Embrace the Mom Guilt: How to Succeed as a Busy Healthcare Provider and Parent

I try to avoid work trips that stretch longer than 3-4 days without my kids. As I write this, it’s Easter Sunday. I’m in the air flying out on the first leg of a 7-day trip. The simultaneous relief and mom guilt instantly set in.

If you are anything like me, you struggle daily with how to be both a good doctor AND an engaged, involved parent at the same time. Both jobs are simultaneously demanding, time-consuming, and rewarding. Hard working parents in healthcare who struggle with professional burnout are also more likely to struggle with caregiver burnout. Who knew that Medicine and Mothering would share so many similarities? The relationships with our patients and children follow similar themes: they need us more than we need them. They depend on us. They look to us as role-models: beacons of constancy, consistency, and stability sprinkled with occasional heavy duty nursing skills. Case in point: This morning I changed 4 poop accidents in 4 hours. (In a vain attempt to win the war on potty training, I reminded my 3-year-old daughter Lynelle that Princesses don’t have accidents. To which she fired back, “Mommy. That’s not fair. Ariel doesn’t have a butt!”)

Variety makes life interesting. And like many other things in life, when it comes to how much time you should spend with your children, every mom is different. But for me, repeatedly I’ve come to the inescapable conclusion that I’m the best version of my mom-self when I spend time-limited, discrete, thoughtful blocks of time with my children separated by periods of uninterrupted adult time. I feel guilty even putting that on paper! With a world full of weekend golf, fantasy football nights, and guy trips, men don’t need to be reminded to take adult breaks from their kids. It is an accepted, intrinsic part of our society. We women need reminders! For me, it’s about quality of time with my children over quantity of time. When I’m able to break my kiddo weekend up with lunch with friends, tennis time, or even a long solo work-out with my glorious noise canceling BOSE headphones, then I’m much more energetic, focused, and joyful with the remaining time I do spend with them. On the other hand, if I go through a weekend white knuckling it without any break time from kiddos, I find myself in the dreaded parental vortex of the Sunday Evening Stare- starring at the clock as the minutes past- anxiously waiting for baths to be done and bedtime to arrive.

The point is this: Excelling as a healthcare professional and mom while trying to have just a sliver of social life will inevitably involve competing time priorities and conflicting emotions. And that is ok. Embrace the discomfort. You are trying your best. Learn what you and you alone need to be happy wearing all of life’s hats.

Doctoring is hard. Parenting is even harder. Be kind to yourself. Learn what your version of balance looks like. Then embrace it. Support your fellow females in their equally difficult and ever-changing quest for professional-personal life balance. At the end of the day, children just need to feel safe and feel loved. And the wonderful thing is there are soooooo many different ways to do that while wearing all of your many life hats. Along the way, your little girls (and boys) will watch your powerful example and learn that they too can one day have it all. You got this, momma!