From one Dr. Mom to another Dr. Mom: How do I balance work and family? Here's how

Dear Dr. Meg,

I just saw you on Life on the Rock. I am a 29 year old Roman Catholic, a wife, a mother of 4 and expecting #5, and a 3rd year resident physician in family medicine in Louisiana. I am overwhelmed. We practice NFP and find it very difficult. I feel as though we have good reason to avoid pregnancy, but God has abundantly blessed us with 5 children, nevertheless. I feel as though I do not have enough time for my family and our home life is suffering. I will graduate residency in June or July and plan to practice full-time afterwards, otherwise I will be unable to pay off my loans. My husband does odd jobs here and there- it is too difficult for him to work regular hours when my hours are so terrible. How did/do you balance family and work? I look forward to your reply.

Dear MOM,

You are indeed living an exhausting life. When I was a pediatric resident, I was pregnant as well and I fully understand the hardships that you are facing.

First, look at your career over a 30-40 year period and your child-rearing years over a 20 year period. Yes, you have loans weighing on you but take your time paying them off. Losing your health while doing this doesn't help anyone. If you can take more than 6 weeks off when your baby is born, do it. I took three months in the middle of my second year residency. My program wasnt' happy, but they accepted it. I'm sure that if you are firm with your program they will do the same. You need to slow down just a bit because you have years and years of work ahead of you. At your age, you have 30 plus years of medicine ahead of you to practice so pace yourself. After you are done with your training, you may need to work part time or take time off. It's up to you, but if you don't pace yourself, you will burn out and be no good to anyone.

you are done, then your husband needs to be home with the kids. If he doesn't want to, then he must be able to help you repay your loans and you be home with the kids. My husband stayed home for 4 years while I did residency, then when I was done, I stayed home and he finished his residency in Med/Peds. We didn't see each other much but now, our kids are grown and gone and we spend all sorts of wonderful time together. Perhaps you could work out a plan for each of you to work part-time? Be creative, but make sure that for the bulk of the time during the week, one of you can be with your kids and keep things steady at home. You will never, ever regret it.

Second, you need to have a heart to heart with your husband. I'd love to tell you that you both can work full tilt (50-70 hrs per week) and raise a great family, but I can't. Your children need a parent with them. Women who tell you that you can "have it all" have never had it all- they are stressed, exhausted, have difficult home lives but haven't made it. So, if you are able to financially support your family when 

Third, I understand about your desire to practice NFP and this is wonderful. I do believe, however, that God is gracious and doesn't want us to kill ourselves when it comes to childbearing. He gives us many gifts other than motherhood that we can use for His glory and your practicing medicine is one of them. You can't do that and run a home with ten kids. He knows that. So if you need to limit the number of children you have, do it. Let's be honest, we limit the number of kids we birth by practicing NFP, so if you choose to limit the number to five, I believe that it is morally, religiously and ethically fine.

That's my religious opinion, not everyone's.

Finally, you're almost there. In June or July, the worst of your work will be behind you. If you get into the right private practice where you're not on call every third night, you will find that life will be much calmer. So hold on! As I said, I strongly encourage you to take a break and pay off your loans more slowly. You need rest and most physicians aren't good at giving it to themselves. But do it. You are more exhausted than you realize. Then, once you catch your breath, work out a work plan with your husband. Once you figure out who will work what hours, then you both need to make a list of responsibilities for the parent at home. This needs to include non-parenting duties as well- cooking, cleaning, etc. Laying the ground rules will help both of you understand one another's expectaions. Many mothers feel that dads staying home with children "babysit" while mothers at home care for children and do all of the other household duties. If you are working 60-70 hrs per week outside the home there is no way you can take on household chores.

I have watched friends and patients parent many different ways. Some fathers have stayed home full time while mom has worked to support the family financially. Many fathers are wonderful with their kids (sometimes better than their wives) at being nurturing, patient and caring. I have also seen many couples tag-team and work alternate schedules so that one can be with the children at all times. This is hard when the children are small, but gets better as children grow.

One final word of encouragement- most parents believe that they need a lot more money to have a good life than they really do. Don't fall into this trap. You don't need a big house, nice clothes and you don't need to make sure that you pay for every sport your child wants to play. Keep it simple and I promise, your kids will handle having less material things better than you think.

God Bless,

Dr. Meg

Winning Over Sibling Wars

Dear Dr. Meg,

Can you address the back talking and sibling fighting constantly.

