How Much Help Is Too Much Help?

If you’ve ever whispered to yourself, “Should it really take this many people to run my household?”—you’re not alone.

In quiet hospital corridors and during rushed coffee breaks, physician parents are asking themselves the same thing. When your life is built around 28-hour calls, back-to-back shifts, research deadlines, and the ever-elusive search for work-life balance, help stops being a luxury and starts feeling like a necessity. But even then, the question lingers:

How much help is too much help?

The Invisible Load—And Who's Carrying It

One mom described it best in a conversation we had: “I’m a full-time physician, but I still manage my kids’ school forms, coordinate birthday gifts for in-laws, and handle all the home repairs. It’s like I work two full-time jobs, and only one of them pays me.”

This is the “invisible load” we hear about so often—and it’s often disproportionately carried by physician moms, especially those in dual-physician households or situations where a partner travels frequently.

In one online parenting forum, a woman described hiring a nanny and a part-time housekeeper, but still feeling like she was drowning. “I was embarrassed to tell people how much help I had. I thought, ‘People will think I’m lazy. Or worse—out of touch.’ But I was working 60 hours a week and still waking up in the middle of the night to fill out school permission slips.”

What this parent learned—and what we see all the time in our conversations—is that help doesn’t erase the mental to-do list. It only works if the support you bring in is aligned with the kind of pressure you’re under.

Redefining “Help”

Help isn’t just about how many people are in your house. It’s about whether your home runs with peace and predictability—or constant scrambling.

Some families find balance with a full-time nanny who does light tidying, school pickups, and meal prep. Others add a housekeeper, laundry service, meal delivery kits, and even a personal assistant for family scheduling. At first glance, that may sound excessive. But in context? It’s often what keeps burnout at bay.

One physician dad said he felt judged when they hired a weekend nanny. “My colleagues would laugh about it, but they weren’t the ones seeing my wife spiral into panic attacks every Sunday night. She’s a hospitalist and also manages her mom’s care. We got the help, and now she has her Saturdays back. No one talks about how much pressure we’re under to do it all.”

And that’s the heart of it. The help you bring in should reduce chaos, not guilt.

Signs You Might Need More Help

Sometimes families ask us if they’re overdoing it by hiring a nanny and a housekeeper and sending their laundry out. But more often, they’re not doing too much—they’re doing too little, for too long.

Here are a few signs we see in families who need more help than they currently have:

• You’re always rushing. If your mornings are pure chaos, or you're constantly running 10 minutes late to everything, it's a sign your systems aren’t working—or that you’re trying to do it all yourself.

• Weekends feel like a second job. If your “time off” is really just you catching up on the chores you didn’t get to Monday–Friday, your balance is off.

• You feel resentful. If you’ve ever looked at your partner—or even your kids—and thought, “I do everything around here,” that’s a flashing red light that you're carrying too much.

• You’re constantly reorganizing your calendar. If your life feels like a game of Tetris and one late surgery throws everything off, you probably need more margin—and that often means more help.

But What Will People Think?

Ah, yes. The silent judgment.

One family told us they were hesitant to hire a second nanny—one to help during the week, and another for weekends—because they didn’t want to come off as “those people.” You know, the ones who seem too good to do their own laundry.

But when we zoomed out and looked at their schedule? Two full-time physician parents, three kids under six, both on call at least once a week, and no family nearby. It wasn’t excessive—it was necessary.

This internal debate plays out in so many physician homes. You’re trained to push through exhaustion. To be the person who can “handle it.” Asking for help—especially a lot of help—feels like failure. But what if it’s actually the thing that makes everything else work?

There's No Prize for Doing It All Alone

Let’s say it out loud: no one is handing out trophies for folding your own laundry at midnight.

Yet so many parents we talk to feel this lingering guilt if they outsource parts of their life. A few have told us they don’t even tell their colleagues they have a nanny. “It feels like a confession,” one mom said. “Like I’m revealing that I can’t hack it.”

But what if it’s not about hacking it? What if it’s about protecting your peace—and your time with your kids?

One dual-physician couple we know made a point of outsourcing everything they didn’t want to spend time doing: cleaning, grocery shopping, errands. They told us, “We wanted the energy to show up for bedtime stories and be present on the weekends. That meant paying someone else to do the things that drained us.”

That’s not laziness. That’s prioritizing.

What's the Real Cost of Not Getting Help?

If you’re a physician, you’ve probably run the numbers before. Maybe you’ve told yourself:

• “Hiring a nanny is too expensive.”

• “I can just meal prep on Sundays.”

• “We can handle things ourselves if we just plan better.”

And maybe you can. For a while.

But what’s the long-term cost?

We’ve seen parents burn out entirely—emotionally and physically. We’ve seen relationships strain under the weight of constant logistics. We’ve even seen physicians reduce their hours, not because they want to, but because it’s the only way to stay afloat.

One mom shared that she left her fellowship early—not because she didn’t love the work, but because she couldn’t find consistent childcare and felt guilty about being away so much. “If we had found the right help earlier, I might have stayed. But I didn’t know where to look or who to trust.”

This is the real price of pushing through without support: missed opportunities, depleted reserves, and sometimes, lost dreams.

Building a Household That Feels Like a Team

So, how much help is too much help?

Here’s the truth: It’s too much only when it stops serving you.

If you’ve built a household where you feel calm, connected, and available to the people you love—without feeling overextended—you’ve probably nailed the right amount.

For some, that means a part-time sitter after school. For others, it’s a full-time nanny, housekeeper, meal service, and virtual assistant. There’s no one-size-fits-all formula.

The families who thrive are the ones who stop asking “what will people think?” and start asking “what do we need?”

What Does Help Look Like in Real Life?

We’ve talked to families across the country who’ve customized their support systems in beautiful, creative ways:

• A surgeon in Texas hired a nanny who doubles as a “morning coordinator”—getting the kids ready and out the door so she and her partner can get to the hospital without chaos.

• A family in Boston hired a part-time household manager who organizes their kids’ schedules, runs errands, and manages Amazon returns. “It saves us hours,” they said.

• In Ohio, one physician family has a nanny during the week and a sitter who helps just on Sunday nights. “It’s our reset. We do laundry and prep meals, she plays with the kids.”

Each of these families has designed their help based on what they actually needed—not what they thought they were allowed to need.

You Don’t Have to Prove Anything

If you take nothing else from this post, let it be this: You are allowed to build a home that supports your reality.

You are allowed to have help.
You are allowed to ask for more.
You are allowed to outsource things that drain you.

Physician families carry so much—patients, outcomes, staff, charts. When you get home, you should be able to exhale.

If the help you have right now isn’t letting that happen, it might be time to rethink what support looks like for your family.

You’re not failing. You’re adjusting.

And that’s exactly what strong, loving, capable parents do.

Sources & Inspiration:

This blog was informed by countless conversations and real-world experiences, many of which were drawn from parenting forums like Reddit (r/Parenting, r/TwoXChromosomes, r/PhysicianParents), professional physician mom blogs, and parent-focused discussions across platforms such as MomMD, Doximity, and KevinMD. We’ve chosen to summarize and generalize these insights in a way that protects privacy while capturing the essence of shared experiences.

If you’re a physician parent navigating the daily juggle, we’re here to help. Visit our homepage to learn more about how we support families like yours in building customized care solutions—without the guilt.