Working moms

One of the dirty secrets of being a working mom is the guilt. Oh, God, the GUILT. I feel guilty when I am at work because I am not with my kids. I feel guilty when I take a day off because I am not with my patients. It's not there all the time, it is mostly not there at all, but when it does come it sucks the wind right out of your sails. I have never seriously considered being a stay-at-home parent, and in my career it is not possible to work part-time (I could transition to being exclusively a clinician and be part-time, but a lot of what I love about my job is the non-clinical work, so I never really thought of that as a good option for me).

Because of these concerns, I spend a large chunk of my free time (and a large portion of my paycheck) on the highest quality childcare. I could not do this if I did not have a well paying job — the math just wouldn't work out. For us, this means a part-time nanny and part-time preschool. I am now somewhat of an expert on Madison-area preschools since I think I may have researched or visited each one in the area. One of the big perks of living in a university town is lots of great, educated, early childhood educators! To assuage my guilt, I was delighted to find this NIH press release about a study of childcare effects.

Long story short, in a longitudinal study of 1,364 children, high quality childcare up to age 4.5 years, as defined by the caregiver's 'warmth, support and cognitive stimulation' correlated with a small boost in academic performance and acting out behavior among their teens. (More is not always better — those who spent the most time in 'nonrelative' childcare reported more impulsive and risk taking behavior as teens). This makes me feel a tiny bit better about the choices I make for my children. How do you feel about being working parents?