Spouses and Relationships

[MPMD]

CM wrote:

HLM wrote:

there are lots of things to grumble about in medicine, but to actually waste emotional energy being upset that woman have the audacity to makes babies because it is inconvenient to others working with them just seems like navel gazing self absorption.

 

Click to expand…

Jane and Joe are riding up to the CCU in an elevator. Jane turns to Joe:

“Joe, I’ve decided to do something that will greatly enrich my life. It won’t benefit you in the least and you have no say in the decision, but — and this is the really great part  — you will have to pay for it.”

Joe: “Huh. What?!”

Jane: “I don’t want to hear any complaining, Joe. I’ve already decided that this is a trivial inconvenience for you. More importantly, this is my right. I am entitled to impose this on you. If you were a decent human being you would just bend over and take this.”  

 

Click to expand...

I mean dude, that's kind of the least charitable characterization of what is happening possible...

We're not talking about a smoke break.

It's just one of those things where in reality there probably isn't an amazing solution. Personally I tried to be as helpful as I can with my colleagues when I had no kids and they did (worked 4 Christmases in a row). 

If you want to look at it from the standpoint of the woman, she's starting her family and to be honest if you're a professional there's never a good time.

If you want to characterize it from the standpoint of her most aggrieved male colleague, yeah it kind of sucks.

Fortunately: first world problems.

[Jenn]

...As for my wife and I, she is not a physician, but has an equally demanding job as a manager of the education department at our local zoo.

I thought this was your cute way of saying she homeschools your multiple kids until the next sentence said you had no kids!!

[Jenn]

I wouldn't turn my nose up - i love collecting eggs and everybody in the office loves getting them - but I could never kill a chicken. At least I don't think I could.

Gets real easy when it attacks your toddler. Grab the head and flip the wrist in a circle to literally wring its neck in a second.

[jfoxcpacfp]

Gets real easy when it attacks your toddler. Grab the head and flip the wrist in a circle to literally wring its neck in a second.

Oh, my - I hope your child was ok! Yes, in that situation, I would have no problem doing so. Should not have said “never”!

[Jenn]

"What is much harder to protect against is subjective downgrading of female residents who have kids in the eyes of their evaluators. I know women who did residencies and fellowships at prestigious programs, and they were told by fellow residents right away that having a kid during residency was a guarantee for “meh” letters of recommendation and 0 career support from senior faculty. Leaves a bad taste in the mouth, but impossible to prove."

"Nailed it. I'd go so far as to say it is impossible to protect against that, but there could be ways of mitigating it. As WCI does, just assume it's going to happen and work that possibility into the scheduling and revenue forecasts. Very few companies do this, however."

In the dark ages when I was in med school they said of an OBGyn residency, "women need to have their uteruses in a bucket to be accepted"

[workPhD]

Nonphysician, husband still in training. For years, I've earned the vast majority of our income; it will be closer to even when he finishes. My career has become higher-earning, comparably stressful, and very time-consuming...but still less time-consuming than my husband's. That has been an interesting lesson, because I have had to learn that just because I have more time doesn't mean I have enough time to do more and be well. We split cooking, light cleaning, easy home maintenance, and easy yardwork. We outsource heavier cleaning, yardwork, and auto maintenance. I manage finances, because I enjoy it and he doesn't. Living in an academic hotspot, nontraditional households and task distributions are common. I had to explain crudely to my family early in our marriage that they should be grateful for our lifestyle, because otherwise we would have already been divorced. Outsourcing has helped lower stress for both of us. Although we may choose to work less at some point, less would still be a hefty full time job for each.

MPMD - thanks for calling out that "least charitable characterization."
Management consultant/professor here; I'm also responsible for staffing a large organization and teaching firms around the world how to do so.
I understand the challenges of accommodating leaves. However, you really don't want to create the kind of organization that doesn't offer leaves. Aside from legal responsibilities and basic human decency, that culture degrades your human capital and has detrimental implications for retention and recruitment. For those stating that you automatically assume women will be around less than men, maybe you need to rethink the competitiveness of your paternity leave packages and whether your organizational culture allows people to comfortably take them. My husband's hospital offers generous paternity and maternity leave to all trainees and attendings. I would imagine many of the best hospitals do something similar due to stringent requirements in relevant states (e.g., per kid and equal maternity/paternity leaves in MA). With most hospitals short-staffed, the long game seems prudent.

