Never Off Duty: Perfectionism and Motherhood

Dr. Cassidy Freitas grew up watching her mom — a Hispanic judge who fought her way into white male spaces with no margin for error — come home carrying that same no-error version of herself. Her dad pushed straight A's as the path to financial safety. She absorbed all of it.

And then she became a mom.

She had a plan. A written, formatted, shared-with-her-doctor birth plan. When it fell apart in the operating room — her daughter already here, her husband saying "look at her," and Cassidy turning her face away — the drive that had gotten her through everything else had nothing to offer her.

Dr. Cassidy is a therapist and the author of Mom Needs a Moment (hachettebookgroup.com/titles/dr-cassidy-freita…). In this conversation with Dr. Becky, she traces how perfectionism forms in childhood as a survival strategy, why it works right up until you have a baby, and what it actually looks like to loosen the grip without losing your edge.

There's a phrase she comes back to: context is the bridge to compassion. You can't have compassion for the way perfectionism shows up in you as a mom if you don't understand where it came from.

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