Dating A Doctor..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s wrong with working PT or being a SAHM?

Raising children is an important and interesting job. And it doesn’t last forever, maybe 10-15 years of your entire working life.

You can always go back to full time work, particularly if you work in healthcare.

OP here. I worked really hard for my career and do not want to throw it away. I’m fine working PT but I think it’s important to protect my career and income. It’s important to me to have an income in the event something happens. Being a SAHM isn’t for everyone. I babysat for many years while in school and while sometimes it was fun, most of it was boring. I’m not very creative. I’m not cut out for being a SAHM. I love my career and think it’s amazing.

Not all healthcare jobs let you go back without updating schooling for your profession or doing things to keep your license current.

And what is your "amazing" career in healthcare where you can work PT but not take time off for a couple years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dating three months and you’re already planning your love together? He’s the one who needs to run.

That's my thinking. Besides that, OP is looking for a husband who works 9 - 5.

OP here. I’m not looking for a guy that works those hours. I’m fine with longer hours. I just want someone who doesn’t work weekends and holidays. I want a man who will be an involved father.

He will work some weekends and holidays.

He will also be on call sometimes, which means, he might be home but he would need to leave at any minute so don't plan anything that you would get upset about if he leaves. If you want him to paint a room or take the kid to the circus when he is on call, he probably wouldn't because if he gets called he would need to leave. If he worked an overnight call, he would come home and sleep. So it's a post-call day that you consider as his day off but he'll be tired and might not be up to a full day of planned activities.

If you can be flexible with your time and schedule, if you can be supportive of his career (because mentally it takes a toll on both of you), if you have enough money for a full time nanny, if you're okay with celebrating some holidays solo or on days that are different from the actual day, then it can work. If you don't have a lot of friends with doctor spouses, then start making some or you will get resentful and jealous of your 'regular working couple' friends having weekends together or the spouse doing drop off and pick up at school.

I'm not trying to steer you away, he can still be an amazing husband and father. Your life will just be different from what you might be used to or expecting. I wish someone had been this brutally honest with me when I got married. I would have been better prepared for it and adjusted my expectations way earlier. If you both love each other and you are willing to adjust your expectations and be more flexible, then go for it!

I’m married to an anesthesiologist, and I agree with all of this.

Also, I don’t know if she is still writing it, but there is a great blog called the underwear drawer written by an anesthesiologist mom.

I'm the husband, married to an anesthesiologist - she makes 2x my salary. We never had a nanny and we don't have family in town.

Just hope your kids don't want to do travel sports! That is our biggest issue around time-management.

I work traditional office hours and am always the one to pick up sick kids, do Doctor appointments.

Our vacation schedule is based on which weeks she can get off - but she gets a lot of weeks off, but cannot just take a day single day off for a school event or snow day, special occasion.

I have to make the bed every day, make kids a healthy breakfast, pack lunches, and traditionally drive them to school. She often gets off early enough to do homework with kids before I get home, but you never know.

But I love her, and it is worth it, and you get pretty used to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dating three months and you’re already planning your love together? He’s the one who needs to run.

That's my thinking. Besides that, OP is looking for a husband who works 9 - 5.

OP here. I’m not looking for a guy that works those hours. I’m fine with longer hours. I just want someone who doesn’t work weekends and holidays. I want a man who will be an involved father.

He will work some weekends and holidays.

He will also be on call sometimes, which means, he might be home but he would need to leave at any minute so don't plan anything that you would get upset about if he leaves. If you want him to paint a room or take the kid to the circus when he is on call, he probably wouldn't because if he gets called he would need to leave. If he worked an overnight call, he would come home and sleep. So it's a post-call day that you consider as his day off but he'll be tired and might not be up to a full day of planned activities.

If you can be flexible with your time and schedule, if you can be supportive of his career (because mentally it takes a toll on both of you), if you have enough money for a full time nanny, if you're okay with celebrating some holidays solo or on days that are different from the actual day, then it can work. If you don't have a lot of friends with doctor spouses, then start making some or you will get resentful and jealous of your 'regular working couple' friends having weekends together or the spouse doing drop off and pick up at school.

I'm not trying to steer you away, he can still be an amazing husband and father. Your life will just be different from what you might be used to or expecting. I wish someone had been this brutally honest with me when I got married. I would have been better prepared for it and adjusted my expectations way earlier. If you both love each other and you are willing to adjust your expectations and be more flexible, then go for it!

I’m married to an anesthesiologist, and I agree with all of this.

