Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Book
  • Careers
  • Podcast
  • Recommended
  • Speaking
  • All
  • Physician
  • Practice
  • Policy
  • Finance
  • Conditions
  • .edu
  • Patient
  • Meds
  • Tech
  • Social
  • Video
    • All
    • Physician
    • Practice
    • Policy
    • Finance
    • Conditions
    • .edu
    • Patient
    • Meds
    • Tech
    • Social
    • Video
    • About
    • Contact
    • Contribute
    • Book
    • Careers
    • Podcast
    • Recommended
    • Speaking

Residency and the path to equal parenting

Gillian Mueller Goddard, MD
Physician
March 25, 2019
69 Shares
Share
Tweet
Share

When my husband and I started parenting, our only explicit goal was to keep our son alive and healthy and growing.  We read many of the usual books about pregnancy and the early childhood years.  We did not read any literature on equal parenting.  At that time there wasn’t any. In fact, if you had been in our apartment one July morning in 2007, you might have wondered if anyone was planning to parent our child.

I was about eight months pregnant.  It was 4:45 in the morning and I was in green scrubs headed to my surgery clerkship, where I would stand for hours on end at the ready to snip sutures and name obscure parts of the human anatomy.  My husband walked in the door. He was just arriving home from his job as a corporate attorney.

“Don’t forget, we have dinner with the Jones tonight,” I said squeezing my swollen feet into Dansko clogs.

“Tomorrow night,” my husband corrected.

“Tonight,” I insisted.

This went on for some time, until we realized my tonight — I was on my way out the door — was his tomorrow.  He had yet to sleep.

Three weeks later our oldest son was born at the start of the Great Recession, and while I was a third-year medical student.  My husband had a generous four-week paternity leave.  I had ten weeks cobbled together using elective time most students took in their fourth year of medical school to attend residency interviews.  When my husband returned to work in late September 2007, the markets had slowed to a crawl, and no one was raising capital for anything.

For the next three years, I completed medical school and started an internal medicine residency.  I worked 80-hour weeks. I took calls that stretched past the regulation 27 hours.  I worked stretches of night float, and I worked more weekends than I had off.

My husband watched the market flounder, was laid off and took the only job available to a capital markets lawyer at the time. It was very 9-to-5.  As a result, my husband was home in the mornings before our nanny came and in the evenings when she went home.  He made our son’s breakfast and sometimes dinner too.  My husband took our son to the pediatrician and to get his hair cut and to meet his teacher.  My husband attends my son’s first Christmas pageant at nursery school and volunteered at the school fundraiser.  And on the weekends, my husband spent countless hours playing hide-and-seek in our yard searching good-naturedly for our son who stood in plain sight with his hands over his eyes calling, “I’m hiding.” In short, he was the “primary parent.”

In the intervening 11 years, the market has recovered, and my husband returned to a job as a partner in a big law firm.  I have completed my residency and fellowship, and built a clinical practice.  We also grew our family.  Today, we have four children ages 11 to three.  I no longer work 80-hour weeks, and I have increased my parenting duties.  However, I have not become the primary parent.

I would argue there is no primary parent in our home.  I would argue that my husband and I parent equally and I am confident he would agree.  We have claimed certain domains in the household and trust that the other has their domain under control.

My husband and I weren’t aware that there was a growing body of literature that supported our path to equal parenting.  We were just making parenting with two demanding jobs work for us however we could.  However, there is data to support that my husband’s early and frequent experiences with solo parenting set the foundation for our more equal division of the parenting load.

Our early parenting experience has also freed us to obtain the support we need without guilt. In years that my husband was managing childcare, he delegated a number of household tasks, such as laundry, to others.  Even though I work less than I did ten years ago, I still don’t do laundry; I also rarely think about laundry.  It is not a good use of my time.  My children do not care who does their laundry. (Except now that our caregiver is teaching them to do it themselves!) They don’t think that because my husband and I have delegated the responsibility of laundry to another that we do not love them.

The biggest and best dividend from equal parenting is that it has never occurred to my husband or I that challenges at home require one of us to dial back on our professional commitments.  We know that together we can work through our challenges.  Where one of us is busy, the other may have slack.  Maybe more household support is needed.  We meet frequently to assess our household needs.  Recently, we also instituted one-on-one quarterly meetings with each of our children to be sure we were meeting their needs and keeping the lines of communication open with each of them.

To me, the most important outcome of our equal parenting is the example we are setting our daughter and our three sons.  Both parents have careers that utilize their talents, challenge them and bring them joy.  Both parents have interests and friends.  Both parents are invested in the community in which we live.  Both parents take responsibility for keeping the home running smoothly (mostly). And both parents love them and are fully invested in their well-being.

Gillian Goddard is an endocrinologist.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

Prev

Reminding ourselves why we practice medicine

March 25, 2019 Kevin 0
…
Next

The antidote to multitasking is mindfulness

March 25, 2019 Kevin 2
…

Tagged as: Practice Management

Post navigation

< Previous Post
Reminding ourselves why we practice medicine
Next Post >
The antidote to multitasking is mindfulness

More by Gillian Mueller Goddard, MD

  • Is there ever a right time for a doctor to have a baby?

    Gillian Mueller Goddard, MD

Related Posts

  • Residency training, and training in residency

    Michelle Meyer, MD
  • Life can be meaningful even in the midst of residency

    Karl Chen, MD
  • Why residency applications need to change

    Sean Kiesel, DO, MBA
  • Let’s talk residency: COVID edition

    Angela Awad and Catherine Tawfik
  • What’s next for medical students? The path is not so clear.

    Asha Dasika
  • 5 ways to transition to residency

    Stephanie Wellington, MD

More in Physician

  • Dr. Glaucomflecken for president!

