Booty, booty, booty, booty

My talking toddler is an amazing little creature. At first he would mostly babble and jargon, now he says sentences. His newest feat is to repeat words he hears in music we are playing or on the radio. My husband is a hip-hop aficionado but songs with curse words have now been relegated to the after-bedtime hours for fear of having our toddler repeat them to his teachers at school or on the playground. He doesn’t really repeat things he hears on NPR, but I am hoping that one day he will start reciting things he learns on All Things Considered or better yet from the TED Technology hour.

I must admit that I taught him a “bad” word. Completely unknowingly. It’s not even a real curse word but it’s still not something I want him to repeat with hand movements. To keep him distracted during diaper changes and during his twice daily rub downs with petroleum jelly (he has had some eczematous flares that are now under control), I would recite body parts to him and tickle him. When I got to his butt he would giggle as I said “booty, booty, booty”. 

One day as I was changing he ran up to me and said “booty, booty, booty” as he grabbed my butt; full on butt grab, the little bugger just dug in. I laughed, handed him a truck and kept it moving. It became concerning when he would bee-line toward me any time I was changing or heading to the bathroom. He would recite “booty, booty, booty” as he proceeded to grab my butt, he even tried to reach into the toilet once. He has now become a Booty Monster! My husband and I have been working for the last 2 weeks to get him to understand not to touch butts or other private parts. He’s almost 2 so this process goes mostly like this:

- see smiling toddler approaching with hands raised and fingers splayed saying “booty, booty, booty”
- Mommy says “no Zo, this is mommy’s booty, you cannot touch”
- Zo looks questionably at Mommy (I know he’s thinking but a few weeks ago you were laughing)
- Mommy hands Zo a toy
- Zo takes toy and runs or more likely, Zo takes toy, throws it on the ground and begins to cry
- repeat daily for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks

Now, Mommy second guesses every gesture and phrase that is now cute but could potentially turn Zo into a raging maniac. Who knew? Not this Imperfect Doctor-Mama. Fingers crossed he isn’t doing this at school but I just can’t bring myself to ask his teachers.

Guest post: When imperfect feels perfect

I’m writing this with my laptop perched on a giant stack of review notes and printed lecture slides and I am purposefully ignoring the multiple powerpoint slideshows and files open on my desktop begging/demanding to be memorized. The worst part? My baby is at daycare, where she’ll be for another half hour to complete her 10 hour day. This is just so hard and sucky sometimes.

I’m a med student with a baby. I get asked all the time how I “do” it. Some weeks, it’s no big deal, it’s not that bad, and I feel the balance works well for our little family. But when she is brings me her favorite book to read, pulls the charger out of the computer, and screams until I read to her, I think to myself that I don’t know if I can “do” this, or even if I want to.

I have friends who have babies, too. One is a full time SAHM. Her instagram pictures of nature walks, arts and crafts, and “Sunday/Monday/EVERYDAY Funday” kill me a little bit inside. Another friend works from home and her pictures of “lunch with the little prince!” make me sigh/roll my eyes/shake my head (depending on the day, the most recent Histology quiz, or whether I got to see my baby before heading out in the morning).

I picked priorities. She was drinking formula at 3 months (end of summer vacation) but I made all my own baby food. Her grandma takes her to music class once a week since I can’t, but I put her to sleep every night. We read books and play all day Saturday, but Sunday mornings I go out to study.

My husband is awesome and supportive and doesn’t understand how I can love the field of medicine, love school (nerd, I know) and still feel so conflicted. I guess that’s the imperfect side of living your dream- other dreams sometimes get put to the side for a bit.

But as imperfect as the balancing act seems, when my baby is teething and only wants her mommy- and, since it is 3am, I am home (and awake), or when I get that HUGE smile and kiss when I come home, it feels so perfect. I’m sure some researcher somewhere has proven that listing bones, ligaments, and muscle attachments as a bedtime story, and speaking in mnemonics for disease presentations helps kids go really far in life. And keeps them happy. Here’s to hoping.

-Boxes

Less than perfect

I admit I’m not a perfect mother.

