Realities

Big Firm Weekend was a blast and I continue to love The Firm and its inhabitants, but I'm starting to face the sobering reality that is working full time with a family. My summer schedule is ridiculously light, but it's not as flexible as my student schedule and Monday through Friday most of my daylight hours are occupied. As a student I have so much free time during the day- I'll be able to see our baby pretty much whenever I want. Once I start work, I'll leave in the morning, be gone all day, and come home at night to see him for a few hours before he goes to bed. My sadness at realizing that schedule doesn't change my desire to work, but it does give me a better understanding of what it means. I believe the Firm is as flexible as any BigLaw firm (if not more so) and I believe that it's the right place for me and the right move for our family, but on the occasional day when I have to work late and I don't see him at all it's going to be really hard.

This whole issue has me thinking about my childhood and the quantity and quality of time my parents spent with us. My mom stayed home from when I was 3 until I turned 16. My dad always worked full time- he was gone when we woke up in the morning and got home around 7. Our bedtime was 8 when we were little, so that means we only saw him for about an hour a day- and yet, I'm equally close to both parents and both seem to have equal footing in my childhood memories. I don't really remember my dad not being around during the day. Instead I remember our family dinners every night, our Sunday bike rides after church, our camping trips every summer, our one-on-one talks when he came up to my room to say goodnight, and our backyard adventures on the weekends. It's shocking to quantify how little time he actually had with us during the week. When I think of having 2 or so "awake" hours with our son as a young associate it seems horribly insufficient- and it may be, but there's definitely something to the fact that all I remember when looking back is my dad being there. I knew that he went to work, but when he was home, he was ours.

For the first time I wonder if it was hard for him to leave and go to work in the morning. Was he jealous that my mom got to spend more time with us? Why don't I feel closer to my mom than my dad when she was the one home all day? Not for the first time I wonder if my baby will feel closer to his daycare provider. How will I going to feel when the nanny gets to catch all those wonderfully random things my toddler says? Will my child(ren) remember me being there? or remember me being gone?

I can feel my son moving around right now and I worry about being there enough for him. Every decision I've made since high school has been made in light of my desire for a family and a career, but will that mean anything when he grabs on to my leg and begs me not to go in the morning (or maybe worse- if he doesn't)? The future is no longer phrased in hopeful generalities about "the flexibility of a law degree," "flexible work arrangements," and "the work/life balance"- it's real. The people at the Firm work hard and so will I. I can be a feminist with a fancy law degree and have a husband who changes diapers and vacuums the floor, but there are going to be times when I'll be a mother who wishes she was at home with her kids.