RIDDLE: don't look ahead to answer!! Used for student's research purposes

[Funmum1234]

Once a father and his son were travelling in a car. The car gets in an accident. The father dies on the spot and the son is grievously injured. He is taken to the hospital and he needs an operation. The doctor sees him and refuses to work saying, "He is my son". How is this possible?

I had this a while ago on a work training course - not everyone got it right. The doctor is the boy's mum.

I was very pleased the day DS aged 3 told me he didn’t want to be a doctor because that was a girls job. (While setting him straight of course!)

The doctor is his mum, because women can be doctors too lol. I confess I have heard it before though

I’ve always wondered if more people
would get the answer if it was a daughter, not a son.

Ooh that’s interesting @riotlady a sort of sleight of hand in the wording…

I think they would actually. You're on to something there.

Sadly? 😁

Yes.

Obviously no

I’m ashamed to say I didn’t work it out - I’m going to read it to my teens later.

I have heard this before so knew the answer so asked dd who got it right and ds who didn't know.

The surgeon is the mother

It’s a very old riddle designed to show up sexism. I’ll be astonished if I don’t read the right answer (mother) by every single previous poster.

Like a sexes reversed version of the corpse bride?

Or the kids other dad?

The son could have been adopted and therefore had a biological father and an adoptive father.

Or the two fathers may have been in a same sex relationship and either had a son via surrogacy or adoption.

Hmmm. I know this one and it's not all that accurate now - it assumes all kinds of relationship "conventions".

A number of years ago I remember hearing a radio interview with someone who was a mum working in a hospital and was talking about difficulties in deciding to change hours to part-time because of childcare compatibility. My assumption from the presentation of the interview, presumably deliberately, was that she was in a support role. In the final minutes it came out that she was a very specialist surgeon - part time or full time, the role would have been one that was in serious demand but very few people trained to do it. Only stereotyping around 'working mum' on my part had gone straight to that conclusion.