I wish at the end of the day, I can see all the bathwater that has sloshed out of the tub and likely making its way down cracks in tile and through the subflooring, and not angrily bark at the kids (who are at least in the tub and getting clean). After I bark and they are settled into their beds as I read their bedtime stories, I imagine how I could have handled it differently: with less anger, more love, and more humor.

I wish I could make them do things that they don’t want to do without the aid of bribery or sheer parental authority force. Like being creative and using Jedi mind tricks. Like being a positive shaping force instead of a strong-arming wet blanket. I manage to do this well sometimes, and others…well, I default to those methods which take the least time and energy.

I wish I could always be 100% attuned to them and their needs when we’re together, instead of being preoccupied with what I’m doing on the computer or the laundry or the person on the other end of the phone line. I realize this sometimes only after they raise their voice to tell me something again. Or act out to get my attention.  This always makes me feel guilty, vowing to try harder.

I wish I could put aside all of my stresses – and there are many big ones I deal with every day –when it comes to taking care of them, instead of letting those stresses spill over messily into my precious family time.

I have friends whom I think are better mothers. I imagine: what would she do in this situation? Or how would she handle this? Probably with more patience, I think. Less frustration, most likely. More accepting, I bet. This helps me be better in the moment, or sometimes the moment has unfortunately passed, but I’ll try to remember for next time.

I’m not a perfect mother. I’m a work in progress. But, I hope my children know how much I love them, and how much I think of my own imperfections, so that one day, we all could not be prouder of the mother I have become.



Posted originally on Momicillin.com.

My Holey Life

I desperately need to go shopping.

I am a physician, a professional, a role model, etc. Yet this is what the sole of my shoe looks like:



This is my underwear:



The cuff of my pants:



My socks:



(In my defense, those socks are only about a year old. I think our dryer eats clothing.)

And just in case you had any doubts in your mind that I am about as far from perfect as you can get, here's a photo of my child on a leash:



No, you can't pet her. But thanks for asking.

Guest post: Two weeks

I know I am imperfect all the time, but I felt particularly so during my recent two weeks on the wards.  Although I enjoy teaching the team of residents and students and doing some intensive patient care, it is also very hard.  And this was my first time on the wards since maternity leave, which was even harder.

One Saturday night, I was getting ready to leave the hospital at 8 pm.  My team had been admitting during the day and dealing with some other complicated issues, so I had stayed late.  I could have stayed even longer, but it was getting to be Baby’s bedtime.  I wanted to be at home for that and the team was under control.  Guilt-about-staying-at-work was slightly stronger than guilt-about-going-home, so it was time to go home.

I called my husband to come pick me up.  On weekend nights, there is no parking near where we live and we’re better off walking rather than moving the car.  We are within a 30-minute walk from the hospital.  We decided on the phone that Daddy would bring Baby in the stroller and we would all walk home together.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Baby usually likes walks in the stroller, but not this time.  He cried almost the whole way home.  And so did I.  He was hungry and tired and wanted his mama.  I was hungry and tired too and could not stand the sound of his distress.  Of course, it also started raining on us.  Not our finest hour. 

He forgot about all this as soon as we got home and put him to bed, but I continue to feel bad about being torn between work and home.  I have to remind myself to focus on the positive though.  Despite having a very busy service, I managed to sneak over to the OB floor to pump every 4 hours or so and sustain Baby’s feeding.  I am glad that my difficult weeks are interspersed with some easier ones, when I can spend more time with him.  And I am thankful that Baby has a wonderful Daddy to help take care of him.  All we can do is our best, even when it doesn’t always feel like enough. 


TaborF blogs at Tea with Dr. Tabor.
  

Why doesn't your mom just...

Setting:  tree pollen infested suburb of our nation's capital, springtime

Characters:
son's friend (unaffected) 
son (with puffy eyelids and superficial excoriations on arms/back/legs)
mom (pediatrician, imperfect)


Act I: morning, breakfast

MOM: (places drops in son's eyes, sprays up son's nose, 10 ml syringe generic nonsedating antihistamine in son's mouth).  Have a good day, sweetie.

