S3 E45: A blue print to prevent parental burnout
with pediatrician and author Dr Whitney Casares
Key Takeways
I think every parent can learn something from that. Of radical acceptance of this is the life I am living with my child. These are the specific needs of my child. And when I came to that place of okay, this is the limitations, but also the opportunities that we have with her it really did allow us to be able to say no to some things that really weren't a great fit and to fully lean into other things that, serve her and us well.
And it's not just because of that individual child with the special needs in my house. It's because then I have another five year old child who also has her own needs. Then the older child sometimes gets a little bit muddied in terms of her response to the younger child. So then that escalates things. So then my husband gets frustrated. So then I get frustrated with him. So then it's like chaos, and I really do think what you were saying about having a parent or another adult in your life or multiple other adults in your life that your child can be connected to because they are often able to think on more of a meta level. That helps that reduces the burnout.
The other thing that has helped for my husband and I, is to take ourselves completely out of our situation with our child and not feel guilty about that at all. And sometimes I think when things are really hard in our household, sometimes they are, I think, we're like a bad couple. Or like somehow we haven't learned the communication things. And then when I take us out of our home and have it be just us, I'm reminded like we actually do pretty well together when it's just us.
It's about what does it take to make our entire family structure work and to have sustainable solutions and things that make it so that our stress level stays like little ups and downs versus true valleys and mountains. Cause we don't want that. That's not good for anyone that definitely leads to more burnout.
We can give people formulas and things for them to follow till the cows come home. But if we don't understand like the why or the resistance point or the thing, that's holding someone back, a lot of times we could tell them what to do, but it won't ever change.
So I really actually consider that I only have three main roles, four, I guess if you can't take care of myself, but like outside of myself, I actually only have three main roles. I am the leader of Modern Mommy Doc, I am a leader in my organization at my pediatrics office, and I'm a leader in my household for my kids. So I can handle three roles that are leadership roles. If I can delegate from a mental load perspective and from actual, like physical acts that have to be completed perspective within those. I'm not carrying the weight of the to-dos.
I would rather spend money on and invest time in investing in other people being part of it. And my philosophy is, if I don't have the money to be able to do that. And it takes too long for this to become something, then it's not worth it for me because I don't, I would rather have it not exist than have it be super stressful all the time. Are there moments where things get a little outta hand, like I have to have my fingers in the pot more than I want to. Absolutely. But on the whole, I consider those like unsustainable moments that if they lasted too long, I would to find a different solution.
So I'm always looking at things through that litmus is this in alignment with what I care the most about where I wanna place my focus, my time, my energy, when I'm 80 years old, when I look back on my life, is this something that I want people to celebrate me for? If not then, okay. I could either delegate it out. I could say no to it completely, or I could have some selective mediocrity around it, like I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna do it with as least the amount of effort as possible. Or I could say I can do it, but it's gonna have to be at this other time that I know wasn't your first choice, but it will work for me then because I'll have more time. So that's how I manage things is really starting first with core values and with my core goals at Modern Mommy Doc, we call that are center points.
I'm a recovering workaholic and perfectionist, right? Just like everybody just like most working moms are. Just be the one that tries the hardest. Just do the most amount of work. In high school I was up all night, like working on my projects. And so I think when you're that person, it perpetuates itself, you continue to be that person and you carry that into motherhood. Okay, I just have to try harder. I have to try harder. And what I found is that when I actually give myself space and cut out a bunch of other distractions, I'm able to work a lot smarter. I make less mistakes. I have less redundancy. And so in the end, actually, things are easier for me and they might not be perfect. But I don't wanna hurt myself at the end of the day, based off the work that I've done.
As a pediatrician, you understand physiologically what's happening in terms of stress for kids, but then also just for humans in general. And so I'm always bringing it back to how, when we are in a stress state, your flipping your lid, and you're just in emotions. You can't make a good decision. But if we can give ourselves that moment of pause to calm down and bring our prefrontal cortex back down over our amygdalas, that is going to allow us then to make decisions that actually work for us.
And so I always am thinking about for working moms in particular, when you have that overwhelmed that like I have to get the laundry done. I have to do the dishes. What about Johnny's camp? And my boss just emailed me and then, and I gotta go get the question. Like all of those things, your brain literally cannot do the deep work and the good thinking and the responsive thinking that it needs to do to create a solution for you or to problem solve effectively.
And so a lot of being a successful working mom is about learning how to find solutions. And so you have to take that space. So that way you actually have the creativity and kind of the wherewithal to not be in what we call fight or flight. And your body doesn't know the difference between the fact that you are out in a jungle or there's just like a piece of paper with a checklist that has to get done. It's the exact same physiological response. And so really at the core of what I'm trying to do at Modern Mommy Doc is get people to a space where they know what an organizational structure and framework would look like. And then they can practice getting to a place of feeling really centered and feeling calm. So then they can access that framework and work upon it.
The app really is about learning a framework that helps working moms to get unstuck from this place of paralysis, about all the decisions and all of the, what we call paper tigers that are out there coming at us and vying for our attention. It allows us to say this tiger is not real, so I don't have to really pay attention to it. I can laugh at it. I can create a solution that gets it done, but I'm not gonna let it rev my heart rate up. And then you can say these tigers are totally real. And I should totally put my heart and soul into these things, but then it allows you to trust yourself well enough so that even those things that actually do matter, don't stress you out so much because you're able to see okay, this is my long term goal. This is my long term vision for my life. These are the things that matter most to me, I am capable of having some control over where I place my time and attention there. So the app really walks people through that entire framework in very interactive activations where people can actually do in real time journaling there, we have mom-versations every single month around all the different parts of the framework.
In the moment where we're not feeling brave, or if we're having an emotion that feels uncomfortable to us, or that feels like shaming to us, that we're really naming it, validating it and then creating a sense of common humanity for ourselves.
I am so in admiration of these other moms that continue to do like this amazing work of moving, working moms out of the burnout space. But when I feel like I'm alone in it, or I feel like it's too hard, a lot of times I'm looking over at them and saying Nope, okay, we're gonna keep on going sister and linking hands with them together. So I think those are the things that make me brave over time. And sometimes I don't wanna do them but when I'm consistent about each of those things, that's what brings about change.
Bio
Dr. Whitney is a practicing board-certified and Stanford trained pediatrician, author, speaker, and full-time working mom, the CEO and Founder of Modern Mommy Doc and the Modern Mamas Club App.
Links to Additional Resources
