Kathleen Cawley, PA-C

Kathleen Cawley is a middle-aged mom to boy-girl twins, a physician assistant who has practiced pediatric and adult medicine for 18 years, and a writer. She married late in life, and having children was a struggle. After surviving five years of fertility treatment, her husband’s battle with aggressive prostate cancer, a post miscarriage stroke, a high-risk twin pregnancy at age 45, and an emergency C-section that veered into dangerous territory, Kathleen and her husband found themselves rather exhausted by new parenthood!

Soon, however, Kathleen began researching the social and cultural changes of the last 200 years with a new perspective. She realized these changes have radically altered the lives of parents and children.

Over her many years of caring for patients, Kathleen was given a glimpse into the painful and difficult parts of people’s private lives. They shared with her their joys and sorrows whether personal, professional, or financial. With these shared intimacies in her heart, Kathleen found herself unable to see families, parents, and parenting without recognizing the reality of the powerful forces buffeting a family’s life.

Kathleen is a relentless researcher and unabashed feminist who discusses the emotional challenges of new parenthood with compassion and humor. At the same time she reveals the social and political evolution of American parenting with a keen eye for deeper truths. She also takes time to discuss rarely addressed aspects of parenting like talking with children about death or managing difficult relatives.

Kathleen and her family fled the cool, crowded, chaos of the SF bay area for the unrelenting heat of the Sacramento summer sun, she is currently a writer and work-from-home-mom. She writes weekly parenting articles for local papers and is working on more books for parents and kids.