| I have a confession to make. Most days I feel like a much better doctor than mother. At work I am calm and patient. I treat my patients and colleagues with tremendous respect, and most days they do the same for me. I am kind and diplomatic. I never raise my voice or speak harshly. I rarely complain. My patients tend to take my advice, even if they have been offered the same in the past and refused. I can diffuse tense situations and change a dynamic from negative to positive. I tend to get good feedback on patient satisfaction surveys (although the value of these is very questionable and controversial) and I’ve gotten lots of positive feedback from colleagues, both in and outside my specialty. At home, however, it’s a completely different story. My interactions with my children often include raised voices on both ends. I am often impatient, critical, harsh, and demanding. I want things done a certain way, at a certain time, and get easily flustered and frustrated when things don’t go as planned. I can have poor emotional control. I am very affected by my level of stress & fatigue. In short, I’m not always the nicest person. Now to be fair, I don’t have the easiest kids. They are not your typical dandelions who will flourish no matter where they are or what you say or do. Mine are more the orchid types, the kind you watch over carefully, precisely follow the instruction to place the weekly ice cube in the pot, yet somehow they still wilt away and die. Yes, I have strong-willed, sensitive, often challenging kids. Still, there’s an element of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to my work and home personality. Ironically, when I think of myself as a doctor, I don’t feel my knowledge base is superior in any way to that of my colleagues. The opposite, in fact, is often the case. I often feel insecure and intimidated by the amount of information that is available and frequently have to look things up and discuss cases with my peers. Furthermore, my outcomes are unlikely to be significantly different from that of my colleagues and I’m sure I have just as many patients as them who have both good and bad outcomes. So why does it feel like I’m doing a much better job at work than at home? I believe the answer lies in my definition of success. At work, as much as I strive to solve a problem, my focus is on relationship-building, not exclusively on outcomes. From the moment I meet someone new I try to sense who they are as a person. I strive to not only understand their medical condition and how to manage it, but also what that persons’ needs and desires are. Do they prefer drugs or a more natural approach? Are they non-compliant because of side effects or lack of understanding of the purpose of their treatment? Do they want to be an equal partner in their decision-making or do they prefer a more paternalistic approach? Do they have personal or religious beliefs that drive their decision-making? All of these factors are hugely important in building trust, and trust is what ultimately drives most of my work interactions. Trust is what makes me feel like I’m successful at work more often than not. With my kids, on the other hand, I tend to focus on outcomes. If my child won’t listen, if they don’t get dressed when told, if they miss the bus, if they won’t do their homework, if they fight with each other, if they won’t clean up when asked, if they whine and complain, if they are rude and disrespectful and push every limit, I feel like a failure. When they behave, I feel like a good parent. When they act up, I don’t. It’s that simple. And so, so wrong. I finally realized that in order for me to feel successful at home, I have to change my definition of success. My success as a parent should NOT be tied to how well my kids behave or how well they perform as a student or even as a friend or human citizen for that matter. Of course I want to raise happy, respectful, and well behaved kids who function well in society. But the way they turn out is not a direct measure of my success as a parent. The way they turn out is a result of many factors that are totally beyond my control, such as their temperament, genetics, birth order, life circumstances and so on. While I do play an important role, it is just one of many factors that will contribute to how they eventually turn out. What I can control is how I behave and how I treat them. I can control the level of trust that they develop with me. If that trust is high, I’ll be more likely to transmit my values and beliefs to them. If trust is low, the opposite will be true. My focus as a parent, therefore, should be the same as my focus as a doctor, on relationship-building. Every interaction is an opportunity to either build or destroy trust. I suspect that the more I build trust with my kids, the more successful I’ll feel as a parent, no matter what kind of people they turn out to be. |
Where do you feel more successful, at work or at home?
