Counseling for Working Moms in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Online Therapy for Moms in Cedar Rapids, Iowa | Dr. Emily Fornwalt, PhD, LMHC
Being The Default Parent and Handling the Mental Load As a Working Mom
It’s 6:15am, and the daycare texts that it’s closed for snow. Before you finish reading the text, you’re already moving your 9am meeting, because you don’t stop to ask whether anyone else could take the day. You never do.
Your name is the first contact on every form, from daycare to the pediatrician to the dentist. When the school nurse calls about pinkeye, she calls you. When a permission slip needs a signature, you’re the one who finds it at the bottom of a backpack at 9pm.
At work, you take the 7am calls so you can leave early for pickup, and you log back on after bedtime to finish. Lately, you’ve noticed that you aren’t asked to lead the big projects anymore, and you wonder if it’s because you’re always the one leaving early.
Even on weeks when someone else covers half the pickups, you still keep track of everything. In the middle of a meeting, you remember that your son’s inhaler is almost empty, and at his swim lesson, you’re answering work email from the bleachers. You’re in two places at once all day, and neither one gets 100% of you.
You’re good at all of it, and your kids are lucky to have you. You’re also tired of rearranging your whole day every time a kid gets sick, school lets out early, or practice gets moved, and you’re tired of running the whole family’s schedule in your head. You’re ready for both to change.
Why the Default Parent Role Falls on Working Moms
Being the default parent usually starts small. Maybe you were the one home on leave, so you learned the nap schedule, saved the pediatrician’s number, and figured out which snacks your son will eat. After a while, it was faster to handle the appointments and sick days yourself than to explain them to someone else.
Years later, everyone expects you to handle the next sick day and the next permission slip. So do you. Asking for help can feel like admitting you can’t keep up, and saying no can feel like letting your kids down. So you say yes again. Under all those yeses, you start to feel resentful, and then you feel guilty for feeling that way about people you love.
This can happen whether you have a partner or you’re raising your kids on your own. It can also happen when the work at home is split fairly. You might hand off the pickup and still spend the afternoon wondering whether anyone remembered the field trip form. Either way, you end up carrying the plans and the worry for everyone, and you rarely get a day that belongs to you.
→ My counseling for professional moms page explains more about how I work with moms who have demanding jobs and kids at home.
How I Work as a Therapist for Professional Moms in Cedar Rapids
I’m Dr. Emily Fornwalt, a licensed mental health counselor in Iowa, and I work online with moms in Cedar Rapids who get the first call for every sick day, snow day, and schedule change.
In our sessions, we’ll look at what happens right before you say yes to one more pickup or sick day. Maybe your chest tightens when you picture asking someone else to stay home, or you hear yourself think, “It’s easier if I just do it.” We’ll work on the guilt you feel when you hand off a pickup or a doctor’s appointment to your mother-in-law or your partner, and what you tell yourself it means about you as a mom. Then we’ll work on how to ask for help without feeling like you’re failing. We’ll also work on the worrying you do about home while you’re at work, and about work while you’re at home, so you can be in one place at a time.
Because I keep my caseload small on purpose, I can remember the details you share, like who stayed home the last time daycare closed and how that week went for you.
How Counseling Helps Working Moms in Cedar Rapids.
Keeping track of every sick day, school form, and doctor’s appointment for years has a price. You can get passed over for promotions, spend every vacation day on sick kids and snow days, start to resent the people you love, or spend your kids’ childhood half at work and half at home.
Our work helps you share the sick days, pickups, and appointments without feeling like you’re failing anyone.
You used to turn down the lead on big projects because you assumed you’d be the one leaving early, and you didn’t want to let your team down. In our sessions, you sort out which pickups only you can do and which ones someone else can cover. So when your manager offers you the new account, you say yes, and you stay for the client dinner without checking your phone. By your next review, you’re talking about a promotion instead of explaining why you missed another 4pm meeting.
You used to measure being a good mom by how fast you could drop everything. Now you notice the moments that matter to your kids, like the talk on the drive home from practice or the joke you share at breakfast. You genuinely feel like a good mom even on the days you stay at work, and you stop apologizing for having a career. Your kids get a mom who’s glad to see them at pickup, instead of one who’s still thinking about the work she left.
You used to answer work email at swim lessons and then spend the next morning’s meeting worried you’d forgotten something at home. Now, when you’re in the budget meeting, you’re thinking about the budget, and at swim lessons, you’re watching your son learn to dive. You trust that each place can wait an hour for you. Your work is better because you’re focused, and you savor the moments with your kids that you used to miss.
The daycare texts at 6:15am about another snow day, and this time you don’t move your meeting first. You ask your partner, your mom, or the friend you trade sick days with who can take the morning. You feel a flicker of guilt, and you let it go. Asking for help stops feeling like proof that you can’t handle your life. By summer, you still have vacation days left, and you spend them on a trip with your kids.
You aren’t running the whole family’s schedule in your head anymore, so on Saturday morning, you have room in your head for your daughter’s soccer game. You watch the whole game instead of checking your phone. Afterward, you meet a friend for lunch, someone you haven’t seen in months, and you feel like you have a life of your own again.
About dr. emily fornwalt, PhD, LMHC
Therapist for Professional Moms in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
I’m Dr. Emily Fornwalt, a licensed mental health counselor in Iowa. I work with professional moms who keep track of everything for everyone, at work and at home, and who are ready to stop carrying it all by themselves.
I provide secure online therapy for women in Iowa, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
How to get started in Counseling
Prices and logistics:
Sessions are 45 minutes, usually once a week, and cost $225 each. Your first session is a 90-minute intake, and it costs $450.
My practice is private pay. I don’t bill insurance, and I don’t provide superbills, which are the receipts some clients send to their insurance company for out-of-network reimbursement. Because I don’t bill insurance, no information about our sessions goes to an insurance company.
I work online with moms in Iowa, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, and you’ll need to be in one of those states during each session. My practice is based in Eastern Time, which is one hour ahead of Iowa.
Self-Schedule here:
Choose an appointment time through my HIPAA-compliant calendar using the button below.
I’ll review your request and confirm it, usually within one business day. Then you’ll get your new client forms by email and a text from IvyPay asking you to add a card.
Log on for your first session at the time you scheduled, using the secure video link in your confirmation.
Have a practical question before Scheduling? Send me a message below.
If you have a question before you schedule, send it here and I’ll reply personally within two business days. This form is private and secure, so you’re welcome to share as much or as little as you’d like about what’s bringing you to therapy.
This form is only checked during regular business hours, so if you’re in crisis or need help right away, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
Thank you for your message.
I’ll reply personally within two business days.
Areas Served in Cedar Rapids
I’m licensed in Iowa as a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC #140678), and I work with moms across the Cedar Rapids area through secure, HIPAA-compliant Google Meet.
This includes:
Cedar Rapids neighborhoods, including Downtown, NewBo, Czech Village, Kenwood Park, Wellington Heights, Noelridge Park, Bowman Woods, and Vernon Heights
Marion, Hiawatha, and Robins
Nearby Linn County towns, including Ely, Fairfax, Palo, Center Point, Mount Vernon, and Lisbon
Towns in Benton and Jones counties, including Vinton, Atkins, Belle Plaine, Anamosa, and Monticello