Dear Abigail,
I am a mother of three and a physician, married to a loving and supportive husband. I work part-time—24 hours a week—which allows me to contribute financially while also being present for my family. I enjoy my work, and I know I would not thrive as a full-time stay-at-home parent.
That said, I am struggling with a familiar tension many working mothers face: being the default parent and default homemaker on top of having a job. On the two evenings each week when I get home late, my husband often calls in a panic asking what to feed the kids. I feel guilty for not planning ahead, then resentful for feeling guilty at all. Why am I still responsible for dinner planning on nights when I’m not even home?
I usually plan our meals weekly, but some weeks it feels overwhelming—especially with picky children—and I let it slide. When that happens, weeknight dinners become reactive and stressful. I feel pulled in multiple directions and frustrated by the sense that I am supposed to be everything to everyone, even though I know that’s impossible.
I find myself wondering what the right solution is. Do I change my schedule further so I’m always home in the evenings, satisfying the “good mother” my conscience seems to demand? Do I set a firmer boundary and make it clear that my husband is responsible for dinner on those two nights? I would like to work a bit more to bring in additional income, but I don’t feel I can do that while this tension remains unresolved. Hiring help would ease the strain, but it isn’t currently within our budget.
What should I do?
—Camilla
Camilla,
When I was 31, I took a trip to Germany with my husband to escape a misery that wouldn’t let go. We’d been married only two years, and for the second of those, I’d lost a series of pregnancies. Sadness ran through me like plasma. God could have sent an angel to inform me that I would soon be a mother, but like the Biblical Sarah, I would have laughed in his face.
My husband hoped the trip would lift my spirits. But except for a few lighthearted moments—when a barkeep in Garmisch-Partenkirchen told us sincerely that the worst thing Hitler ever did was combine Garmisch with Partenkirchen—I mostly remember the rain.
Only after we returned and found a great fertility doctor did the gloom lift. Within a year, I was pregnant—with twins—which felt like unimaginable good fortune. Fifteen years later, people still ask me if caring for twins was “really hard.” I don’t remember it that way. Hard is miscarriage. Two babies you never believed you’d have? That’s windfall.