SON: (blinking, sniffing, rubbing, scratching...  yet smiling.)  Thanks mom.


Act II: school, lunchtime

SON'S FRIEND:  (inquisitively) Hey, why doesn't your mom just take you to the doctor?

SON: (emphatically) Because my mom is a doctor.



                --  The end --


Summary:  A mother in medicine recognizes that despite everything she (as a pediatrician) knows how to do, and everything she (as a mother) wants to do for her son, she is imperfect in her ability to cure all.  Drops, sprays, creams, liquids for her patients...  plus kisses for her own son.

Epilogue: This mother in  medicine recognizes, more painfully, that she cannot prevent or cure cancer in her own parents. She can understand and translate the fast talking teams of surgeons, anesthesiologists, oncologists, radiologists.  And she can be there with support, a lot of love, and a little laughter amidst the tears.

Guest post: The Medical Student Mom Guilt

I knew I was crazy on probably the eighth hour into the first leg of the drive. I was perhaps one of the only people in my medical school class I knew of that took their family along for the ride that was two, back-to-back away rotations. Both of them were located quite a distance away.  Through the magic of Disney movies and some well-planned vacation weeks in between rotations, I managed to break up the tough, away schedules and lengthy drives with visits to family along the way. Sounds insane, right? What sort of mother takes their toddler out of Mother’s Morning Out (ironically named since my husband is the stay-at-home dad) to traverse the country with nonstop Cars, Over the Hedge and Disney movies?

Needless to say, I felt horribly guilty. It’s the same guilt you feel when you judge yourself against the mothers who have their children in play-based preschool programs. You know the ones. These are where the kids gather eggs every morning, feed bunnies and take woodland walks. Except your child is not that child.  My toddler was the kid sitting in the car watching another run of Mater’s Tall Tales while their mother drags them cross-country for a rotation.  Sometimes it gets a little lonely to keep hearing, “I can’t believe you brought your family to your aways.” Let’s not even talk about interview season. That is a whole ‘nother post of mother failure, right?

This guilt was nothing new to me. I blamed myself throughout medical school. Whether it was working on USMLE World from my mobile phone while holding my kid as he watched Sesame Street in the mornings, or it was trading my son out in shifts when I was newly postpartum so I could prepare for a test, I never felt like I was giving him what he deserved.

Was I a horrible mother? Medical school has definitely not made me the homemade baby-food making mama I had hoped to be, and I am horribly embarrassed to announce that my son is still not potty-trained. We gave up our apartment at the end of this year, and we moved home with my family to save money and help some family members in need of care. We will also visit some other family directly after graduation, so I seriously wonder if he is ever going to sit on a potty without hysterical tears until we finally get settled in our new home for residency.

I judge myself constantly. If I were not a medical student mom, I could have given my child a more even-keel life filled with playgroups, museum activities, more reading and less TV. Should I be doing those things despite needing to study and handle school and fatigue? Should I have done more anyway? Maybe sucked it up, because darn it – medical school moms are supposed to be smart and manage the house and family? Having it all and doing it all, right? 

Now I’m looking backwards. I am less than two weeks from graduation as I write this, and I still judge myself for decisions I made in medical school. We did survive the away rotations despite living in a 350-sq ft apartment for one of them. We survived each of the Step exams and third year. We even survived a crazy interview season that involved many flights, and I matched somewhere that is perfect for my family. However, did I do enough of the right things to balance out the wrong ones? Should I just be thankful Sesame Street and Super Why! have taught my toddler all his letters and numbers? (Thanks PBS!) I don’t really know, but I console myself that he is a loving, sweet toddler who seems to somehow really love me.  I don’t know if mothers can have it all anymore, but I do know that I’m sure going to keep trying to be a good mother and a good physician, and I think that will be the “all” I want.


ToddlerMamaMD blogs at Mommd.com.

Imperfection Trumps Perfection

I used to think that being perfect was the ideal.  Now I embrace imperfection.  It all started a few years ago, when I got divorced.  I have written here a little about my divorce before, not wanting to repeat myself, but time and experience brings fresh perspective to the past.