[Tim]

“maybe you need to rethink the competitiveness of your paternity leave packages and whether your organizational culture allows”

Humans are valuable resources. From an organizational standpoint it is pure legal and competition.
What is missed is residents/fellows are not long term resources and permanent staff can and do have separate benefits. Residents are more “temp workers”, they pay the price, not the organization. No such thing as a locums or temp resident to cover staff. No one really chooses a residency or to leave because of paternity leave packages.

The bigger concern is how paternity leave impacts all the co-residents and their culture, different by definition than the organization. Particularly in the smaller residency programs. The increase in workload for that time is significant. Add on family considerations for priority scheduling, it is a recipe for “unequal treatment” feelings. Toxic for a single non-parent. Family friendly, single toxic is the culture you want?

[ShredtheGnar]

Husband of Doc here. In response to OP. Wife is the primary bread winner. I have held full time 40 hr week office jobs through Med school, residency, and while she is an attending. Last 19 years I went down to part time, working at home consultant work and had a heavy roll in taking care of 2 kids. 1st kid in residency. Most of the time it has worked out. Wife is in EM and with her shift hours made it difficult with kids to not have someone home all the time. Tensions have flared on occasion as I am the finance/budget person and my wife has at times been resentful when I try to clamp down on spending. It is a trade off since if went back to full time work we would have needed to hire someone to help out. She also likes the fact that I can do things when she is off work. I did work for a stint in an office and had 14 hr days and soccer 2-3 hrs one way every weekend + ballet etc. would get up, drive kids to bus stop 3 miles away, commute 35 miles one way, rush out of office to pick kids up at bus, drive 20 min down to town for soccer and ballet, take kids to dinner afterwards and get home around 9pm. I got burned out since I pretty much did everything else around the house such as pay bills, maintenance, etc. quit after about 1.5 years and went back to consulting work part time at home. Have come to find a good balance and wife is on board finally with spending/racking up debt (thanks Dave Ramsey podcasts). One kids now in college and the other still in high school. Once she is able to drive or goes off to college plan on getting a part time job just for a change of scenery. But overall we are pretty happy and still married after 24 years. Holly matrimony Batman! Silver Anniversary coming up. I gotta make some plans for this.

[F0017S0]

MPMD - thanks for calling out that "least charitable characterization."
Management consultant/professor here; I'm also responsible for staffing a large organization and teaching firms around the world how to do so.
I understand the challenges of accommodating leaves. However, you really don't want to create the kind of organization that doesn't offer leaves. Aside from legal responsibilities and basic human decency, that culture degrades your human capital and has detrimental implications for retention and recruitment. For those stating that you automatically assume women will be around less than men, maybe you need to rethink the competitiveness of your paternity leave packages and whether your organizational culture allows people to comfortably take them. My husband's hospital offers generous paternity and maternity leave to all trainees and attendings. I would imagine many of the best hospitals do something similar due to stringent requirements in relevant states (e.g., per kid and equal maternity/paternity leaves in MA). With most hospitals short-staffed, the long game seems prudent.

It was a blunt but factual characterization. As Tim said, trainees are not permanent staff and there’s no trainee staffing firm to get “replacements” from to accommodate leaves.

No matter how one slices it, the singletons will be given the extra duty because “they don’t need their personal time” as much as those folks with kids. The extra duty doesn’t “go away”…

[Tim]

It was a blunt but factual characterization. As Tim said, trainees are not permanent staff and there’s no trainee staffing firm to get “replacements” from to accommodate leaves.

No matter how one slices it, the singletons will be given the extra duty because “they don’t need their personal time” as much as those folks with kids. The extra duty doesn’t “go away”…

Employed, partner within an employed group or private practice, resident or fellow the expectations are always the same. It is almost as if the more complications, the less expectations.

[AR]

that culture degrades your human capital and has detrimental implications for retention and recruitment.

This is one of those things that seems like it should be true, but in practice, it doesn't seem to hold (maybe it might in a few fields/industry, but not in the job market as a whole). If it did, there would be little need for regulations on maternity leave and such, which are ubiquitous. I have no doubt that there are "detrimental implications" but it would seem that in the real world they are often outweighed by the cost savings of not providing the benefit.

