Work life
A quick lesson in CBT
Welcome to Techno Sapiens! I’m Jacqueline Nesi, a psychologist and professor at Brown University, co-founder of Tech Without Stress (@techwithoutstress), and mom of two young kids. Techno Sapiens is now home to over 25,000 readers, and I’m so grateful you’re here.
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6 min read
It’s 7pm, and I’m scheduled to give a presentation over Zoom in 30 minutes. Right in the middle of bedtime.
My children are in their pajamas, a stuffed puppy drooping from my toddler’s arms, a teether in the baby’s hands. The remnants of the day—dirt, sunscreen, dinner—have been washed away, a faint smell of bath soap lingers in their hair. They’re settling onto the couch with my husband, an episode of Daniel Tiger the only thing that stands in the way of bedtime.
We’ve carefully orchestrated this plan, given recent, similar events that did not end well. There was the time my toddler woke up to find me traveling to a conference, inconsolable as my husband assured him I’d be back later that day. The school drop-off that conflicted with a meeting I couldn’t miss, disaster narrowly avoided by my husband singing sea shanties with him in the car.1 A prior Zoom presentation that landed everyone in tears.
Once they’re settled, I’ve decided, I’ll just say a quick good night and sneak off to my laptop. They’ll barely notice!
My husband and I look at each other, wordlessly signaling that it’s time. Okay! I say, my voice upbeat, casual, with just the slightest tinge of hysteria, Time for mom to go to work! I love you, I’ll see you in the morning!
A moment, and then the tears erupt. I DON’T WANT YOU TO GO TO WORK.
There’s consoling, and explaining, and Look! Daniel Tiger is starting!, and more consoling, and some minutes later, the peeling of clinging fingers off my shirt.
It’s just a phase, I tell myself, tip-toeing down the stairs, he won’t even remember in the morning.
He’s awake early the next day, and the door creaks as I slowly enter his room. He jumps up in bed. His face lights up with joy and—is that relief?
Good morning! I nearly shout.
Mom! He gushes, I had a dream last night!
Oh, wow! I say, What was it about?
It was about you! He says. You were working!2
60-second CBT
If you’re anything like me, these moments can feel like our children have stabbed us right in the gut with a plastic pirate sword (emotionally, of course). We may feel anxiety, guilt, or maybe sadness.
But where do these feelings come from? And what can we do about them?
You’ve likely heard of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, a treatment approach that has been shown to be effective for a range of mental health concerns from anxiety to depression to general stress. Thousands of empirical studies and books have been written on CBT, and entire graduate training programs are dedicated to it. I’m going to try to summarize it here in about one minute.
This is what’s called the “cognitive triangle.”3 It demonstrates that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors all influence each other.
The best way to understand this is through an example. Let’s say you’re meeting a friend for lunch. You arrive at the restaurant. Five minutes pass, then 10, and your friend hasn’t arrived.
You might have the thought They’re blowing me off! I can’t believe this! The feeling you might then experience is anger. And then the behavior: texting them to tell them you’re sick of their nonsense, or storming out of the restaurant.
Alternatively, you could think Oh no! What if they got into a car accident? You’d feel scared, and maybe you’d text them to ask if everything is okay. Or you could think Whatever! They’re just running late. Great chance for me to catch up on Wordle. You’d feel happy. You’d play Wordle.4
And so on.
CBT is all about recognizing those patterns, and working to address them when they’re not serving you. You might go after the behaviors directly—putting yourself in feared situations (exposure therapy), or scheduling meaningful activities (behavioral activation). You might practice managing the feelings through emotion regulation. Or you might work on the thoughts.
I am the worst mom ever…and other stories
Most of us have “automatic thoughts” that tend to pop up, well, automatically. The first step is to recognize these.
When your toddler wakes up from a night’s sleep to tell you he dreamed of you working, what thoughts might come to mind?
Maybe you think Surely my working is bad for his development. Am I doing lasting damage? In this case, you’d feel anxious.
Or maybe A *good* parent would never let work get in the way of time with their child. In this case: guilty.
