"Women
are going to enjoy their work in medicine when they get
wives," quipped Dr Marcia Angell, the first female editor-in-chief
of the New England Journal of Medicine, 20 years
ago. A growing number of MD couples are taking her up
on that and agreeing that he'll stay home and look after
the kids. But all too often, their progressive thinking
gets sunk in unfulfilled expectations, the usual strains
of a medical marriage and, surprisingly, outmoded gender
attitudes.
Have you heard this story before?
When he met his wife-to-be, she was starting medical
school. He was studying computer programming and had
vague ideas about starting something up with a friend
from university. Twelve years later, his wife is a respected
physician and the only thing he starts up are their
four-year-old's Disney movies — over and over again.
Frankly, he's starting to lose it.
Dr Michael Myers sees plenty of
couples like this. The professor of psychiatry at the
University of British Columbia and the author of Doctors'
Marriages specializes in counselling physicians.
"Being a househusband is still a foreign thing," he
notes, both for men and women.
Though there's no data on how many
physician families have chosen this route, anecdotally
it certainly seems to be on the rise. Dr Myers says
while the arrangement can work really well for a lot
of medical marriages, it also brings a packet of complications
most MD-free couples don't have to deal with. A lot
of it boils down to expectations.
TIME
AND MONEY
Dr Myers says it's common for couples to overestimate
the earning potential of the MD spouse and her ability
to single-handedly support the family — and be
around for the kids as much as she'd like. "These women
will say to me 'Look, I'm quite happy to be practising
medicine, but I had hoped to work part-time. Now I'm
having to work full-time, and I resent it. My kids really
don't know me. He's clearly the mummy and I'm the daddy.
I want more than that.'"
Dr Myers says the vast majority
of women physicians think the best case scenario would
be for them to work say, half to three-quarters time,
so they can still spend time with their children. Problem
is, that's not always financially plausible, especially
if the husband isn't contributing any additional income.
"The other thing I see is that
the husband thinks she should work harder — and
that really rankles," says Dr Myers. "Many women physicians,
especially in family medicine, don't earn quite as much
money for the same number of hours because they spend
more time with their patients. He's saying 'How come
you can't bring home as much money as Dr John Doe next
door? He sees 40 patients a day and you only see 20.'
It can get tense."
GENDER
FENDER BENDER
Another big obstacle these couples face is how to leave
their gender biases at the door.
"Even when the arrangement is planned,
some men don't go the full mile," notes Dr Myers. "We're
still raising boys to be breadwinners and girls to be
homemakers and mothers, especially families from traditional
cultures. I don't know of any boys being raised to be
househusbands."
For a lot of men, the experience
can be unexpectedly emasculating. "They'll go to mums
n' tots things and they'll be the only full-time dad
there," says Dr Myers. "They say, 'Some of the women
are great and don't treat me like a weirdo, but a lot
do.'"
Unlike most stay-at-home mums married
to an MD — who see being a homemaker as a career
choice — many Mr Moms don't think of raising kids
as their main job. They prefer to think of it as "working
from home." They'll come to resent all this childcare,
says Dr Myers, because they still think of themselves
as a writer or a graphic artist first.
And with traditional gender roles
switched around, each spouse tends to be a little more
critical of how the other does things. "One thing you
forfeit when you're the paid worker outside the home
is having a say in how the fulltime homemaker and parent
does their job. This can be a bit foreign for the woman.
She'll think there's a better way to raise the kids
or do laundry. That can grate. Her husband will say:
'Butt out — you bring home the paycheques, let
me run the household my way.'"
FINDING
DOWN TIME
Many stay-at-home dads married to doctors say they didn't
know what they were getting into. "They feel very much
like women in traditional marriages," says Dr Myers.
"They're beat by five o'clock, then the wife arrives
and he dumps the kids on her and she'll say 'Hey, I
just spent 10 hours seeing patients and I need a little
down time.'"
Dr Myers says helping these couples
get back on track is all about putting things in context.
"I remind them that couples with small children have
the highest levels of marital dissatisfaction." He gets
his patients to ask themselves if they're trying to
do too much. "I'll encourage them to budget a little
differently so they can afford to get a babysitter and
go out for a meal, or hire a cleaning person." Whatever
the strategy, releasing some of that pressure can be
great for the heart.
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