- Carol

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Dear Carol-

One of the toughest things for a parent to hear is her children fighting. (Imagine how hard it is for children to hear their parents fighting.) I feel strongly that God wants us to speak respectfully and kindly to one another in our families. This is how we communicate love and respect. Unfortunately, because our kids hear so much vile language around them at school, on television, etc, most kids don’t learn to speak well to one another.

Here’s what I would do. Sit all the kids in the family down (as long as they are older than two) and have a chat. Tell them the rules of the house. Inform them how they are (and are not) allowed to talk to one another. Also describe the tone they are allowed to use toward one another. Tell them that this is how you and their father speak to them (and to one another) and this is the way it will be in your home, regardless what they hear elsewhere. Then, say that they will all be practicing a new way of talking for the next 2 weeks (or month.) When someone is caught being mean or fighting, they will be sent to their room. If two are fighting, regardless who started the fight, both go to their rooms.

Then, do what you say. You (and their father) must be disciplined about how you talk to them and to one another. Additionally, once you have set the rules, you must be ready to be on top of their speech and fighting. For the time being, don’t worry about disciplining them for other things. You need to win this war now. If someone breaks the rules, they go to their room (or whatever other penalty you feel works - taking away television, going to bed early, whatever.)

Second, at dinner time, tell each child to talk about something they like about the person to their right or left. Have each family member practice saying positive things about another and this will begin to change the way they think about one another.

This can actually be a fun way to intervene when kids are fighting. If you hear an argument, walk into the room and demand that the ones arguing say one nice thing about the other. I had a friend do this when her four kids were in the back of the car fighting. She pulled the car over, and refused to drive again until they each said something nice about the other. Her young son told his sister that he liked the way egg salad got caught in her braces when she ate. He was serious and they all laughed. This can be a great way to diffuse fighting.

Dr. Meg

Parenting the Strong-Willed Child

Dear Dr. Meg,

Do you have any helps and tips of having an strong-willed only child. - Beth

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Dear Beth-

Dr Dobson wrote an excellent book on parenting the strong-willed child and I highly recommend that you read it. Also, Ryan and I did a show on parenting the strong-willed child recently so watch the radio schedule for when it will air. In the meantime, here are a few suggestions.

First, when disciplining your child, make sure that you discern the difference between willfully defiant behavior and normal childish behavior. If a child directly defies you order not to do something or looks at you with ‘I dare you to reprimand me’ written all over his face, then you are dealing with willful defiance. If, on the other hand, he constantly knocks things over, spills food on the floor or wets his pants, he’s just being a kids and you shouldn’t reprimand him for these things. Most parents drive themselves crazy reprimanding children for many things which are just childish behaviors.

Second, choose one or two of your child’s behaviors that really are important for you to curb. Work on only those two for several weeks and then move on to others. This way you won’t spend your entire day saying ‘no’ over and over. For instance, if your child constantly back talks you, sit down one morning when he’s in a good mood and say this. “Timmy, in our house, the way we talk to one another is very important. You have a habit of talking badly to me and this needs to stop. I will help you change this because no one in our family can speak this way. So, every time you say mean things like ( give him an example)… to me, then you will go to your room (or whatever punishment you choose.) Do you understand? We will start working on this today.”

Keep it simple and clean. Most importantly, when you set the rules down, you have declared that war ensues if he talks back. I guarantee, winning will be much harder for you than for him because each and every time he back talks, he’s challenged you and you MUST win. If you are at a friend’s house and he back talks, you must leave and put him in his room. If you are in the middle of dinner, he leaves the table. You get my point. When he disobeys a direct order, you stop everything you are doing and implement the consequence so that he knows you really mean business. This will upset your days but you must do it because if you don’t, he will never take anything you say seriously.

Here’s the payoff. Once you get through a few really hard weeks, he’ll realize that challenging your authority doesn’t get him anywhere and once he realizes this, life at home will be much more enjoyable. The hard thing about strong-willed children is that they love to see who the boss is. Once they accept that you are, even the toughest of kids will back off. And when they do- they will be much happier.

The goal with strong-willed children is to help reroute their will. These are spirited children who have a lot to offer the world because they are spunky. So, as Dr. Dobson says, “break his will without breaking his spirit” and you will have a delightful and very successful child on your hands one day.

Dr. Meg