That's not to say they shouldn't do it for other reasons (which you also mention), but it doesn't seem like self-interest is sufficient motivation here.

[matia]

No matter how one slices it, the singletons will be given the extra duty because “they don’t need their personal time” as much as those folks with kids. The extra duty doesn’t “go away”…

The "extra duty" should be given to a temp. There is nothing stopping programs from hiring an NP or PA to fill in for the few months of resident maternity/paternity leave. Or additionally, provide extra $ to those who pick up their colleagues shifts while they are on leave. That will change the mood quickly.

The anger for doing extra work is misplaced and should be directed toward hospital and residency admin who try to save money every step of the way (most of these leaves in residency are unpaid btw so they save the monthly resident salary).

It is sobering that we still continue to have these discussions in this day and age and the USA is one of the few (maybe the only!) advanced economy with such poor to non-existent maternity/paternity leaves. And what's even more glaring to me is that nobody, not even smart people in medicine (in fact much less tolerant in medicine!!!) Can zoom out and think what will happen to the future of this country if you continue to artificially limit the progeny of smart, high achieving, hard working women. Has anyone thought about the gene pool in the future if only those who stay at home and collect a welfare check continue to multiply? What about having a young work force so we can continue to be a strong economy?

[matia]

This is one of those things that seems like it should be true, but in practice, it doesn't seem to hold (maybe it might in a few fields/industry, but not in the job market as a whole). If it did, there would be little need for regulations on maternity leave and such, which are ubiquitous. I have no doubt that there are "detrimental implications" but it would seem that in the real world they are often outweighed by the cost savings of not providing the benefit.

It holds true now when employees are scarce and everyone is short staffed. Employees are paying attention and choosing employers with better benefits including better leaves. It's a long game not a short one.

[Tim]

It holds true now when employees are scarce and everyone is short staffed. Employees are paying attention and choosing employers with better benefits including better leaves. It's a long game not a short one.

Hypothetically question:
Many discuss the cost of private schools, expensive daycare and how hard it is to find a nanny,
So nanny it is! Now, would you want provide parental leave for your nanny?
It is sobering that single female residents pay a price too.

Of these enlightened countries that the US is the only one that doesn’t legislate paid paternal leave: Any evidence that the gene pools are rising due to the significant immigration?

Sorry, your logic holds at a macro level and falls apart when scaled to micro. You won’t want to pay for two nanny’s just because one has a kid.

Never heard of a group or department taking up a pool to bring in a temp when a resident goes on paternity leave?

[F0017S0]

The "extra duty" should be given to a temp. There is nothing stopping programs from hiring an NP or PA to fill in for the few months of resident maternity/paternity leave. Or additionally, provide extra $ to those who pick up their colleagues shifts while they are on leave. That will change the mood quickly.

The anger for doing extra work is misplaced and should be directed toward hospital and residency admin who try to save money every step of the way (most of these leaves in residency are unpaid btw so they save the monthly resident salary).

It is sobering that we still continue to have these discussions in this day and age and the USA is one of the few (maybe the only!) advanced economy with such poor to non-existent maternity/paternity leaves. And what's even more glaring to me is that nobody, not even smart people in medicine (in fact much less tolerant in medicine!!!) Can zoom out and think what will happen to the future of this country if you continue to artificially limit the progeny of smart, high achieving, hard working women. Has anyone thought about the gene pool in the future if only those who stay at home and collect a welfare check continue to multiply? What about having a young work force so we can continue to be a strong economy?

1. A few hundred extra dollars for a few months of extra duty/shifts doesn’t move the needle for me, and I presume not for many other folks. Now, if you tripled my salary for a time, then it might be enticing to grind it out. But it would not be cheap for the administration and therefor a non-starter for them.
2. What kind of child results from any single pregnancy is mostly random: I know plenty of kids from high-achieving parents who totally blow. Conversely, I know kids who came from parents who struggled (particularly immigrant parents) who are smart, hard-working (students), and have a bright future ahead. Just because a parent-to-be is a physician doesn’t mean that said progeny will be an Einstein. So the appeal to genetics here isn’t totally correct.
3. Although I am a libertarian conservative, the presence of a welfare-centric state (think Nordic countries) hasn’t resulted in anarchy, yet. Maybe one day, but not at the moment.