Happy Mother’s Day to all the lawyer mothers! Yours is a challenging road, and I admire all of you who stick with it and take the long view. Both motherhood and the law profession are rewarding, and it is very difficult to balance your time to find enough for both — especially when your children are very young. But ….. then there are the teenage years when those same children may need you even more.
I wish you did not have to make such tough choices, but that is the reality. Informed choices, realistic expectations, personal definitions of success, and vision are the key ingredients to surviving these challenging years. Have faith and know that your time will come.
Sooner than you think. The time goes by so fast, and, before you know it, your youngest child will be leaving for college. That also is a challenging time, and one way to get through it is to divert your energies away from missing your children to something else — something uniquely about you — like picking up the pace of your law career. Give it your full attention, that you have not been able to give it before. Take some risks that seemed too out of touch in the past.
All of that is so much easier if you stay in the profession in one way or another. Leaving and coming back “on ramp” is very difficult, and many women lawyers today are finding it nearly impossible. Don’t let yourself be one of them.
Happy Mother’s Day to all of you. You are the real heroes of your households!