Or maybe: I’m working too much, I’m going to miss out on his entire childhood. That feeling? Sad.
After we’ve identified any automatic thoughts, it’s time to evaluate.5 In particular, we’re looking to decide whether the thoughts are true and whether they are useful.
Here are a few key questions we might ask ourselves to help with this:
Are there other ways of thinking about the situation?
What would I tell a friend in this situation?
Am I 100% sure that how I’m seeing the situation is accurate?
What evidence do I have that this is true?
Of course, there are situations where you might decide that yes, in fact, your thoughts are both true and useful. Perhaps your work is interfering with the type of parent you want to be, and you can use these feelings to motivate changes to your behavior.
For many of us, though, this might be a situation where the answer is to reframe our thinking. What might be a more balanced, accurate, or helpful way to view the situation?
Old thought: Surely my working is bad for his development. Am I doing lasting damage?
New thought: Maybe it’s good for him to practice adapting to these situations, and to see that I’m committed to my work.
Old thought: A *good* parent would never let work get in the way of time with their child.
New thought: Parenting is about quality, not quantity.
Old thought: I’m working too much, I’m going to miss out on his entire childhood.
New thought: I love my work, and I also love spending time with my kids. The balance will never feel perfect, and that’s okay.
All work and…all play
It’s the evening after the doomed Zoom presentation, and my toddler is busy playing pretend. He’s packed up a tote bag to take “to the city,” has donned a pair of my shoes, and is marching in circles on the play mat.
I’m in the kitchen, peering into the fridge.
Alright! I call out, A few more minutes, and then it’s time for dinner.
Sorry, mom, he responds resignedly, a baby teether falling out of the tote bag as he slings it across his shoulder, I can’t have dinner. I have to go to work.6
I laugh as I close the fridge and walk over to join him.
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For those keeping track: yes, we’re still into sea shanties. Also, a few days after I shared my toddler’s love for Nathan Evan’s “The Wellerman,” I discovered (via Ryan Broderick’s newsletter Garbage Day) that this song had gone incredibly viral on TikTok in 2020. Now, apparently, there are entire swaths of Gen Z sea shanty fans crowding into New York City venues to listen to pirate bands?
I will admit that after my toddler told me about his mom-working-dream, I texted a friend for moral support. I think my exact words were: “I’m done. Quitting my job forever 😭.” (I did not quit my job).
If we were currently in a therapy session, I would have quickly drawn the “cognitive triangle” on a white board or piece of paper. Alas, the limitations of the newsletter format led me to Canva, where this very mediocre diagram took me far too long to create.
Also happy to report, for those keeping track, that my husband and I have kept up our New York Times games streak for almost three months. Connections is my favorite, despite the fact that I conclude most games by saying “Well, that one’s stupid.”
Once you start to see patterns in your automatic negative thoughts, you can also start to drill down on any “core beliefs” that might be giving rise to those thoughts. For example, when it comes to the above example, we might (unknowingly) have a belief that if we’re not giving everything we have to our children at every moment of the day, then we are not “good” parents. Or that if our children are upset, we are doing something wrong. We can address these through CBT, too.
My toddler has also taken to sighing and saying, “I have so much work to do tonight.” Probably need to work on that one.
Wow, you really hit on the three biggest emotions that working mothers feel about being away from their children - anxiety (bad for their development), GUILT (I’m a bad mom), and sadness (I’m missing out on something important). There is no way around being at work when you are not with your child, other than to accept your choice and vow to be a good-enough mother.
Another helpful technique is to dedicate time to reflection on these moments, but to be intentional about that time.
Taking your example, an immediate emotional response to this situation could be caused by social norms, OR hating zoom, OR hating whatever the zoom is about, OR discomfort about tradeoffs between work and family, OR the universal pain that comes from hearing any child cry (or all of the above!)
It’s worth thinking about these things, but not in the moment itself. You’re not in an unbiased place, and will likely come to the wrong conclusions.
Morning pages and other writing practices are great for this, as our daily mental reviews.