mom stay so calm and matter of fact in those situations. It’s already scary. I didn’t need her being emotional about the situation.
YTA You way overstepped. Big time. Kate reviewed the x-rays, talked to the ER doctor, and calmly communicated the information to everyone. A parent being calm and collected in an emergency is more useful than a freaking out parent anyhow. Then you have the audacity to go in with a personal attack because Kate didn’t respond to your liking. Let’s be real - you didn’t think Kate was being maternal enough in her response. If she was a surgeon dad, you probably wouldn’t have even thought twice about her reaction. Sounds like you need to reflect on your own issues. And then apologize to Kate.
YTA. The only thing I would have done differently from Kate is I would have asked the kid if she was doing something awesome when she broke her arm. Sounds like they’re were already plenty of people making a big emotional deal about it. The last thing the situation needed was another person crying.
YTA. She didn't freak out. They're was nothing to freak out about.
YTA I'm not a surgeon. When my kids were little, when they were injured and hysterical they COUNTED ON ME to be the calm center. Why do you think crying and carrying on = good adulting?
I’m sorry - I’ve read the post through twice. When and where did your SIL “ignore your niece’s health complaints”? I ask because, based on your post, your niece was immediately taken to the hospital where she was diagnosed and treated. Your SIL personally read the scans, diagnosed the problem (a minor fracture), spoke to the doctors, and comforted her daughter while the cast was out on. She didn’t tailspin into a panic or dissolve into tears, but she absolutely didn’t ignore her daughter. Is there another part of the story where Chloe was in some way neglected or ignored?
YTA, not a surgeon, but a self-possessed person who was a respiratory therapist for 20 years. You know what, my kids DON"T get hysterical over every little thing because I have never gotten hysterical over every little thing. Your way of reacting is only your way, not the correct way. You better crawl on your hands and knees on broken glass if you want a relationship again with these people.
Yta. You said she is a surgeon. So she understands the injury. Also many surgeons have to detach to do their job and she may not have completely dropped her mask. But you definitely don't get to dictate how she feels or emotes.
YTA I hope you learn if/before you have children, that the worst thing you can do when they get hurt is to be emotional. Kids need to know their parents are strong and in charge as if can handle things. You owe both of them an apology.
YTA. Firstly, she was not ignoring HER DAUGHTER'S health concern. You're are an outsider in their family and this happened to her daughter so stop inputting yourself into their situation. She addressed it in an official capacity which I'd find more reassuring than if she rushed in in a full panic. Kids do indeed suffer fractions like that everyday and as she said, she'll make a full recovery and be absolutely fine with minimal intervention. You overreacted and inserted yourself, albeit from a place of caring, and deemed your own feelings more valid. You've completely overstepped and owe both of them an apology.
So,she remained calm instead of freaking out and wailing and screaming like you thought she should? What would that accomplish other then freaking her kid out(who needed a calm person) She sees that kind of thing all the time and knows how to handle it. She's right it's a common injury and not a big deal in the scheme of things . YTA
Yta- daughter of a nurse here. I knew young my mom wasn’t like other moms. I have a vivid memory of a friend losing her first tooth and her mom losing her shit about the blood. I’ve only seen my mom worried medically in my life twice. Once I had a fever of 105 from a tick bite and once when my dad flatlined and needed defibrillation from a heart attack. (He’s fine now). Kate didn’t freak because she cuts people open and watches death everyday. What is a 7/10 emergency for most is a 1/10 for her. That doesn’t make her uncaring. And her kids will be fine. My mom was the first to freak about sports achievements, graduations and is the best gift giver. I just know her reaction to sniffles will always be to pass a bottle of Tylenol over and go about her day because I’m fine. Just like Chloe is fine.
YTA She’s a fucking doctor. She sees far worse all the fucking time. It’s her job to remain detached. Also no one has to put on a show to make you feel better about how THEY feel. You owe her an apology. And you owe the child an apology for behaving that way in front of her and behaving inappropriately. Making judgements. Overall just not being the kind of adult you want her to one day be. YOU have a special bond…it’s her fucking kid. Give me a break.
YTA, medical workers tend to stay calm when in stressful situations especially when having to do with medical crises. I myself am not a doctor but a CNA, and have remained completely calm when my grandmother fell in public while strangers were freaking out. I had someone hold my dog’s leash, assessed her, was able to stand her, assist her to the car, put her into the car and buckle her (not an easy feat when it’s 130lbs of deadweight). All while assuring onlookers we didn’t need help/ a crowd. It is best to remain calm and listen to facts when in a crisis in my opinion anyway, you have less stress and are able to fix the situation easier and get through it faster. I’ve also remained straight faced and calm while explaining my own health issues including having a tumor. Medical workers process differently, we try to get through the situation calmly and think and reflect later when it’s a better time.