My marriage to my physician ex, my kid's dad, started to go downhill when I was in residency and we started a family.  Neither of us were equipped to have intelligent discussion about it, so we shoved our problems under the rug, I as much as he.  I projected an image to the world, my world - residents and attendings and future job possibilities - that everything was peachy keen.  Turns out the person I was most fooling was myself.  It took a long time and a lot of counseling to admit that; first to myself, then to him, then to our world.

I feared honesty.  Mostly for my kids.  Sure, all marriages struggle, but ours was gasping for air.  My daughter, Cecelia, at age 4 could see it.  "Mom, how come we never do things as a family?  I do things with daddy, and I do things with you.  Aunt Annie and Uncle Dave seem so happy - they touch and hug.  Why don't you and daddy do that?"  Children's words cut to the quick.  There comes a point when you worry that the fantasy you are creating for yourself and those around you is detrimental to your children.  What was I modeling?  Certainly not good relationship.

I recently read a book from one of our guest posters, Melissa Yuan-Innes, called The Most Unfeeling Doctor in the World.  She writes comical and insightful short essays in this one of her many books about medicine.  The essay I am remembering while writing this post describes her desire to switch from a Type A to a Type B personality.  She takes it on, Type A style, both successfully and unsuccessfully.  Which is to say she mostly fails, but in her failure she wins awareness.  We can't really change who we are, but we can damn well try and usually gain something from the effort.  I empathized with her as I read, jokingly (um, half seriously actually) thinking of her as my Canadian twin.

I hike.  I do yoga.  I run.  I read voraciously.  I drink way too much coffee.  I am a single mother.  I am a doctor.  I burn the candle at both ends.  I do the best I can with the Type A personality that was hard-wired from birth.  Everything I attack is Type A - parenting, relationship, and work.  If I find myself with a short block of free time I reflexively fill it with activity, only later reflecting that I might have spent it better sitting on the couch and staring into space.  It's hard for me to unwind.  I can't change that, but I can change how I view outcome.  I am not perfect, no matter how hard I try.  And I'm finally coming to the conclusion that it's all right.

I am the epitome of imperfection.  A few years ago, it would have killed me to admit that.  Now it is freeing.  I am free to embrace my kid's stepmom as a wonderful addition to our lives.  I am free to embrace my true feelings around life situations.  I get mad, I get sad, I get happy.  My children experience this, the messiness of me and my life, whereas before I was a shell of a human being covering up all my emotions.  I think this allows them the freedom to express themselves as well, warts and all.  If I can allow myself to brag on my kids (this is the perfect forum) my daughter is a Duke/TIP scholar in math, an avid late into every night reader, and a creative singer/songwriter who hits the mike running every week at a recording studio.  My son is a math genius (according to his teachers), another avid reader, and carries so much emotional intelligence in the first grade that I get e-mails from his teacher about specific incidences with peers and adults that transform the classroom into a mini-utopia.  But my oh my those siblings can Fight with a capital "F."  And sometimes Cecelia gets into moods that rival the worst teenagers - Ack, at 10 already, who knew?  Sometimes I get ruffled - she is wildly intelligent and preys unconsciously on my weak spots - and yell back.  But we ride it out, and we learn from it.  It makes us closer as a family.

I created all this.  We created this.  The good and the bad.  Me, their dad, their stepmom, all of our extended family and support.  It's not perfect, it's perfectly messy.  But there is something amazing underneath.  Perfection, bah.  Toss it out.  Until you do, you cannot fully embrace life; because life is imperfection.  When you accept that notion, all you Type A MiM's or future MiM's out there - that is when life truly begins.

Guest post: I stopped worrying so much

I’m six months into motherhood and I’ve decided to stop worrying. My husband and I waited until well after residency finished to start a family, mostly to make sure that we were secure in our lives but partially because I know way too much. I was concerned that I would spend what energy I had left worrying about every last thing – did the baby move enough today, did I drink enough water, my feet are swollen and could that mean that my blood pressure is up? During pregnancy I decided to leave all the worrying to my obstetric colleagues (not that there was any worrying to be had – my pregnancy was uneventful and I delivered two days before my due date). After our daughter was born I worried about every last thing. What is that rash? How many times did she poop today? Is she sleeping enough? Can I get all the laundry done today? How will I go out to get diapers if she’s eating for 30 minutes every 90 minutes? Did I eat lunch today? Why hasn’t she started rolling over yet? What if she doesn’t like daycare?

