Episode 9: The Pull of Motherhood

[00:00:20] Speaker A: Welcome to 45. Left or right podcast, episode nine, the pull of motherhood. Today we're going to talk about working mothers and the challenges of being a working mother. I interviewed my friend Emily, who has been my friend since I was born, essentially, and wanted to interview her about how she and her husband have come up with some really creative ways of taking care of their three beautiful daughters. And I have to admit, I am struggling today. I need more caffeine or more sleep or something, so I'm gonna try to keep the pep up in this episode. I remember sitting on a second hand, disgusting, scratchy loveseat with Jeff in my dorm room my sophomore year at Davidson. And just like you do when you are young and in love, we were talking about what we wanted for our family when we were married. How many kids would we have? I wanted three, he wanted two. We ended up with one. Where would we live? We even talked about how we would make dinner together, and we would have some wine and put the dishes away in the dishwasher together while we talked about our days and our dreams. For the record, 22 years later, I make dinner. He cleans the kitchen while I sit in my recliner, and there's no wine these days. One thing that I distinctly remember talking about was how we would manage our careers while having a family. At the time, I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career, but I knew I wanted to do something. I was going to work full time and be a full time fabulous mom with no guilt whatsoever and no pull toward either one. I would balance everything perfectly, reach all of my professional goals once I had them, and be at every one of our kids games, performances, school functions. I'd be on the field trips and have dinner on the table every single night. I did not think that either of us would have to sacrifice our careers for the well being of our family. It was actually Jeff who made me realize that this was not a feasible dream. He thought he might want to become a doctor, but he was really concerned that he was going to miss out on our kids lives. He said that the number one priority for him was that his career must allow enough flexibility that he will be actively in their lives, at the activities, being the soccer coach, helping them with homework, etcetera. His dad was a great dad, but he was also an airline pilot, so he was gone for days at a time and he missed a lot of things. Jeff knew that he wanted something with a better work life balance. Jeff made me start considering that trying to balance everything perfectly was not realistic, nor attainable. And it made me consider our future family and a beneficial, like, work life balance to be a major part of the equation in how I chose a career. On this episode, I have an incredibly special guest, my best friend for all of my life, Doctor Emily Blanke. She is an Ob GYN in Jacksonville, Florida, our hometown, and she lives there with her husband Matt and their three daughters. She and Matt have come up with some really creative solutions over the years to balance having time with their children and juggling two careers with unusual schedules. Next week, I will be interviewing her twin sister, Claire, my other best friend for life, about being a stay at home mom for next week. I thought it would be an interesting contrast as each method of mothering is valid, but not without their challenges. We conducted this interview over Zoom since Emily is in Jacksonville, and I am going to let Emily describe how we met. [00:05:59] Speaker B: All right, so who are you and how do we know each other? [00:06:05] Speaker C: I'm Emily Belenke, formerly Lamp, and we met each other in the church nursery when we were like, I don't know, a month old. I know, three months old, something like that. So the story goes. [00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:21] Speaker C: Because your brother was so nicely dressed that my mom decided she had to get to know your mother. [00:06:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. And then we, they became friends and they had playdates like we have with our kids, you know, when I'm in Jacksonville and I know we just, I always had you guys, I was talking about this the other day just with Devin's friends and all the social stuff, you know, and I'm like, you know, I always had them. So I had friends come in and out, but I always had. [00:07:02] Speaker C: Yeah. Right through all the, you know, elementary school and even when we went to different schools in middle school and high school. [00:07:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:10] Speaker C: And got back together in college. But, yeah, we always, we always had each other. [00:07:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:15] Speaker C: It's a wonderful blessing. [00:07:17] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I, for, for my podcast listeners, Emily has a twin sister, Claire, who I will be interviewing at another time about being a stay at home mom. And Emily is a working mother. Tell me what