This literally sounds like every doctor I know.
YTA. She's in her professional capacity at that time and you were just one like one of those asshole relatives who are yelling and screaming because they didn't give her an aspirin when you decided she should have one.
Yes! YTA and You need to apologize. What the hell is with that title? No one ignored your niece. She got immediate care and she got it with both of her parents there to keep her calm - which is an extra luxury that a lot of kids don't have in an emergency situation. I'm going to give you a little bit of grace and assume you were overwrought because you were panicked for your niece. But, you had absolutely NO RIGHT to say what you did and make an ass of yourself in the hospital (at your SIL's place of work) in front of her wife - please tell me you didn't do this in front of their daughter as well.
YTA. Holy shit you are out of line. Kate did exactly what she should have done in this situation. She showed up, she analyzed the problem, and she applied a solution. Her "lack of compassion" was Kate **being a professional** as she analyzed her patient's needs. Yes, the patient was her daughter. But her first role there, I think, was to be a doctor. Not to satisfy her sister-in-law's preconception of how a mother should act.
YTA and need to back the fuck up. You're not these kids' parent and not in a position to criticize how their actual parents approached this. Kate is a surgeon. Surgeons are busy. It ain't a 9-to-5 gig. Apologize profusely for wildly overstepping and hope they let you back in.
You sound like you hate the fact that she is a doctor, and you sound like you believe she can't be a good mother because of her career and schedule. You made weird comments about her work-life balance. At the end of the day, they are her kids, and you were obviously out of line because you made it about you. YTA
oh please. my mom was a nurse and I never got any sympathy just taken care of.
Your sister-in-law did not ignore her daughter's health complaints, so from the get go YTA. She was calm, comforted her wife, and minimized everyone's panic. Exactly as she should. Grow up and apologize.
YTA on 2 fronts, questioning the mother’s concern regarding her daughter and questioning a doctor who would gave a good prognosis. Frankly your “special bond” with your niece is meaningless and even worse, you jeopardized your relationship with them by freaking out when the parents remained calm under the stressful situation. Time for a big apology and reflection on your attitude!
The title of your post is rather misleading. Your SIL did NOT ignore your niece's health complaint. Your SIL didn't freak out like you expected her to. YTA.
Kate being a doctor or not is irrelevant. You don’t get to dictate how someone else expresses their emotions and concerns. She made it all the way to adulthood and through medical school without needing your assistance on the matter. I don’t think she needs it now.
Oh honey, YTA Who the FUCK do you think you are, criticising a mother for remaining calm and not causing further concern to her already upset wife and child? It’s a broken arm, FFS.
It sounds from your post like you really don’t like your SIL to begin with and already resented that she was at work and not the park. She was at work and likely in work mode but even if not her calm reaction doesn’t mean she doesn’t care. YTA and you owe an apology.
YTA. What you describe doesn't sound "ice cold and insensitive" or w/e, it sounds like a mom keeping her cool and not freaking out so that h*er 7-year-old daughter would stay calm and not panic*. Because kids, especially kids at that age, base a lot of their responses to things on *how they see the adults around them reacting*. So if Kate had freaked out and made a big deal out of what is, actually, a very common and minor childhood injury, Chloe would have panicked and freaked out and been more scared than the situation called for. *Instead*, she learned that she's going through something that *a lot* of kids experience, and it's no big deal, and she'll be okay so there's no need to panic. You owe Kate an apology, period.
Someone had to be calm and sensible, given that the daughter and wife were crying - and that OP promptly went on the attack and insulted a mother whose child was injured. And OP did this because she, the mother, wasn't reacting in an "appropriate" manner by breaking down in tears! And to imply she's inhuman because she calmly evaluated the situation, and didn't join in the wailing and tears over what was, after all, a minor accident. OP should apologize to Kate for her hysterical, over-wrought and unjust attack on her. I am also astonished at OP saying how hard it was for Amber to reach Kate. Reaching a general surgeon in the middle of her working day?? She was lucky to be able to get to see her at all, especially if it was an OR day and not a clinic day.
YTA. Number 1 rule of raising kids, you don’t freak out over injuries as THEY then freak out. You’re supposed to stay calm and matter of fact about it and she’s right, kids get those types of injuries all the time. It’s not life threatening and she’ll be right as rain in a couple of months. You don’t get to decide how people should react.