Dad Wracked With Guilt After Going To Therapy Instead Of Taking His Sick Kids To The Doctor — 'I Put Myself First And Now I Regret It'
Prioritizing mental health is never a bad decision.
MAYA LAB | Shutterstock Being a parent is hard. Every step you take and every decision you make impacts your kids like the butterfly effect. It's common for parents to become so focused on doing right by their little ones that they neglect their own well-being in the process. What's worse, when they do occasionally take the time for self-care, it comes at the expense of guilt.
A single dad questioned if he made the right parenting decision after choosing to go to his therapy appointment when his kids were sick.
Posting to the subreddit r/Parenting, he said he felt "terrible" about putting himself before his kids and opened up about the shame that he was feeling.
A dad was struggling with feelings of parental guilt after going to therapy instead of taking his sick kids to the doctor.
"I am a single dad of twins. We'll call them Alexa and Siri. I co-parent with my daughter's mom and we split 50/50 custody. We have a great co-parenting relationship and rarely run into any issues," he began in his post.
He explained that he recently started going to therapy and has noticed a positive shift in his mental health as he works through some of the issues that he'd been dealing with for quite some time. However, his frequent therapy visits ended up being the reason why he suddenly felt shame as a parent, even though attending therapy and actively seeking to heal any kind of trauma is always a step in the right direction and should never be a source of guilt. In fact, the percentage of American men seeking therapy has also risen 30% in recent years.
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"Recently, their mom got sick with the flu on one of her days, and the following day post exchange, Alexa got a fever. I gave her some medication, took her to work with me, and let Siri go to daycare that day as she was not sick," he continued. Since he usually has therapy every other week, he doesn't ever want to miss an appointment.
Their mother offered to take Alexa for an hour or so while he went and assured him that she had gotten some medication and was starting to feel better. Relieved but a bit hesitant, he dropped his daughter off and went to his therapy appointment.
After his appointment, the dad noticed his daughter was getting sicker.
"When I picked her up she was fine, but later that night her fever came back and Siri had a fever as well. My mom offered to watch them so I wouldn't have to miss work, but their fevers got high and I had to take them to the urgent care. Siri only had a cold, but Alexa had an ear infection AND the flu," he recalled.
He admitted that he feels really upset about the situation because he should've just canceled his therapy appointment and not had his daughter stay with her mom.
He pointed out that it's most likely she got the flu from her, so now all of them are sick, plus his mom and his stepdad. Now, he feels "terrible" about the entire debacle and thinks that if he hadn't put himself first, none of this would have happened.
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Parents should never feel guilty for prioritizing their health and well-being.
It's extremely easy as a parent, especially a single dad, to fall into this abyss of shame and guilt around decisions that, honestly, couldn't have been prevented.
Children get sick all the time, and there's a possibility that his kids were most likely contagious and not showing symptoms yet. There was really nothing he could have done differently to prevent it.
His kids were with responsible childcare while he was in therapy. He got them medical attention, and they are on the mend.
When it comes to being a single dad, especially, there is often a slew of stigmas attached to it, from people questioning their parenting role to even the societal expectations of what they're supposed to be doing.
It probably has something to do with the fact that single moms outnumber single dads disproportionately. Census data indicates that in the nearly 11 million single-parent households in the U.S., only 20% have a dad at the helm.
As long as his kids are safe and overall healthy, he's doing a good job! As many people pointed out in the comments section, he's definitely worrying about something that doesn't require his energy.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.