Why does nobody talk about the guilt from missing kid events for emergency calls?

I mean, balancing this job with being a mom is tougher than any repair.

4 comments

4 Comments

But do you worry that your kid might learn the wrong kind of lesson about work, like that their own family's needs are always less important?

christopher_foster891mo ago

Consider this, @maxf33: kids notice how you talk about missing their events. If you explain you're helping someone with a real problem, they learn about duty and kindness. It's not that family needs are less important, but that some work stuff just can't wait. They get it when you make time for them later and show they still come first.

holly_garcia9d ago

Okay but are we making this into a bigger deal than it is? Kids are pretty tough. They see you come home tired, they hear the stories, they get that sometimes stuff happens. Missing one school play because a pipe burst doesn't mean they think you love your job more. It just means a pipe burst. The guilt is real for us, but they probably just wanted the extra cookie you brought home as a peace offering.

reese_hayes711mo ago

Last spring, I missed my kid's talent show because of a major outage call. The guilt stuck with me for WEEKS, not just from missing the event but from realizing how often we apologize to our families for serving others. What if the real cost is our kids learning that their moments are less important than a stranger's crisis? We're teaching them about duty, but at what point does it become a lesson in being second choice? That silent trade-off is what no one wants to admit out loud.