Our darling girl is now six months old. She has turned out just fine despite all my distress and disquiet. I was fortunate enough to be able to exclusively breastfeed her for the first six months. She has had no major illnesses. She is developmentally appropriate. She sleeps through most nights without needing my services. She’s a champion traveler. She enjoys daycare and all the kids there. We have yet to run out of diapers.

I’m making a commitment to worry less. The laundry can wait – it’s more important for me to spend time playing with her while she’s awake. I can fold laundry after she goes to bed. It’s cheaper for me to make my lunch but if I don’t make it to the store because we’re having fun or because it interferes with naptime, then I can buy my lunch. I will worry less the more time I spend with her because it reassures me that we’re all doing fine. We’re alive, we’re breathing. We have a roof over our heads and (sometimes wrinkled) clothing on our backs. When I start to become distressed over something, I stop and remind myself that we’re quite alright. There will be plenty of things for me to obsess over in the future. Right now, I’m going to enjoy my baby girl and how much joy she’s brought to our lives.

MiM Mail: New mom starting residency

Hello!

I am starting family medicine residency in June when my baby girl will be turning just 6 months old. My husband and I live apart due to his work, but he visits once a week. While I am excited to start residency, I am scared of  babysitting issues (besides the price) as I practically live like a single mother. I suppose I am seeking words of wisdom and encouragement from MiM, as I am afraid of the guilt and afraid of  being bitter about my career choice when facing the fact that I will spend most of my salary to pay someone else to raise my child for 3 years. Can I enjoy motherhood and residency at the same time?

Thank you!

I am getting old....

Last weekend, I took little Mel to a carnival, and BOY did that make me feel old.

I bought an armband to get unlimited rides because, hey, it's a carnival. About sixty seconds after buying the armband, I deeply regretted this decision. I think it was when I watched the passengers on one of the rides careening over my head and I almost threw up. I almost threw up just from watching the ride.

The first ride Mel and I went on was the ferris wheel. That seemed like a safe bet. It just went up and down, no spinning, no turning, nobody on the ride was screaming. But as it turns out, I'm now afraid of heights. When did that happen?

I wanted to keep my feet on the ground after that, so Mel convinced me to go with her into this funhouse. It was very much like this funhouse. However, unlike Olivia Newton-John, I almost killed myself trying to get through the rotating circle. Believe me, there was nothing sexy about my attempts to get through that stupid funhouse. Every time there was a spinning or rotating thing that I could avoid, I tried to do so. And the funhouse ended with a slide. Let's just say that I can't go down a slide anymore without spraining some muscle beginning with "gluteus."

As soon as she got out, Mel said she wanted to go again. I suggested she go herself. And the time after that too.

Next we got to a ride that was called "Optical Illusion." I figured, how bad could this be? It's just an optical illusion! When I got inside, it was just a single stationary walkway where the walls had spinning dots. But nothing was actually moving. Except the second I stepped into the walkway, it literally felt like the universe was rotating. I almost collapsed. I came running out the entrance, saying I couldn't go through with it.

After that, I mostly let Mel go on rides by herself. I noticed at that point that I was the only adult who was dumb enough to buy an armband.

When it was getting time to leave, I told Mel that I'd go on the Tilt a Whirl, because she'd been begging to go and she was scared to go alone. I was almost having a panic attack while we were waiting for the ride, but I kept telling myself it would be okay. Sure enough when we got on the ride, it was a lot of fun. But the second I got off the ride, I wanted to DIE. I was dizzy, nauseous, and I had a splitting headache.

Best of all, Mel still had tons of energy and wanted to ride like ten more things before we left.

I don't get it. When I was a kid, I used to LOVE all those rides. Tilt a Whirl was my favorite! What happened to me??? When did my brain decide that spinning and whirling isn't fun anymore?

