As a child, weekends held a special kind of magic. I still recall the thrill of browsing the aisles at the video store with my brother, eager to choose the perfect VHS tapes for family movie night. Whether it was a weekly ritual or a monthly treat, these movie nights became cherished moments that softened the edges of my parents’ busy schedules as they navigated establishing our family in a new country after moving from England to America.
Both my parents were physicians, dedicating themselves to rebuilding their medical careers in the U.S. This meant studying for rigorous medical exams and undergoing further training, often demanding long hours away from home. In the midst of these demanding times, our family movie nights became a precious anchor, a way for us to reconnect. We transformed our living room, pulling out the sofa bed and snuggling under warm blankets, lost in the worlds of “Peter Pan,” “A Little Princess,” or “Mrs. Doubtfire.” Often, we’d drift off to sleep together, enveloped in a sense of togetherness.
Recently, my mother reminisced about these movie nights, sharing that they were her and my father’s intentional way of making up for lost time, a way to be fully present with us despite the pressures of their demanding careers and immigrant experience. Now, as I celebrate my own journey into motherhood, marking my fourth Mother’s Day, I find myself reflecting on how to gift my own children with quality time, and importantly, how to gift myself the same. This Mother’s Day, the most meaningful gift might not be something you can wrap, but rather the gift of time itself.
My life as a psychiatrist, with professional commitments spanning both East and West Coasts, involves frequent cross-country travel. Just a few weeks ago, while waiting in airport security, the TSA agent announced a machine malfunction, forcing our line to merge with another. A fellow traveler behind me sighed, “Well, at least I got here early. It’s always easier to kill time than resuscitate it.” His words resonated deeply. As both a physician and a mother, I often feel like I’m perpetually trying to resuscitate time, a demanding and draining endeavor akin to CPR, leaving me physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted.
While studies suggest that optimal happiness is linked to having around two to three hours of daily free time, the reality of juggling physicianhood and motherhood often feels like a constant deficit. Across medical specialties, it’s a known reality that healthcare systems rely on physicians donating an average of two hours of personal time each night to complete essential patient care tasks. When you layer this unpaid labor with the invisible mental load of motherhood – from grocery shopping and ensuring growing children have properly fitting shoes, to packing nutritious school lunches, managing a calendar overflowing with pediatric appointments, and the frantic search for children’s fever medication at multiple pharmacies – discretionary time outside of caregiving evaporates.
This state of constant pressure is what sociologists term “time poverty.” Living in this state is not just stressful; it’s detrimental to our health, increasing the risk of stress-related conditions like anxiety and cardiovascular disease. Time poverty disproportionately affects Black women and shift workers, professions that mirror my own experience as an emergency psychiatrist. My coping mechanism has often been hyper-productivity, attempting to maximize every moment. I’m constantly shifting between demanding patient care and parenting tasks, multitasking at every turn. However, I’m learning that this approach is counterproductive. This desperate attempt to reclaim lost time only amplifies my stress and deprives my brain of the restorative rest and breaks it desperately needs.
A more sustainable path lies in intentionally doing less with the time I do have. Years ago, I discovered “Workparent: The Complete Guide to Succeeding on the Job, Staying True to Yourself, and Raising Happy Kids,” by Daisy Dowling. This book empowered me to embrace a non-traditional, travel-heavy job while still nurturing my family life. Revisiting Dowling’s insights recently, I sought strategies to better balance my work and life as a physician-mother. Dowling highlights that working mothers navigate over 500 transitions between home and work each year, and these transitions profoundly impact our well-being.
“These could be 500 chances to feel torn in two, to appear harried and gruff to your child and colleagues, to run late, to forget your phone at work, to misplace your notes from that VC, and to be left anguished wondering if this working-parent thing is inherently painful or just plain impossible,” Dowling writes. She advocates for building mindful transitions into our days, such as listening to calming music or practicing meditation, to mentally prepare ourselves for engaging meaningfully in both our professional and personal lives. For me, this translates into intentionally gifting myself moments of quiet reflection between my last patient and stepping into playtime with my daughters.
I’ve grown to deeply value these transition moments as a form of mental respite. These pauses are essential for replenishing my energy and preventing burnout, both as a physician and a mother. By carving out small pockets of discretionary time, these mindful moments significantly enhance my overall sense of well-being. As a mother, and in my role as a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist, I actively encourage my patients to prioritize similar self-care practices.
When working from home, my clinic schedule spans the afternoon and evening. I intentionally schedule a break to prepare my daughters for bedtime. After bath time, my husband and I gather with the girls to read their favorite stories. These moments of shared closeness, all four of us snuggled together, evoke cherished memories of my own childhood and those magical movie nights with my parents. As my daughters grow, I hope these bedtime stories, these moments of intentionally reclaimed time, will become their own treasured family traditions.
Mother’s Day is a dedicated opportunity to express gratitude towards the maternal figures in our lives. It’s a day to acknowledge and honor the countless sacrifices mothers make in nurturing their families. This Mother’s Day, I hope physician-mothers, especially those vulnerable to time poverty, will take small, meaningful steps to invest in themselves. By gifting themselves moments of time and self-care, they can sustain their dedication to their patients and their devotion to their children. This Mother’s Day, let’s consider gifts that truly matter – gifts of time, peace, and well-being. Let’s do less, and gain so much more.
