Quitting Work for Parenthood

STOP that train, I wanna get off

On the tail of Mother’s Day, I have another tangle of thoughts for you this week. I’ll be back soon with Easter recipes.

In between devouring our Friday night episodes of The Pitt, we are watching ER again. We first got hooked in lockdown of 2020. In the discombobulation of that time, there was something reassuring about the format. Jeopardy comes and goes in the blink of an eye, before you can get too attached to the patients.

But The Pitt and ER are hitting differently now we have children. Every scene with a sick child makes my heart stop with awareness of the emotional gravity such peril would entail. Injured children come and go, but the theme of family loyalty runs throughout all 15 seasons. It weaves in and out of the lives on screen. Siblings, parents and relatives with checkered pasts show up and destabilise the lead characters in ways only blood ties can.

But most memorable for me was the result of family business off screen. Spoiler alert – if such a thing is needed for a television show that premiered in 1994 – but I’m talking specifically of my favourite characters Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards) and John Carter (Noah Wyle)’s show exits. Both actors quit because they wanted to focus on fatherhood after the birth of their children. Watching before I became a parent myself, I cursed them for having themselves written out of the show. How selfish to pursue parenthood above their duty to entertain the masses. But since having my son, and understanding what monumental responsibility and importance the job holds, I am in admiration of the actors for quitting.

It’s beautiful that they recognised the responsibility of parenthood for what it was. That they didn’t want to miss the years they knew they’d never get again. It’s not an uncommon decision, if one is privileged enough to be able to make it. I recall watching a Carol King documentary, and discovering that she took years away from songwriting and performing to pursue motherhood with all the attention it deserves.

And there’s my own mother. Who quit a job in publishing a few years after I was born to take up mothering four children full time. In doing so, she put her own independence and identity second for 20 years. Thank you feels too small a phrase.

Stay at home parenthood is a choice that few people can afford now, if they wanted to pursue it. Working mothers (and parents) are the norm. For everyone I know, one salary does not cut it in 2026. Having to keep working one or two jobs to keep food on the table and nursery bills paid is its own kind of sacrifice. Grinding to only enjoy your children’s company for 2 or 3 days a week feels like being on an insane hamster wheel.

But would I be able to hack full-time parenthood? After what felt like a decade of impatiently longing to become a mum, I was surprised to discover that I was actually looking forward to returning to work after my maternity leave last year. At first, being at work felt like a break from the constant cortisol uplift of looking after my child all day.

But now that I’m settled into being back, days are moving at a pace that feels impossible to keep up with. The guilt of rushing to the nursery gate and feeling like your boss is judging you and your child needed you and you didn’t give enough to either of them is no fun. Am I being the mother I want to be? I have no idea.

There are a couple of episodes of The Pitt that are written by Noah Wyle. You can tell which ones they are when you’re watching them, even before the credits roll. The clue is in the philosophical reflections on parenthood.

In the most moving of these, Wyle has Dr Langdon recite a blessing by Irish poet John O’Donohue in front of two other fathers. He is removing the beads from a fidgety child patient’s nose at the time. Wyle’s writing is from the perspective of an older dad who has returned to work and lived through the go-go-go years of child rearing. The sentimental wisdom of the O’Donohue passage he chose is exactly the kind of scene that would have washed over me a few years ago. But now hits me like a tonne of bricks:

“May you be gentle and loving, clear and sure. May you trust in the unseen providence that has chosen you to be a family. May you stand sure on your ground, and know that every grace you need will unfold before you — like all the mornings of your life.”

I wish the hours of work that go into raising a child were recognised as the most important work there is. If I can’t step out of the rat race for a moment, like those who quit for parenthood, at least I will make a daily effort to slow down and try to take it all in. Like every well-meaning parent who has gone before me, I know one thing: I don’t want to miss it.