you do for your career. [00:07:41] Speaker C: So I'm an ob gyn, so I deliver babies and help women, as many of your listeners would understand, through there's some wonderful and sometimes very difficult times in their lives, you know, from adolescents to women in their eighties and occasionally nineties. [00:08:08] Speaker B: Amazing. Now they're not having dates right at age 90s. [00:08:12] Speaker C: No, we don't have any Sarah's that I know. [00:08:18] Speaker B: That would be terrible. Just personally. And how long have you. I guess talk to me a little bit about your, you know, career track, kind of starting from, let's say starting from residency on to now. [00:08:34] Speaker C: So Obgyn is a four year residency. And so I started residency in 2006, the summer of 2006, and did four years and kind of go through all the different areas of OBGYN from you deliveries to GI and oncology and the subspecialties. And then I decided to go into general obstetrics and gynecology, which just means that mostly as general ob gyns who are delivering babies and doing obstetric care, but also kind of general gyn care from your regular well woman visits every year to hysterectomies and various gyn surgeries. And so then I, when I left, when I graduated from residency, I joined a group practice and have been there ever since. So it's going on 14 years now. 14 years as of August. Hard to believe. [00:09:38] Speaker B: It's amazing. [00:09:40] Speaker C: Yeah, time flies. [00:09:43] Speaker B: I know, right? And talk to me. Who are your children and how old are they? [00:09:50] Speaker C: So I have three lovely girls and they are Katherine, who is twelve. She's in 6th grade, and Rachel and Laura are twins and they're nine and they're in third grade. [00:10:05] Speaker B: All right, awesome. Sorry. Things get a fitting. All right. And tell me about your husband. And how long have you been married? [00:10:16] Speaker C: We, let's see. Matt is my husband and we've been married. Let me think. As of August, it will be 15 years. [00:10:25] Speaker B: Wow. [00:10:27] Speaker C: You know, we waited a little while to get married. I think I was 31 when we got married. 31, yeah. And we met like our, his grandmother set us up, actually. [00:10:43] Speaker B: Tell me that story. [00:10:44] Speaker C: Yeah, well, they, our grandmothers actually went to church together for years. Even dad grew up in the youth group with, with Matt's uncle and aunt. His mom's a little bit younger, but yeah. So they actually kind of knew each other for years. And we figure we probably crossed paths when we were in, like, preschool and you probably did too, right. And. Right, and then we were going to church with both of our grandmothers on Mother's Day one year. And this, I was already in residency, so it was like 2007, and we just kind of noticed each other across the way. And then this grandmother called my mom to ask for my number then the rest is history. [00:11:33] Speaker B: Now, did he ask your grandmother for your number or did the grandmother's plot. [00:11:42] Speaker C: Well, actually, his grandmother plotted with my mother, so, yeah, she called my mom to ask her for my number. My grandmother, she was already suffering from dementia at that point. [00:11:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:54] Speaker C: You know, but, yeah. And then he called me, like, that weekend. [00:12:00] Speaker B: That's awesome. Yeah, it's kind of a nice story. It is a nice story. [00:12:05] Speaker C: We like to say it's an arranged. An arranged marriage, but it turned out very well. [00:12:10] Speaker B: That's true. And. [00:12:11] Speaker C: Yeah, it did. [00:12:12] Speaker B: It has. So I know at some point Matt was working as a police officer and then you were working full time as an Ob. [00:12:26] Speaker C: Right, right. [00:12:27] Speaker B: And did you have Katherine at that point or did you have Katherine, Rachel and Moore? [00:12:32] Speaker C: Well, we had all three of them. He worked. He. Let's see, he was on the street for about five years, and then he became a detective for a couple of years. And we had Rachel and Laura. We had all three of them at one point while we were. While we were both working, which was not easy and kind of led to her other decisions. I don't know how much you want me to elaborate later. [00:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. How so? I'm trying to think how long did that. How long were you both working full time before you changed? [00:13:10] Speaker C: About seven years. I mean, about seven years in our marriage, we were. Yeah. Both working full time and depending on grandparents and some daycare for childcare. We had really not wanted to hire. It's fairly common to have, like, a nanny situation, but we're. We chose not to do that. But thankfully, we have grandparents in town. [00:13:45] Speaker B: Good ones, great ones. [00:13:48] Speaker C: Right, right. Who have been very generous with their. With their time. You know, I think when Catherine was little, pretty much, you know, when Matt would be working, she would go over to