When I was a third-year associate, I had a female diverse partner tell me to “not wait to have kids.” She herself waited until she “made it” as partner in a large law firm in order to start trying. Trying to have children proved to be more difficult than she anticipated, so her advice to me was to “start early.”
To be honest, I took that to heart. I heard stories of my friends struggling and I wanted to try to prevent that if possible. In all honesty, having kids later in life sounded even more exhausting. Plus, I figured that by the time I made it to partner status, my responsibilities would be even higher. So, in a nutshell, I got pregnant as a third-year associate.
The whole experience opened my eyes. The first time around, I didn’t notice much change. I felt like the world for women must have gotten better. People happily celebrated my pregnancy, threw me a baby shower, left me alone while I was on leave, and welcomed me back when my leave was over.
It was just a matter of time though that I started to feel some differences. First and foremost, I wasn’t able to put the time in that I once did. No more being able to work as soon as I got home. I had different responsibilities now. I still remember the night before I was supposed to present oral argument on a motion for summary judgment that my first baby decided to cry all night. It was at 2am that I night that I finally understood why people said being a working mom in law was tough. I wanted to cry, and I think I did.
Once we got into a groove, life with the first baby was fine. She was about a year and a half when we decided to try for the second. We ran through the reasons and figured it would be better to have kids closer in age. “It’d be easier,” we thought. Hahaha. Now I just laugh at how naive we were.
After the second one came, that’s when I started feeling the pain. I’ll discuss more in a later post perhaps one day, but I definitely felt the struggle. I also finally felt the victim of bias and discrimination. I wasn’t given the same amount of work that I once was. I wasn’t given a increase my pay once I came back from my second maternity leave, even though all my reviews were positive and my firm followed a “lock-step” Cravath pay scale.
I switched to a better firm that is better for women but the truth is, it is still hard as hell to be a working lawyer mom. No matter how much “help” I hire, my kids still need and want me. I’m exhausted.
So, I’m not exactly sure when the right time to have kids is. But this is my story. I started early, hit a few walls, and climbed over them to get somewhere better. And even though now I’m arguably at the best place for women, I still feel like I’m running on a empty battery 99% of the time.
So my advice is, do what works best for you. Follow your heart. And no matter what your decisions are, make sure they are your choices and that you stand up for yourself even when your industry might try to bring you down.