Next topic week: On being an imperfect mother

We mothers in medicine may be very different. We've chosen different specialties, have one child or multiple, have stay-at-home husbands or husbands who travel for work more often than they are at home, are of advanced maternal age or had kids at an age earlier than average, have different ideas of a balanced life. But, I can guarantee we have at least two things in common: 1) we are trying our best for our children; 2) we are not perfect parents.

Our next topic week starting April 29 will be about celebrating our imperfections. (During topic weeks, we feature posts by our regular contributors and guest posts submitted by readers, all centered on a specific topic. During previous topic weeks, we've covered everything from a day in the life to work life balance to childcare.Well, they started as topic days but we realized we had so many posts that we needed to spread them over a week to avoid massive post fatigue.) Posts may cover anything related to being imperfect - confessions, reflections, laugh-with-me-so-I-don't-cry stories, personal philosophies on parenting, you name it. 

We hope you will join in and write something for topic week. To be included, please send your submissions as a Word document attachment to mothersinmedicine(at)gmail(dot)com by April 28. Submissions can be anonymous. For more examples of past topic days/weeks, see Labels in the sidebar.

Thanks for reading and making MiM such an amazing online community.

Most Embarrassing Doctor Moments

I'm a tall girl.  Not an amazon (wish!) but a healthy 5'9.5".  So I like the handicapped toilet better than the regular toilets.  I feel like I am sitting on a regular chair, rather than a child's seat.  Much easier to get up afterwards.

Once, about five years ago, I went to the bathroom at work.  Stopped in a public hallway one on the way to a thyroid needle in another building.  Walked straight back to the handicapped stall and got situated.  All of a sudden I heard someone speak.  "It's ok Mom, just try to hold it.  The stall is occupied.  I am sure they will be out soon.  Sorry for your wait."  I looked down through the gap under the bathroom door and saw wheels.  I was mortified.

I quickly attended to my business, all the while sweating and stressing.  Not only was I an able bodied, ambulatory individual, I also had my doctor's coat on.  I flushed, got dressed, and decided no way in heck could I walk out wearing that coat.  I took it off, rolled it up, and stuffed it underneath my armpit.  Took a deep breath, opened the door, and muttered my apologies as I escaped the bathroom to my needle.

I am still guilty of using the handicapped stall in restaurants, but not until after I have cased the area for those who might need it for reasons other than comfort.  I have not since used the handicapped stall at my hospital, despite never having seen another wheelchair in that particular bathroom in the last five years.

MiM Mail: College freshman fears

Dear MiM:

I am about to finish my freshman year of college and have started to second guess my dreams of becoming a doctor. I know, it's early, but each step I take now is one step closer to my future. It's somewhat silly, and I have so much time, but my fears are haunting me:

1) Prerequisites for med school: I have yet to take chemistry at a college level. I am terrible at math and chemistry and fear that I don't have what it takes to even make it to med school (or in med school)
2) Nausea: I have somewhat of a weak stomach and am concerned about certain rounds. I know it's part of the job, but not EVERY job, right? Fainting or throwing up is probably not received well.
3) I am 100% positive that I am currently dating the man I will marry. Which means that marriage will come right before med school (and grad school for him) and, more than likely, babies to follow. I know that you women do it everyday, but it seems so daunting. Especially since we will more than likely have to move away from our families in order to both be able to attend a school in the same town. But on the flip side, I don't want to wait forever to have children, and even waiting until my early 30's seems too long to wait for my desire for a large family.

Thank you for reading this and attempting to ease a potential MiM's fears. Likewise, if you truly think I should not be in medicine due to any part of this, please be honest.

