Anyone who stumbles upon Laura Noonan’s Instagram account knows two things right away: She’s married to a doctor.
“Everyone thinks my my husband’s job is my entire personality,” Noonan, 34, tells TODAY.com, “but all they're seeing is one sliver of my life that I choose to post on social media."
Noonan identifies herself with a "doctorwife" hashtag and shares daily videos with her 20,000 followers about her “physician family,” which includes, Tim, an infectious disease specialist, and their sons Ethan, 4, and Levi, 2. The couple is expecting their third child, a boy, in October.
Noonan says her niche is similar to that of military/police/firefighter wife influencers. She talks about topics such as medical school debt, relocating for work and date nights getting interrupted by consult calls.
“There are so many unique nuances that come with being married to medicine,” Noonan explains. “Right off the bat, I think of going through residency and fellowships. It’s one of those things that you can’t understand unless you’ve been there.”
“I get so many DMs from people who are like, ‘I’m so glad I found your account. I feel so seen,’” Noonan continues.
Noonan is regularly accused of being tone-deaf, out of touch and braggy.
“Your husband’s job is your entire personality. And it’s LAME,” one critic commented.
Kari J. Winter, a professor of global gender and sexuality studies at the University of Buffalo, calls Noonan a “documentarian and memoirist.”
“She absolutely has an identity of her own. She’s helping people who are going through similar things — and that is meaningful,” Winter tells TODAY.com. “But at the same time, she is picking up on an ancient patriarchal notion by calling herself a ‘physician wife.’ It goes back to times when a woman ceased to exist as a person recognized by law. She lost her personhood when she got married.”
Noonan described her house-hunting woes in a recent reel: “When a realtor tries to upsell you from $600,000 home to a $1,000,000 home because you’re a ‘physician family, who can afford it.’”
“Is this page satire? It has to be…” one person wrote.
Other reactions included:
- “We had the exact same thing happen!! I could have written this!”
- “Took my time to look through the account just to confirm her whole personality is her husband’s job.”
- “Physician family means both of the married couple are physicians. Not one.”
- “Girl, get a damn job and stop complaining about money.”
Noonan, a former family support specialist at a low-income preschool, says she tries not to let the critics get her down.
“For the people who are like, ‘Get a job,’ if I did go back to work — our kids wouldn’t have a ton of support. We don’t have family here,” she says. “I manage all of our lives, and that’s important.”