my parents house and spend the day until he could pick her up or I could pick her up or. [00:14:03] Speaker B: Wow. And you did some daycare also. Is that later? [00:14:09] Speaker C: That was really mainly for Rachel and Laura. So when they were born, we already had them enrolled at a daycare because that's kind of how you have to do it. You have to do it way in advance. Right. And we're going to give that a try for a couple. So we ended up doing that for a couple of years and we're happy with the daycare where they were. It just. It just wasn't working. [00:14:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. With your. The grandparents, you know, I know you had both sets there. Was it a regular schedule that you had them or, you know, had them there or when. [00:14:53] Speaker C: Well, when Katherine was younger or when she was little, really, it was a somewhat regular schedule because the way that I think a lot of police departments do, it's kind of a. Like five days on, five days off, four days on, four days off. So it wasn't always the same days of the week, but, yeah, pretty much every day when he would be working, and, of course I would be working. And he actually worked nights for a while, but, you know, he had to sleep some, too. So she would go over to my parents house. So, yeah, I was. I mean, they were, they had her a lot on some holidays and things, and both of us would be working. [00:15:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And you were, so obviously, as an ob, you work your regular days, and then you have 24 hours shifts. How were the arrangements with that? Just relying mostly on grandparents? [00:15:43] Speaker C: Yeah, we still relied a lot on them. So, I mean, in my call schedule was, was really pretty good for an Ob gyn because we have a number in our group, so it was, I think, about as good as you can get for that specialty. But she would go over to their, so if he was working that night, you know, I would take her to their house in the morning, and she would stay day and night with them, and then, you know, he would pick her up the next day whenever he got off. And we would kind of pass in the day. We get home from work, he would be leaving for work, and you would, you know, it's like, hi. Bye. [00:16:26] Speaker B: Yeah, Jeff and I, we didn't have Devin, but Jeff and I had that experience when I worked in customer service. And I was like, yes. It was just like, oh, hello. Bye. [00:16:38] Speaker C: I was kind of like, hey, do I know you? [00:16:40] Speaker B: I think I know you. There's a stranger in my bed. So, of course, you did that for a while. And then you guys made a rather big decision. Tell me about that. To change everything, really. [00:16:57] Speaker C: Yeah. I am grateful to be able to do that. We had, let's see, Rachel and Laura were two, I think, and we had one of those years where we had had two hurricanes come in one year and then another hurricane the next year. I think it was Matthew and Irma. I can't remember exactly which ones, but. And when that happens, they, you know, the city calls up all of the police officers, and because they needed to work on the streets, and just during the emergency, um, you know, at the same time, I would have to be on call at the hospital. And what do you do? You know, what do you do? We couldn't really ask our parents to take, you know, our kids during the hurricane, and, uh, and, um, we decided that it was just becoming too difficult to work two different weird schedules like that. [00:18:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:18:02] Speaker C: And we really, um, as I said, we really didn't want to jew and nanny. I know, some, some wonderful nannies and families who have had great experiences with them. But. But we wanted one of the parents to be the primary caregiver, if not the grip, you know, if not grandparents, but. So we decided that it would be best for our family for probably for him to resign and for me to continue working. And so he resigned. And we. It's been great. I mean, just. Just having a parent available to, you know, to take it to school, run interference. You know, we were able to then send Rachel and Laura to our church preschool, which we loved, but doesn't, you know, doesn't provide wraparound care. So, you know, it wasn't feasible when both of us were working those schedules. But we, you know, we were able to bring them out of daycare and to go out and have them do, you know, a nine to twelve preschool, which we love, and it's our church, so we love that. And, and, you know, and now as they're getting older, he's able to pick them up and take them to activities or, you know, just as good as the care and everything is, but not have to have them go to aftercare and, you know, stay there till six and, you know, when you get that call, so and so is sick. [00:19:33] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:33] Speaker C: Someone to go pick them up. And it didn't involve, you know, because we would get that a lot with daycare too. It didn't involve one of us having to leave a, you know, in a. In the middle of