Not long after Jenn, my oldest, was born, I started hearing this voice that shrieked, “Are you doing enough for this baby?” Three years later, her brother, Rory, arrived, and then, three years after that came Phoebe. The voice just got louder.
For the unversed, Melinda Gates has three children Phoebe Adele Gates, Jennifer Gates, Rory John Gates with her ex-husband Bill Gates.
“Are you doing enough for your children? Are you doing ENOUGH?” I remember hearing it as a stay-at-home mom whose world revolved around the children. These thoughts got louder and more extreme after we began our foundation, and I suddenly had a whole bunch of new demands that kept me outside the family. I fixated on how I was failing at being a flawless mom. I fixated on what I could do better. But somehow, I didn’t recognize that fixating on myself like that was actually costing time and energy from the very children I was trying to be present for.”