    Aaron Morgenstein, MD & Amy Bissada, DO & Corinne Sundar Rao, MD
  • What is driving physicians to the edge of despair?

    Edward T. Creagan, MD
  • Do residents deserve the title of physician?

    Anonymous
  • When an MBA degree meets medicine: an eye-opening experience

    Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA
  • The hidden gems of health care: Unlocking the potential of narrative medicine

    Dr. Najat Fadlallah
  • The dark side of immortality: What if we could live forever?

    Ketan Desai, MD, PhD
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • The real cause of America’s opioid crisis: Doctors are not to blame

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
    • The struggle to fill emergency medicine residency spots: Exploring the factors behind the unfilled match

      Katrina Gipson, MD, MPH | Physician
    • Healing the damaged nurse-physician dynamic

      Angel J. Mena, MD and Ali Morin, MSN, RN | Policy
    • What is driving physicians to the edge of despair?

      Edward T. Creagan, MD | Physician
    • Beyond the disease: the power of empathy in health care

      Nana Dadzie Ghansah, MD | Physician
    • Deaths of despair: an urgent call for a collective response to the crisis in U.S. life expectancy

      Mohammed Umer Waris, MD | Policy
  • Past 6 Months

    • The hidden dangers of the Nebraska Heartbeat Act

      Meghan Sheehan, MD | Policy
    • The real cause of America’s opioid crisis: Doctors are not to blame

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
    • Nobody wants this job. Should physicians stick around?

      Katie Klingberg, MD | Physician
    • The vital importance of climate change education in medical schools

      Helen Kim, MD | Policy
    • The fight for reproductive health: Why medication abortion matters

      Catherine Hennessey, MD | Physician
    • Resetting the doctor-patient relationship: Navigating the challenges of modern primary care

      Jeffrey H. Millstein, MD | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • The surprising power of Play-Doh in pediatric care: How it’s bringing families together

      Alexander Rakowsky, MD | Conditions
    • Breaking free from gaslighting [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • The pros and cons of using ChatGPT for your health care needs

      Liudmila Schafer, MD | Tech
    • Dr. Glaucomflecken for president!

      Aaron Morgenstein, MD & Amy Bissada, DO & Corinne Sundar Rao, MD | Physician
    • What is driving physicians to the edge of despair?

      Edward T. Creagan, MD | Physician
    • Do residents deserve the title of physician?

      Anonymous | Physician

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.


Find jobs at
Careers by KevinMD.com

Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Learn more

Leave a Comment

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, KevinMD.com is the web’s leading platform where physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, medical students, and patients share their insight and tell their stories.

Social

  • Like on Facebook
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Connect on Linkedin
  • Subscribe on Youtube
  • Instagram

CME Spotlights

From MedPage Today

Latest News

  • How Did Pulse Oximeters Perform in Black Kids?
  • Coffee and Heart Function; Ionizing Radiation and CVD
  • Health Inequity Should Be Labeled as a 'Never Event'
  • Healing the Damaged Nurse-Physician Dynamic
  • Doc Moms, Mind the Gap -- $3M Earning Difference by Sex

Meeting Coverage

  • Switch to IL-23 Blocker Yields Deep Responses in Recalcitrant Plaque Psoriasis
  • Biomarkers of Response With Enfortumab Vedotin in Advanced Urothelial Cancer
  • At-Home Topical Therapy for Molluscum Contagiosum Gets High Marks
  • Outlook for Itchy Prurigo Nodularis Continues to Improve With IL-31 Antagonist
  • AAAAI President Shares Highlights From the 2023 Meeting
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • The real cause of America’s opioid crisis: Doctors are not to blame

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
    • The struggle to fill emergency medicine residency spots: Exploring the factors behind the unfilled match

      Katrina Gipson, MD, MPH | Physician
    • Healing the damaged nurse-physician dynamic

      Angel J. Mena, MD and Ali Morin, MSN, RN | Policy
    • What is driving physicians to the edge of despair?

      Edward T. Creagan, MD | Physician
    • Beyond the disease: the power of empathy in health care

      Nana Dadzie Ghansah, MD | Physician
    • Deaths of despair: an urgent call for a collective response to the crisis in U.S. life expectancy

      Mohammed Umer Waris, MD | Policy
  • Past 6 Months

    • The hidden dangers of the Nebraska Heartbeat Act

      Meghan Sheehan, MD | Policy
    • The real cause of America’s opioid crisis: Doctors are not to blame

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
    • Nobody wants this job. Should physicians stick around?

      Katie Klingberg, MD | Physician
    • The vital importance of climate change education in medical schools

      Helen Kim, MD | Policy
    • The fight for reproductive health: Why medication abortion matters

      Catherine Hennessey, MD | Physician
    • Resetting the doctor-patient relationship: Navigating the challenges of modern primary care

      Jeffrey H. Millstein, MD | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • The surprising power of Play-Doh in pediatric care: How it’s bringing families together

      Alexander Rakowsky, MD | Conditions
    • Breaking free from gaslighting [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • The pros and cons of using ChatGPT for your health care needs

      Liudmila Schafer, MD | Tech
    • Dr. Glaucomflecken for president!

      Aaron Morgenstein, MD & Amy Bissada, DO & Corinne Sundar Rao, MD | Physician
    • What is driving physicians to the edge of despair?

      Edward T. Creagan, MD | Physician
    • Do residents deserve the title of physician?

      Anonymous | Physician

MedPage Today Professional

An Everyday Health Property Medpage Today iMedicalApps
  • Terms of Use | Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
All Content © KevinMD, LLC
Site by Outthink Group

Leave a Comment

Comments are moderated before they are published. Please read the comment policy.

Loading Comments...