a difficult situation or in the middle of something like, oh, I've got to go. I can't really leave my surgery or I can't. Yeah, necessarily leave his detective work to go pick them up, so. [00:19:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. I know that is complicated. And how long have you guys had that arrangement? Been a while, hasn't it? [00:20:05] Speaker C: Yeah, it's been about. Yeah, about seven years now, or six and a half to seven. So it's been great. [00:20:13] Speaker B: I know. I like having a more flexible schedule, you know, for that reason. And Jeff has a job that, you know, is forgiving also. But, you know, it does help that we live so close, you know, for like, oh, Devon usually Devon got into trouble of some sort, so he should come get him or whatever. Nothing major, but middle school boys, that's all it is. Now. These days your girls are very healthy and active. What sort of activities are they into right now? Like, because you got a lot. Still have a lot of juggling going on. Yeah. Yeah. [00:20:57] Speaker C: You know, we don't, um. I don't know. I listen to you talk about baseball and all the ins and outs with that, and you know, different things. We don't. We don't have all of that. But, you know, there we have done various things. Cheerleading and gymnastics and dance and church activities and things. And so, you know, it's wonderful to have the ability to do all those things and not be stressed out about who's going to do this, who's going to take, you know, who's going to take this one, this place, and the other one, that place. So we have been very grateful for that. I'd say right now they're kind of into. Well, Katherine's very creative, so she does a lot of sewing, crocheting, that sort of thing. She loves to bake and she's involved with, like, our church youth ministry and Rachel and Laura, so they've done some dance and some gymnastics and kind of trying to figure out what they like with that. [00:22:09] Speaker B: Yeah, well, nine years old, they don't have to commit quite yet. [00:22:14] Speaker C: Right, right. That's okay. [00:22:20] Speaker B: Well, I know you've made a recent sort of decision, too, with you. Maybe not recent, but cutting back also with the practice. Tell me a little bit about that. And what made you decide to do that? [00:22:36] Speaker C: You know, a lot of it kind of came up, really, during COVID which was kind of interesting time to make that decision. But it was, I think, the time that kind of got brought along. And one of my partners and I had been talking about doing some job sharing because we both have kids still at home and wanted to be able to spend some more time with them. And so we decided to kind of split ourselves and I decided to go to more of a part time schedule. But I love obstetrics, so I still wanted to be able to do that. So right now, I'm able to continue to do that with kind of a modified call schedule and also have some time at home just doing kind of normal mom stuff, I like to say. But being able to, you know, go on a field trip or go have lunch with my kids, you know, just take them to school and pick them up from school, which means a lot, you know, and I wanted to be able to do that while they're still young enough, hopefully that, you know, that we. They can remember it. But still young enough to want your mom to come to school, right? [00:23:51] Speaker B: Yes. Take advantage of that for as long as possible. [00:23:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:58] Speaker B: Devon turns twelve tomorrow, so without this. [00:24:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:24:03] Speaker B: Yep. We're getting there. [00:24:07] Speaker C: Yeah, that's that. I can't believe. I mean. I mean, I knew it was coming up, but. Yeah. [00:24:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Happy birthday, Devin. I know I'm getting more frequent. [00:24:19] Speaker C: But. [00:24:19] Speaker B: He'S a good guy. So. So right now, what is, if anything, the thing that stresses you out the most, like when regards into work life balance? [00:24:39] Speaker C: Well, yeah, I'm really thankful for the schedule that I have now, but, I mean, as you know, if you're traveling or working, whatever, you're always the mom. And so there is, I think maybe I'm selling guys short, but there's still always the pull of, you want to be there for your kids. So even now they'll comment, ma, are you going to work again? You have to go to work again. And I'm like, it's a lot better than it used to be. A lot better. But you still want to be there. Like, one of them wasn't feeling well today, and I really wanted to be able to be with her. But you have those other obligations, too, so you kind of have this pull between your work life and your home life, you know, and I care, you know, a lot about my patients, and I want to provide them excellent care. But then you have the other pool, you know, the home pole, and you want to be there and you want to be the best mom for your children, too. And trying to figure out how to, how to do both of those things is, it's always a