Also, I don’t know if she is still writing it, but there is a great blog called the underwear drawer written by an anesthesiologist mom.

I'm the husband, married to an anesthesiologist - she makes 2x my salary. We never had a nanny and we don't have family in town.

Just hope your kids don't want to do travel sports! That is our biggest issue around time-management.

I work traditional office hours and am always the one to pick up sick kids, do Doctor appointments.

Our vacation schedule is based on which weeks she can get off - but she gets a lot of weeks off, but cannot just take a day single day off for a school event or snow day, special occasion.

I have to make the bed every day, make kids a healthy breakfast, pack lunches, and traditionally drive them to school. She often gets off early enough to do homework with kids before I get home, but you never know.

But I love her, and it is worth it, and you get pretty used to it.

But you have a job with some flexibility, which is why you can be the default parent. OP doesn't have a job with flexibility and doesn't want to be the default parent. Both OP and her BF have health care provider jobs - not office jobs - so they can't just go in a few hours late or leave a few hours early and make up the time. For any potential children's sake, this BF needs a spouse who's either a SAHP or has a flexible and non-demanding job. OP does too because she absolutely refuses to let her demanding career take a back seat yet wants a spouse who will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don’t expect to be be the default parent and don’t want to get used to being solo on some weekends, nights, and holidays then consider this a fling and move on. These are part of the life of being married to doctors in certain specialties.

If kid gets a fever at school, he can’t leave a patient on the table to go pick them up, the school will always call you. If kid throws up before school, he can’t call it in and reschedule patients that booked their surgery weeks or months ago, it will be you that will need to call in sick. He can never work from home. If he takes overnight call, you will likely need to live close to his work not yours. Unless you book your kids’ doctors appts 1-2 months in advance, he won’t be able to take them if he works a day shift because his schedule is booked out at least a month in advance.

- married to a doctor

OP here. I want kids but work in healthcare and love my job. I feel being married to a high earner like a doctor will mean me compromising my job to stay home. I don’t want to be a SAHM.

My friend is a doctor married to another doctor. They have always used nannies (and also grandparents, but mostly well-paid, stellar nannies).

We are friends with a couple who are both doctors. They have 2 nannies (need more than 8 hours a day), one babysitter for the weekends and a housekeeper to cook/clean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don’t expect to be be the default parent and don’t want to get used to being solo on some weekends, nights, and holidays then consider this a fling and move on. These are part of the life of being married to doctors in certain specialties.

If kid gets a fever at school, he can’t leave a patient on the table to go pick them up, the school will always call you. If kid throws up before school, he can’t call it in and reschedule patients that booked their surgery weeks or months ago, it will be you that will need to call in sick. He can never work from home. If he takes overnight call, you will likely need to live close to his work not yours. Unless you book your kids’ doctors appts 1-2 months in advance, he won’t be able to take them if he works a day shift because his schedule is booked out at least a month in advance.

- married to a doctor

OP here. I want kids but work in healthcare and love my job. I feel being married to a high earner like a doctor will mean me compromising my job to stay home. I don’t want to be a SAHM.

My friend is a doctor married to another doctor. They have always used nannies (and also grandparents, but mostly well-paid, stellar nannies).

We are friends with a couple who are both doctors. They have 2 nannies (need more than 8 hours a day), one babysitter for the weekends and a housekeeper to cook/clean.

Those poor kids!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s wrong with working PT or being a SAHM?

Raising children is an important and interesting job. And it doesn’t last forever, maybe 10-15 years of your entire working life.

You can always go back to full time work, particularly if you work in healthcare.

OP here. I worked really hard for my career and do not want to throw it away. I’m fine working PT but I think it’s important to protect my career and income. It’s important to me to have an income in the event something happens. Being a SAHM isn’t for everyone. I babysat for many years while in school and while sometimes it was fun, most of it was boring. I’m not very creative. I’m not cut out for being a SAHM. I love my career and think it’s amazing.

Not all healthcare jobs let you go back without updating schooling for your profession or doing things to keep your license current.

And what is your "amazing" career in healthcare where you can work PT but not take time off for a couple years?

OP here. I never said I couldn’t take off a “ couple of years”. I was talking about taking off a gap of 10-15 years to raise your children as the pp said. 2-3 years is reasonable. 10-15 years isn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s wrong with working PT or being a SAHM?

Raising children is an important and interesting job. And it doesn’t last forever, maybe 10-15 years of your entire working life.

You can always go back to full time work, particularly if you work in healthcare.

