The Human Touch 2013 - University of Colorado Denver

Reflections on Motherhood
Sharisse Arnold Rehring, MD
When my kids were born, I struggled with the decision to continue pursuing
my career in medicine. I grew up in a family with a stay-at-home mom, who
was always present, and that was considered the “standard of excellence” in
motherhood. If I chose to go to work and hire someone, how could they possibly
love my children like I do? Wasn’t I letting them down? Could I accept that leap
of faith that I chose well, or would the agony of that decision gnaw away at my
soul? My insecurity was palpable.
smiled to myself and enjoyed the poignancy of the moment. That is the beauty of
life with small children, the constellation of moments. You want to wrap yourself
in the warmth of them all and hold on for dear life, hoping they never fade away.
I had an epiphany at that moment that my choice to be a working mom did not
cause them irreparable harm. As a matter of fact, I reveled in the glow of a young
boy talking so respectfully about his mother. The simple thought of him pausing
from his play to take pride in his mom, and shortly thereafter, moving right back to
his task at hand, was all I needed. Maybe, quite by accident, these boys learned
something about mothers and women that will help them grow into the men I
am still hoping they will become. Is there a chance that somehow we pulled it
off, and that they are happy, well-adjusted kids, despite, or because of, the lack
of my pervasiveness in their daily lives? These questions continue to remain
unanswered, but for some reason, right now, I am ok with that ambiguity. •
To stay home, wasn’t I letting myself down? I spent so many hours studying the
craft of medicine, and since I had my children later in life, being a doctor was a
more trusted part of my self-identity than being a mother. It had withstood the
test of time, and was both familiar and predictable. Maybe I couldn’t pull off the
role of motherhood with the effortless grace and dignity of June Cleaver. If I
abandoned what I knew I was capable of for this other life calling, I risked failure
and defeat.
This internal confl ict plagued me for many years. Whenever I handed my children
over to the nanny and pulled out of the driveway with my last vision that of her
holding them and waving goodbye to me out the front door, their little faces
staring contently out into the distance, I wondered what I was thinking!. I would
tearfully turn on NPR or make a phone call, any distraction I could fi nd to avoid
that feeling of guilty abandonment. Some days felt better than others, but this
uneasy feeling, was an underlying current in my life for what seemed like forever.
It became my new normal and a sentiment that was always under the surface of
whatever else was going on in my daily life.
We make decisions all the time and are usually not rewarded with the instant
gratifi cation of knowing whether it was the right one. It was years later when
my boys were 4 and 5 years old that I came to a place of peace and closure. I
was in the kitchen cooking and they were in the room next door playing with
their toys. I overheard my eldest tell his younger brother, “No Josh. Mom is a
pediatrician. When she is at work, she is taking care of sick children.” He said
this with the authority, pride, and conviction of an older and wiser sibling. I
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