challenge. It's still a challenge. Even a much better schedule. And, you know, and being, being able to be with them a lot more, there's still that hole and the fact that when you get home, even if it's after a long day or after a call, you know, I'm still the mom. I'm still, you know, yeah, I want to put them to bed, but I'm, like, falling asleep while I'm putting them to bed. [00:26:21] Speaker B: I would love 24 hours, right? [00:26:24] Speaker C: I would. I wish I weren't so cranky. [00:26:29] Speaker B: I couldn't do it 24 hours these days. I don't know how you, how you do it. [00:26:34] Speaker C: It gets harder and harder. I mean, it's, it's mostly a happy, joyful work, but, but it's, it's hard. Harder now than it was ten years ago to be up at 03:00 a.m. And functional the next day. [00:26:49] Speaker B: Right. And also having to perform your job well. You know, I don't know how even at 25 you could do or however old you were when you got out. [00:27:01] Speaker C: Of practice, I guess. [00:27:06] Speaker B: Well, what advice? You know, there's, that's sort of a thing in our culture, I think, especially american culture, of women doing both, you know, working well. I have my career and I have my children, and I want both and all. What's your advice for other working mothers? [00:27:30] Speaker C: I think go into it with realistic expectations. You know, I, when I was, I felt like God was calling me to be a doctor. And I kind of felt that way since I was in late elementary or middle school. That was kind of always the track that I thought I was supposed to go. And certainly sometimes the kids will ask, too. You, you know, when I chose this specialty, I had not met, you know, I had Matt and I hadn't met. I didn't even know if I would ever get married or have kids. I mean, I wanted to, but it wasn't necessarily on the horizon. And so sometimes I look back and think, would I have made the same decision if I had, you know, one already met Matt or we were already married? I don't know. And I think that's always something to look back. And when I'm talking with students and everything, you know, try to be honest. It is. Every job has its stresses and its hard things. And I think you do have to love your work because if you don't, it's going to be a long haul. And I do. I love the work that I do. You know, I don't necessarily love leaving my family, leaving my kids, you know, the mornings when I have to be gone for 24 or 36 hours. But I love the work that I do and I love the people with whom I work, you know, that the nurses and all the staff that I work with are wonderful, which is also an important thing, I think, because you're just going to spend a lot of time with your work family, too. But, yeah, but sometimes I do look back and say, okay, God, is this where you still want me? You know, is this where you wanted me? Is this where you still want me? And I try to be honest with people who are with, you know, the women who are asking, yeah, it's hard, you know, you are going to sacrifice some, some time with your family, but every job is like that in a way. [00:29:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:29:36] Speaker C: You know, and are the, you know, the rewards larger than the, the things that you give up? My job is very rewarding. I certainly meet wonderful, wonderful women and families, and I love that. I love being part of their lives at that point, but, yeah, I miss, you know, there are definitely things with my own family that I've missed. [00:30:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, I know it's tough because, you know, like you said, you're all, you're the mom and I mean, we both have really amazing, supportive husband, without a doubt. But when Devin is like in crisis, shall we say? Or, you know, whatever. [00:30:23] Speaker C: Sure. [00:30:24] Speaker B: When you've got something he wants, mom, you want me, and I want to be that person also. So I think. I don't know if it is biological, if it is cultural, you know, as a mother, just having that pull, you know? And it's not to say that dads don't have that pull either. It's just a different. I think it's just different. [00:30:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, hey, I grew this child for nine months in my body, right? We have a connection. [00:31:01] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. No, I think you're right. [00:31:03] Speaker B: You're just. [00:31:03] Speaker C: You're always the moment. [00:31:04] Speaker B: You're always the mom. I think that's well said, for sure. [00:31:23] Speaker A: Welcome back to 45, left or right podcast. I hope you enjoyed my interview with Emily. She is amazing and thoughtful and very intelligent and just a wonderful person. So I hope that you enjoyed that. So it would not be 45, left or right podcast without some research. So I'm going to hit you with some of this and hope it's applicable. This should come to as no surprise to anyone that it is more common now for mothers to work outside of the home. Some do it by choice, like Emily, and others by necessity, because things are expensive