When shared parenting means you are no longer number one

Recently, my daughter went through a period of preferring my partner, her other parent. For about a week, I would come home from work, starved for time with her,  and she would run to my partner and make a big show of hugging her and demanding to go into the kitchen with her. At dinner time, she refused to be fed by me, accepting food only from my partner, her Baba. At bathtime, I would have to pry her from her Baba and endure her bitter tears as we trudged upstairs for what is usually our most joyful time together. I was on a particularly miserable month, working the longest days I've worked all year and feeling resentful, bitter, and guilty almost every waking moment because I was spending so little time with her. When this theater of cruel preference happened for the first time, I went upstairs, turned on the bathroom faucet, sat on the tile floor, and sobbed for fifteen mintues. Then I came downstairs and tried to be as cheerful as possible as I sat next to the high chair and watched dinner progress without my participation. The situation was no fun for my partner either, as my time at home is the rare window of relief when she can check her email and recede into her own mental world for a while. Only E seemed to be having a ball, cocking her head to one side and making flirty toddler eyes at my partner while pushing my hand away from the food on her tray.

A male colleague once complained to me that his son prefers his wife, even to the extent of screaming and pushing him away when he goes to to pick him up in the morning or comfort him at night. As he told me this, I'm ashamed to admit that I thought, "Well she is his mother," as if motherhood is synonymous with being a child's primary go-to, as if a father should be resigned to being second pick. Well, here I was faced with the same situation and I was not resigned. 

I am not my child's primary caregiver. As an intern, I work until 6pm on the best days which are few, 7pm on most days, and 9pm on the worst days which happen at least 1-2 times per week. I have a week each month where I am gone from 6pm - 9am six nights in a row. The rest of the time I leave the house before my child wakes up and then I do bath and bedtime whenever I can, which is 3-4 days per week. Every day I have off, every evening hour that can be squeezed from the stone, every hour I can delay going to sleep post call, I do, but it still doesn't add up to 50%. Not even close. So I am not my child's primary caregiver, but up until the aforementioned week, I was pretty sure I was her go-to, her first draft pick. After all, I carried her and birthed her and nursed her and I am the only one in this family who takes rectal temperatures, let the record show. Prior to this episode, she had always been pretty happy with either or both of us, absorbing the love and care and attention of whichever of us was available at the time, so the assumption I had made about my being somehow more sacred and important had never been tested.

It was not a pleasant situation. In fact "My child will prefer her other parent" is probably number 2 on my list of top fears about being a working mother, right after "My child will be maimed or die while in someone else's care." I googled "My child prefers her other parent" and discovered that this happens to lots of people. Some children prefer their working-outside-the-home parent to their working-in-the-home parent and for some it is the other way around. In families where both parents work, the preference cannot be so easily explained away. Sometimes the preference is temporary and sometimes it is more deeply ingrained. In families with multiple children, one child might prefer one parent while another child prefers the other parent. None of these preferences seem to fall easily along gender lines. It was comforting to read post after post about this problem, but none really addressed my fear which was that by working so much, I was losing the right to be my child's number one. (Of note, I encountered not one post from a man complaining about this. Do men just not post on online parenting forums? Is this something that does not disturb them? It's an interesting question.)

When I was forced to examine my need to be number one, I realized that the whole construct is flawed and not relevant to our family. I was our daughter's primary caregiver for the first six months while my partner finished graduate school, now she is the primary caregiver while I am in residency. We have divided the work of parenting in a way that feels natural to us and that has nothing to do with traditional divisions of labor. My partner cooks. I deal with illnesses and sleep. We both work and make money, though my job is currently more time-intensive and less flexible. I'm good at helping our daughter achieve developmental milestones, my partner is good at structuring her days and giving her the downtime she needs. My daughter has two parents who work cooperatively to meet her needs and I'm very proud of that.

I'm not going to pretend that this transition in my thinking has been seamless or complete. There are still moments of panic and jealousy that my partner is so much more present in my daughter's life, for now. Thankfully, the phase passed and my daughter is back to taking the love from wherever it cometh, but I can't deny that I am secretly pleased and relieved when she leaps ecstatically from my partner's arms to mine when I come home. But I am teaching myself to be just as happy when she leaps from me to my partner, because the net of safety and love that protects her is so much stronger than it would be if she were relying on only one person to meet her needs. If I weren't working so much, things might have played out very differently in the dynamics of our family, so in a way I'm glad that necessity has created the opportunity for a more shared model to evolve. Ok, I'm not glad. But I do think some good has come of it.