OP here. I worked really hard for my career and do not want to throw it away. I’m fine working PT but I think it’s important to protect my career and income. It’s important to me to have an income in the event something happens. Being a SAHM isn’t for everyone. I babysat for many years while in school and while sometimes it was fun, most of it was boring. I’m not very creative. I’m not cut out for being a SAHM. I love my career and think it’s amazing.

Not all healthcare jobs let you go back without updating schooling for your profession or doing things to keep your license current.

And what is your "amazing" career in healthcare where you can work PT but not take time off for a couple years?

OP here. I never said I couldn’t take off a “ couple of years”. I was talking about taking off a gap of 10-15 years to raise your children as the pp said. 2-3 years is reasonable. 10-15 years isn’t.

I’m the pp who said that. I’m a child psychiatrist, so I do find children interesting.
I work part time on an inpatient unit and doing inpatient consults on the medical floor. I have actually found that inpatient work is more flexible than outpatient work. I work about 20 hours/wk. I have been for the last five years, and I probably will for at least the next five.
I am the default parent with everything though. DH does a lot, but sometimes he really just can’t be there, so I always make sure that I can be or I have someone else on back up who can be.
Part of it is that he makes twice what I would make working full time too .

[Anonymous]

OP, I mean this in the gentlest way possible, but I think I "know" you...

You're in your late 30s.
You are terrified of settling.
You've made decent money, have your life all lined up how you like it, except for the partner and kids part.
That makes it harder to relinquish control to a relationship, life circumstances, the wants and needs of others: a relationship requires that both parties do this to a certain degree.

Assuming you both are on the same page and could be "the ones" for each other, you have two options:

1.) Work on softening a bit and being OK with change or not being the sole decider of everything or not having the perfect Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years/Valentines/Birthdays/Anniversary/4th of July every single year every single time (in reality, sh*t happens to people without demanding work schedules, so this calling it off for perfection is a foolish expectation). If you are not OK with these things, (an equitable, fair) marriage may not be a good fit for you.

2.) Go for it, and realize that you can have a perfectly wonderful life with some schedule difficulties, and you can have a fulfilling work life (part-time, full-time, nanny, sitter, etc...) and be a mother despite how many hours your husband works. Money, which you'd definitely have, helps all of these things a great deal.

[Anonymous]

The only person who can "throw" your career away in the future is you. If you want to keep it, you will find a way to keep it. Same thing with the anesthesiologist. If you want it, you find a way. I have found this to be a profound truth in my life in general.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t marry a doctor. Two of my friends married specialists and have both been cheated on. Hospital life has no boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I mean this in the gentlest way possible, but I think I "know" you...

You're in your late 30s.
You are terrified of settling.
You've made decent money, have your life all lined up how you like it, except for the partner and kids part.
That makes it harder to relinquish control to a relationship, life circumstances, the wants and needs of others: a relationship requires that both parties do this to a certain degree.

Assuming you both are on the same page and could be "the ones" for each other, you have two options:

1.) Work on softening a bit and being OK with change or not being the sole decider of everything or not having the perfect Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years/Valentines/Birthdays/Anniversary/4th of July every single year every single time (in reality, sh*t happens to people without demanding work schedules, so this calling it off for perfection is a foolish expectation). If you are not OK with these things, (an equitable, fair) marriage may not be a good fit for you.

2.) Go for it, and realize that you can have a perfectly wonderful life with some schedule difficulties, and you can have a fulfilling work life (part-time, full-time, nanny, sitter, etc...) and be a mother despite how many hours your husband works. Money, which you'd definitely have, helps all of these things a great deal.

OP here. All of this except I’m younger than late thirties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We my MD husband works a ton and his time isn’t flexible but he’s a wonderful father. It works bc my job is more traditional hours wise and we have a full time nanny. If he is the person for you this shouldn’t be a deal breaker.

At the right time, ask him what he wants from the future and what kind of person, husband, father he wants to be.

Of course talk is cheap, so study his parents dynamic as well. And his general life habits (tidy, clean, plansstuff well, conflict resolution, communication skills). Don’t make excuses for bad behavior.

[Anonymous]

The big question is how much do you make? You will need 1 but probably 2 nannies plus housekeeping help for both of you to work full time in non-flexible jobs. Will your net income after outsourcing all that make sense financially? If your net income isn't going to contribute anything significant to your family's financial goals and it means nannies doing the bulk of childcare, he may not be ok with that.

When talking about SAHM/working with him, income and outsourcing cost need to be a part of that conversation.