and it's not always possible to stay home if you want to. The first batch of stats is from a sort of an organization called USA Facts, and this is run by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. And this really appears to be very balanced and legitimate source. This is, you know, Ballmer made this, this organization as a way to make government data more accessible, because if you have ever been on any government site with statistics, they are hard to navigate, largely. And the language of the stats is really hard to decipher. So he's trying to make it more available, more accessible. What's great about them is they do not take money from advertisers or anyone else. They do not even take a tax exempt designation because they don't want to have any conflict of interest. So they're pretty cool. They've been bookmarked in my computer. So according to USA Facts 2021, 24.2 million mothers were in the US labor force. And this is with children younger than 18. Now, when they say in the labor force, that means that these mothers are currently employed or are looking for work. These numbers is such a huge change from 50 years ago, in 1975, when only 47.5% of women with children were working or looking for work. And this is according to the Department of Labor. In 2000, it went from 47.5% to 72.9%. So that is a large majority mothers that work in the United States. And off of topic here, 50 years ago was 1975. Who else feels like 50 years ago should be like 1950? Oh, God, I don't even want to think about it now. The number of working numbers mothers is a little lower for women with young children, young children being under the age of three, which is 64.2% in 2021. And that makes sense that the number is a little bit lower because finding childcare for really young children is difficult and it's expensive. And I think that moms feel especially compelled to be with their children when they are really little. I think. I don't know, I felt more of an ache when Devin was young to be away from him. So that's just my experience and my observations. But here's the thing. Looking at these numbers, most women, most mothers work full time, and they are still expected to be the primary caregivers. So there's working full time and they are the primary caregivers, yet are still not getting paid the same. They only make 68.9% of what men make as of 2022. All right, I'll move on. And the next batch of statistics is a little denser because I got. Got it through a government website, the National center for Education Statistics. This really covers a lot about the choices in childcare for kids. This is mostly kids under the age of five, and I don't want to get too much into the cost of childcare. And then a lot of the other reasons why women have to work besides wanting to work, because I think that topic deserves its own episode one day. I want this episode to be more about the experience of being a working mom. So Emily talked about wanting either a parent or grandparent to be the primary caregivers for their kids. You know, if she or Matt couldn't be the primary caregiver, they wanted a grandparent, and they were lucky enough to have grandparents in the area. And I can certainly vouch for her parents, who were like a second set of parents for me. They are amazing. But most parents just don't have the option for family to help with the kids. In 2019, approximately 59% of children age five and younger who are not enrolled in kindergarten were in at least one weekly non parental care arrangement as reported by their parents. So basically, 59% of non school age kids were in some kind of childcare situation that didn't involve their parents among children in this weekly non parental care arrangement. So we're just going to call it daycare. 62% were attending a daycare center, preschool, or pre kindergarten. So some kind of. Yeah, pre, pre k center. Of those, 38% were cared for by a relative and 20% were cared for in a private home by someone not related to them. So, like a home daycare for Jeff and I, we have never lived in the same city as either of our parents. So it's never been an option for us to utilize grandparents. Honestly, I get a little sad sometimes when I see other kids Devon's age who have the grandparents, you know, at the baseball game or at the concerts. But that's just, you know, that's just not how it is for us. And you also have the consideration that if your parents are primary caregivers for your kids, that is a big toll on your parents who are getting older. So it's really hard. The next batch of stats is from the United Census Bureau, another hard to navigate government site. But I tried. So the US Census Bureau did a household pulse survey, and they did it from September to December 2022. So according to that survey, roughly 61% of parents who were living with at least one child, child under the age of 18 say that they did not have any formal childcare arrangements. But it looks like a big number. But remember, this is including children who are of school age or even older teenagers. But in this survey, it says about one in five, which