The right balance between work and family

Many young mothers ask me, ‘How can I balance work and family…kids/marriage/exercise/taking care of my house and cooking healthy food for my kids all at the same time’? I squirm a bit, feeling that I don’t have an adequate answer.

My approach to balancing work and family has always been different. My husband and I met and married in medical school. During my 4th year, we had our first baby. When we graduated, we each needed to do an intense 90 hour per week work/residency program for three to four years each.

How would we do that with a 6 month old? We could – but we decided not to leave our daughter with a nanny for that amount of time.

So, we made a plan. I would do my pediatric residency first while my husband would work part time and stay home with our daughter. Then, when I was finished with my residency, he would do his program, and I would stay home. It was during my residency that we also had our second child, so he was caring for two young children. That was what balance looked like in that season. This…