My transformation from working mom burnout to good-enough mother
When I was a young working mother, I felt very unsuccessful. I struggled to care for three children, work full-time as a physician, and get adequate help from my husband. Childcare challenges (an unexpectedly sick child) seemed to present themselves at the worst possible moments when I was knee-deep in sick NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) babies.
My husband never asked me outright if he could be of help. My research work seemed to flounder, and I hated my new job. Sure, I showed up for clinical work every day, but on many days, I wondered what I was doing and where I was headed in my career.
My seven-year-old son was transitioning poorly from Montessori to traditional school. My four-year-old daughter started biting her nails and wetting the bed. Only the baby seemed pretty chill. I was struggling to manage it all, as I am sure other working mothers do, too. I rarely asked for help from my partner or my friends. I tried to be everything for everyone and do everything for everybody. Sound familiar?
I found myself driving home in a rush to take some febrile child to the doctor’s office or sprinting down the halls of the elementary school to meet a teacher for a called conference or blasting out of the hospital to make it at least once on-time for the soccer game that started at 5:00 pm.
I found myself always frazzled, constantly rushing, and doing these things continually, repeatedly, without any resolution or help in sight. I wanted to do all the things that were important for my children, my family, and work full-time.
Outwardly, I wanted to appear to be an involved, perfect, working mother and a competent, caring physician. Inside, I wanted reassurance that I was a good-enough mother, because, so often, I doubted it. Despite my wanting to take care of everything, I could not be two places at once.
I needed reassurance that my career was going in the right direction. I knew very little about publishing research and getting promoted. That felt scary. I needed support and connection with my friends at work besides the brief ten-minute visit during lunch that we rarely were able to eke out.
As a young working mother, around the age of forty, I hit a wall that stopped me in my tracks. It began as a terrible bad mood and morphed into major depression. I did not sleep, and I barely ate. I was irritable and angry. I hated my work life and resented my husband because he liked his job. All I did was worry about everything and everyone — my children, my boss, my schedule, my contented husband, and money.
Does this sound familiar to anyone else? You hit a wall composed of all the things you try to do well but only accomplish partially. You struggle on the outside with appearances, and you struggle on the inside with your feelings.
I had become the man on the talent show who ran around the stage spinning plates on sticks. He would twirl the sticks and balance a spinning plate on each one. He added more and more twirling sticks and plates a-spinning. He ran around the stage re-spinning those plates that started to wobble. His goal was to manage all the plates and have them spinning perfectly together - the more the better. THIS WAS ME.
My epiphany was my ability to see myself as that crazy man running around spinning plates. A good therapist helped me to see the necessary solution — take down some of the plates! As a result, I paused to examine my priorities — all my plates — and chose which ones to allow to crash and which ones to care for. And guess what else, I had to put up and spin a plate that was me. When I had my epiphany, I was not even one of my own plates.
I embarked upon an assessment of my values and my time. I loved medicine and loved caring for patients, so I did not choose to give up on that. I needed a mentor to help me assess my position, my current research projects, and possibilities for promotion.
I loved my children and being a mother. I wanted to devote my free time to my children and their well-being. I need surefire childcare arrangements that allowed me the security necessary to be away from them.
I had some resentments about my husband, how much he loved his job. I resented his lack of help. (I imagined he would just know what I needed help with.) I needed his understanding of my feelings and his help with some of the motherhood chores that I seemed unable to accomplish. I learned that I needed to ask for his help in doing specific things for me and for them.
The plate that was me and my self-care needed some spinning because, in all the busyness, I had forgotten to care for myself. There was no me time, no time to quietly reflect and think, no exercise program, no hobbies, and no long lunches or meetings for coffee with close friends.
The conflict that I encountered along the way were huge. The easiest thing to fix was better childcare coverage, a better nanny. I was fortunate enough to be able to afford that and a good nanny is worth her weight in gold. She even becomes part of your family. She worked for me as much as she worked for my children.
My job was harder to fix, and despite a promotion, I abandoned clinical medicine for a period to work for a health maintenance organization (HMO) as their medical director. I jumped off the NICU ship into an easy lifeboat of working nine to five admin job with weekends off. Attending meetings and traveling as an executive physician were not stressful. It was easy.
My marriage was the hardest thing to repair. We began by making a list of each activity that we did for our family. My long list of mother duties — you know this list — included costumes (I made my children’s by hand), teacher gifts, birthday parties, sports practices, uniforms, and games, class parties and fundraisers, parent teacher conferences, pediatrician visits, dental checkups, orthodontist appointments, music lessons, and on and on.
His list was considerably shorter. It was an excellent exercise for us — writing down all our duties. (You should try it.) We also planned and undertook date nights, really getting away for a nice dinner and the quietude to talk about our feelings. I discovered that he wanted to help me but did not know how — until I spelled it out for him. (The sooner that you learn that your husband or partner cannot read your mind, the better off you will be.)
Taking care of me was straightforward. In addition to therapy, I scheduled time to walk in nature twice each week and work out at the gym also twice weekly. (A gym with childcare was a true lifesaver.) I resumed my old hobby of counted cross-stitch which allowed me to quietly turn off my left brain and pretend to be meditating.
I made a routine of meeting a friend for lunch to talk and feel supported. Playing the piano brought me solace, despite my poor ability to make the sounds properly. Even practicing music that I did not know well helped, though. Music carried me away from stress to another place within my right brain, and uncoupled from my worrying, frustrated left brain.
My greatest achievement was convincing my husband that we both needed to have good rewarding jobs, that we needed to move to another location for our children’s schooling, and that he needed to help out with the day-to-day childhood activities.
The achievement ultimately was my feeling better, feeling renewed and rested. Feeling nourished and cared for. I had achieved this for myself using simple methods to better care for my wellbeing — exercise, sleep, hobbies, music, time in nature, and support from friends.
My transformation unfolded slowly and steadily over a two-year period. I left the HMO, changed jobs back into the NICU, and made more money. I worked fewer hours in my new position. I embarked on some professional development in an area of interest that required some new skills and ultimately became known as an expert in that new field.
I felt better about being a mother and was able to spend more quality time with my children while they were in elementary and middle school. Their transitions to new public schools went smoothly. And, I fell back in love with my husband of thirteen years, as we continued to make time for our marriage and support each other as needed.
I enjoyed running outside and staying physically fit. Exercise and being outside in nature became mainstays for my wellbeing. Playing music and performing hobbies were there as needed. I developed some amazing friendships at work that gave me a sense of feeling understood and supported.
Despite this wonderful story of transformation, I must admit that my plan was not easy to carry out and the conflicts I met along the way were tough. It took work, a lot of hard work. And it took professional therapy to help me identify key stumbling blocks to my happiness and fulfillment.
Nevertheless, this process was so worth it to me, and it will be worth it to you, too. I am writing this so that you can discover how to care for yourself during these busy working mother years, and so that you will feel successful as a working mother. I want you, too, to know what it feels like to be a good enough mother.