is 21.8% reported that child care was provided by a relative other than a parent. So an aunt, an uncle, a cousin, you know, a grandparent. Around 8.4% reported using a daycare center. About 5% reported using one of the following non relative care, nursery or preschool or before, before and after school care. And then about 3% used a family daycare. So, you know, when you look at these numbers, compared to the numbers above, the National center for Educational Statistics, it seems like they're really low. But again, you got to remember that kids are. This includes kids who are in the age range between six and 17. So school age. So it would be a smaller number. Look at, you know, even Emily, who has. Who really had a lot of good options for childcare. And she had, you know, the resources and the flexibility. Even she had to really struggle over finding a balance between her career as an Ob GYN and then wanting to have memorable and quality time with her children and with her husband. How do you do it all? Welcome back to 45, left or right podcast. I want to end with some reflections and a story as Jeff and I sat on that disgusting love seat in my dorm room, planning our lives together again as fools in love we always talked about having at least one of our kids when I was in the army because it's free. This was before 911, so we thought it would be a relatively stable life. Then I got to my first unit in the 10th Mountain Division. This was post 911, and I saw that units were deploying young female soldiers to Iraq only six weeks after they gave birth. It was like they were getting punished for daring to have a baby while we were on deployment orders. Most of them became pregnant before we had deployment orders. So I think some of these officers did not know how pregnancy worked. But after I saw that, I realized that having a baby while in the army was wildly unrealistic for us for a lot of different reasons. I ended up staying home with Devin until he was five and went to kindergarten. My mom has always told me that the happiest she has ever been was when she stayed home with my brother and I, and I wanted to give it a try. I felt the pull. The pull to stay at home with Devin. I'll talk more about that experience in my next episode, where I talked to my friend Claire about being a stay at home mom. But once Devin went to kindergarten, I went back to school to get a second bachelor's degree in literary journalism. I commuted 60 miles each way in southern California traffic. That was an hour and 20 minutes going there, and usually two and a half hours getting back. It was terrible. So because of my commute and my school and Jeff working full time, Devin had to be in daycare after school. And usually Jeff picked him up. If I remember properly, I felt alive when I was at school learning. I felt like I was doing something for myself, and I really enjoyed that I was working toward a career in journalism, but my heart just ached when I thought about my adorable little boy in daycare from twelve to six. Some days, Jeff would usually pick him up. And though I know that Devin is always in very capable and loving hands when he is with Jeff, I felt guilty because it wasn't me. Like I was neglecting him somehow. But I was also really happy in school. And I, of course, was very appreciative to have Jeff backing me up and, you know, being a really good dad, which he's always been. So as of now, I think I've settled on a good balance. But it hasn't always been by design. Journalism is a really tough market to freelance in right now or get started freelancing right now. So I've been trying to work while Devin's at school, and then be available for his things after school. I have a lot of flexibility and I really like that when the dean calls because Devin threw an apple at a bully, or the nurse calls when he did the one chip challenge, and if you don't know what that is, look it up and don't ever do it. I like being the one to go get him. I'm the mom. In the back of my mind, though, there is this thought. You have so much education, Doris, and you aren't doing anything with it. You aren't fulfilling your potential. I enjoy my flexibility. I love spending time with Devin, and I love being able to support my family in running the household. But I also still put pressure on myself to do more, to be more. And I think whether you work inside or outside of the home as a mother, you are going to feel a conflict either way. Thank you for listening to 45 left or right podcast. I hope you listen next week when I interview Claire, who is not only a stay at home mom, but also a homeschooling mom to her four children. She's really interesting and cool and I hope you check it out. And as always, in whatever podcast app you are using, if you could find the follow button or the rate button or leave comments, that would help me out a lot. And also, if you're on Instagram or of course, Facebook, any sort of social media, please find me. I will post it in the notes to this show, which I have finally figured out how to do. So again, thank you so much for tuning in and bye for now.