Mother’s Day is right around the corner. It is the day set aside to celebrate the importance of motherhood, and it is an important day for all families. For mother/lawyers, it also underscores the challenges of being the mother of young children and ALSO a lawyer.
Work-life balance for mother/lawyers is critical. That does not make it easy, and it also is not conducive to cookie cutter solutions. It is a very personal thing and, in part, depends on the type of law those mother/lawyers practice and the degree of child care help available to them. It means deciding what works best for the woman and her family and for the woman and her career. It means protecting objectives on both the personal and the professional sides.
I made these arguments in an ABA Journal article several years ago, and the y0ung women lawyers on Twitter were offended to hear my advice about paying attention to both personal and professional lives. They said that I had no right telling them what to do because they already were doing it and they were very successful. That made me wonder why they were offended because clearly what I was suggesting was working for them. But it was the mere fact of being told what to do that offended them.
Those young women lawyers also wrote in their tweets that I must not have children if I was emphasizing being a reliable team player at the office. They even opined that I had sold out to male management and that I was telling women lawyers not to have children. Because I do not engage with cancel culture, I did not engage in a dialogue with unidentified Tweeters. If I had responded, my response would have looked something like what is included in this current Forbes article.
Considerations like setting boundaries, prioritizing tasks, delegating responsibilities, and seeking flexibility are addressed well in the article. Pay attention to them. They are critical to your success and how you look back on your performance as a lawyer and as a mother of small children.
I know a little about this. I, indeed, do have children. Two of them, both of them successful lawyers. And I am very happy with the images in my rear view mirror.
