Back when I was a senior in college, I wrote a peer recommendation for my pre-med boyfriend’s medical school application. Nearly two decades later, that boyfriend is my husband, the father of my adorable children and a surgeon who I am incredibly proud of.
I may just have my B.S. and no M.D. or PhD after my name but I’ve certainly put in my time throughout the past fifteen-plus years of his training journey. And between the years of our long-distance relationship during medical school and the crazy hours during residency and fellowship, it’s safe to say that I’ve been missing this man, in one form or another, for most of my adult life.
But nothing prepared us for watching our kids learn to miss him. The two of us missing each other is old and worn in (like the American Eagle sweatshirt my husband has worn since we started dating) but theirs is fresh every time.
In October 2021, I posted in a physician wives Facebook group because I genuinely didn’t know what else to do. My husband had just started a stretch of night float and my son, who was three at the time, couldn’t understand why the person he worshiped was asleep when the sun was up and gone when it went down. There were lots of tears and lots of missing daddy.
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We tried reading books together over FaceTime. At times, my husband would play music through our baby cam to surprise us and show us he was thinking about us. I tried to explain that daddy worked silly hours like an owl that stays awake while others sleep. That one actually stuck with our family. Now, years later, my son will still ask, “Is daddy an owl tonight?” His little sister asks it too, which is both very sweet and a little heartbreaking.
The women in that Facebook group offered “solidarity” (a term we use often in the group and one of the genuinely most helpful things I needed in that moment) and while they also shared some good suggestions, we all know there isn’t a perfect answer. There’s a specific kind of missing that doesn’t really go away. The kind that comes from loving someone whose job asks everything of them. The kind a three-year-old can’t name but clearly conveys in the way he stares out the window waiting to see his dad’s car pull into the driveway.
When my husband is gone, we know it’s for a good reason and he is uniquely trained to help someone who needs him. But understanding why someone has to be gone doesn’t make you miss them less when it’s bedtime and you just want your dad.
I’ve watched this play out differently at every age. When my son was three, he just cried. At eight he gets it. Mostly. My daughter is five now and she’s somewhere in the middle: old enough to know daddy helps sick people, and young enough that knowing it doesn’t really make it easier.
In 2023, during my husband’s incredibly intense surgical fellowship, we’d sometimes go a few days without seeing him. One evening, I made my son a bracelet out of an old pair of my husband’s scrubs to try to help. It was something physical he could wear and touch to feel closer to him when he wasn’t around. It helped more than I thought it would. I shared that tip with the same Facebook group in case it would work for others.
As my son got older and learned to write, notes became part of our routine too. He’d slip little drawings or messages into my husband’s work bag. And my husband would leave Post-It notes on the kitchen table when leaving the house at odd hours. These small notes helped keep them connected despite the separation.
Just a few months ago, when my daughter was having a hard time missing her dadda at night, I made her a little stuffed animal, also out of scrubs. Lovingly “hand-crafted” with a hot glue gun, googly eyes and a glitter heart sticker on the front. She picked it up almost right away and just started carrying it around whenever she missed her dad.
Seeing her attachment to it reminded me of my own childhood stuffed animal, a toy kangaroo with a little pouch. And I thought: What if this had a pocket? What if notes could live there?
So I set out to make it real. I called it Scrub Hug. Teal, like scrubs, with a soft face and that pocket on the front. Made properly with organic cotton, safety tested, built by a manufacturer that specializes in ethical children’s products. I wanted to get the emotional side right too, so I talked through the concept with my cousin, a child psychologist, whose input helped shape the Comfort Cards and Connection Cards that now come with it.
It’s launching this summer, in time for a new class of residents and their families, which is hard to believe. I didn’t set out to start a company in December. I set out to make the thing I wished had existed when my son was three and I was posting at midnight asking strangers how to help my kid. And the further I’ve gotten into it the more I’ve realized the need is wider than I first thought. Not just health care families, but also children receiving care themselves. Kids in hospitals who are sometimes scared of the people in scrubs who are taking care of them. Kids who can’t always have toys from home because of infection risk. Something organic, safety-tested, and soft that makes scrubs feel familiar instead of frightening, with a pocket for a note from the people who love them.
The need runs in every direction and so does the missing.
The kids of health care workers carry more than most people see. They need something to hold it with.
If you’re in a doctor wives group somewhere posting at midnight looking for ideas: I see you, I was you, I’m still some nights you.
I just have something to give your kid now.
This article is discussed on The Podcast by KevinMD: Doctors’ kids miss them, and the family builds its own fixes.
Alyssa Kressel is a strategic communications professional.
