@Lily- yep, kids need time and money. Working for pay means you contribute both. I find the view of medicine as being particularly “unfriendly” for women to be an interesting and pretty archaic view. Past the training, many specialties offer you a reasonable amount of control over your time, in addition to being high-paying enough that you can afford a lot of support, or can even scale down with little change in living standards. I think this stems from medicine seeming, in the past, and in smaller communities, like the most prestigious thing you could possibly do — and hence women couldn’t possibly do it.

I feel compelled to comment re: the listener question… I’m not in the exact situation, but both my husband and I are MDs working full-time with 2 kids, and we both had breadwinner dads and mothers who stayed home for many years, with small side careers later in life. Our families are generally supportive, but there is still soooo much subtle judgement. There is this mentality that the best thing for the kids is for Mom (but not Dad) to spend lots and lots of time (all the time ideally) with them, that daycare is ”bad” for them, that I should be working part time at most. Intellectually, I’m happy about our family’s choices, but I feel so guilt-tripped sometimes.

What has helped:
1) During covid, I was home with the kids much more than usual… extra family time was nice, but being home all the time with them for a period was clearly excessive… my toddler acted up as he was bored at home, some parental yelling instead of textbook ”positive discipline” definitely occurred, and surprise surprise there is a limit to quality time… I spent hours with basic meal prep and clean up and chores that took an eternity to complete with two little ones requiring constant supervision. Yes, we did do some fun arts and crafts and cooking, and we did read some extra books on some days (not most), but since my toddler has gone back to full-time daycare, I’ve managed to do the same amount of fun activities and reading with him, plus during the day, he does quality activities at his screen-free daycare while I get work done. Everyone is happier, less behavioural issues. Win-win.

2) I try to think about my kids as young adults. Will we have good memories of spending time together during their childhoods, even if I worked full-time? Yes, because this comes from parenting intentionally. Quality time when at home, building a relationship with the kids instead of just folding laundry, putting the kids first when they need extra parental attention, and setting a good example for the kids the rest of the time by working hard. Will my kids think, gee I wish mom spent extra time at home with me all of the time when I was 2, instead of working to save all this money for my post-secondary education? No, they won’t.