Partner Advises Women Law Grads to Value Adversity, Get Real About Balance
Interested, I read on. The crux of it was this:“Recent grads shouldn't get their hearts set on ‘having it all,’ " Wu says. “The practice of law is demanding—exceedingly so. It is next to impossible to balance a full-time legal career with marriage, children and regular trips to the gym. It's no coincidence that the two women most recently nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court—now-Justice Sonia Sotomayor and nominee/U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan—are unmarried and childless.”
I think any one in a demanding career will be unsettled by this. And as one commenter pointed out: The elephant in the room Wu is dancing around is that it’s women who are expected to cope with not “having it all”. Being married and having children didn’t seem to be a hazard for the gentlemen members of SCOTUS.
What do you think?
link to article
Ugh I read this yesterday, too, and I have a whole blog post brewing about it. It makes me sick and nervous for my future. I want it all. Why is that such a bad aspiration?
ReplyDeleteI think the author is crazy. Some women choose their career over getting married and having children, but there are millions of other women who successfully balance a career, marriage, children and going to the gym. (Can't believe he put that in there). The author is forgetting a very valid point in that the partner we choose to spend our life with will also help us balance everything. This author is crazy and his commentary is insulting to say the least.
ReplyDeletePatience is spot on! Our choices in partners can have a big effect on whether or not we can have it all.
ReplyDeleteUgh. I hate it when I read stuff like this. It is 100% possible to have all of these things, and the place I work is evidence of that - one of the junior partners just had her fourth child, and has somehow managed to build a successful tax practice and get her LLM at the same time.
ReplyDeleteIt is all about how supportive your partner is.
I'm so conflicted about this. On one hand, there really only are so many hours in a day. The one girl who is a mom here at my office (which is basically the most work/life balance friendly office you could possibly imagine) still struggles to "have it all." While she's doing a great job, there are things she's had to let go, and she never has made it back to the gym after having her second child (she works through lunch most days to make sure she can leave right on time or to make up for lost time to kids' doctors appointments, things at school, etc.) So seeing someone struggle so much working just 40 hours does make me wonder if it's just a fact of life: As HUMANS (not just as women) it's impossible to have it all.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I think it's all about the family. Working women still bear the brunt of household duties and childrearing (statistically). But if you have a partner willing to take on an actually equal burden, you'll have so much more room to "have it all," or at least have a lot more than you otherwise would. That being said, statistically, more women than not reading that article probably would fall under the umbrella this article was speaking to, whose partners cannot or do not provide enough support to their working wife. So that sucks.
I hope that makes sense! I think the person quoted in the article is a douche, but I don't think he/she is completely wrong, either :/
I am in my fifties and remember what life was like when more women were housewives.
ReplyDeleteYou all mentioned that the sort of spouse you marry is key. Well another key is how time-consuming his career is. If you plan on a very high-powered career yourself, your life might be easier with a less ambitious spouse.
Men have not historically "had it all" in the sense that women now expect to have it all.
Sure, men had careers AND children. But under what circumstances did they have children? They had a housewife to do the majority of childcare and household management and didn't get to spend nearly as much time with their own children as their wives did.
The men worked non-stop during the day and relaxed and played with the children when they got home. The women's tasks were more spread out from dawn to dusk, but more flexible with periods of relaxation built into their day.
You now have men and women working nonstop at careers all day. Then they come home and have to perform in a few hours what housewives took all day to accomplish.
Before children arrive, this is somewhat tiring, but doable.
After chidren arrive, the only way you can have it all, is to have it all in the sense that men used to have it all. You have to rely on help - nannies or daycare and housekeepers.
Wives used to provide a lot of services that still need doing. Now we have to either pay for those services or run ourselves into the ground.
If you don't have children yet, try writing down a schedule for how you expect to fill each hour of your day once you do have them. Don't forget to schedule in helping them with homework too at night - this can take hours.
Where does working out fit in? Where does spending time with your spouse fit in? I think the author is pretty realistic.
Holy crap! I love the comment you shared on the article...that's seriously what it is all about. How freaking prejudiced to point out that the women are unmarried and childless but not say a damn thing about the men! UGH! I wish you well, honey...it seems like you are going to need it!
ReplyDeleteI think you can have it all. I haven't quite figured out how yet, but I agree with the others that your partner is a big part of the equation. Even though I work from home I spend virtually ever waking hour working and I've often wondered how kids would ever fit in the mix. I think when the time comes you find a way to adapt and do what you have to do. For me that might mean hiring an intern to do admin work, or finding some area to cut back on. I don't really know since I'm not there quite yet, but before I use to wonder if it was possible, and now I feel it definitely is.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the author is trying to say you can't have it all.....I think Wu is warning female attorneys to make sure they have balance in their lives and there are sacrifices to be made if you want it all (or even just half if it all!). Many of my female friends are lawyers...most started their careers in prestigious law firms, working 10+ hour days and weekends. As they become more seasoned and settled, they started thinking about getting married and having children. They realized that they couldn't realistically work the same hours and have time for their partners and children. So many moved into in-house positions, smaller law firms, government, all which have less working hours. I think this is the 'balancing' part. My friends are no longer on the partner/judge track they were once on but they are happy to come home to their partners and children each night and spend time with them.
ReplyDeleteAs for being married and having children as a men - (i) unfortunately, these men often are not involved in their children's lives (the depiction of business men in the movies asking his assistant to buy his children/spouses gifts isn't fiction); and (ii) there are still many women out there willing to be stay at home mothers/wives and support these men - unfortunately for us females, it's still very hard to find a man who is willing to do the same.
Thanks for posting this article! It's great to read everyone's opinion!
I think the pressure that women are under to "HAVE IT ALL" is debilitating!! The real point is that we can "HAVE ANYTHING", but that doesn't mean we can have everything. There are simply not enough hours in the day to have a truly succesful professional career, spend quality time daily with your kids, cook healthy meals for your entire family (which, sidenote, even 'feminists' would probably admit they enjoy doing... you can't refuse biology!), keep a clean and organized house, and yes, WORK OUT!! Let's stop being offended by people who caution us not to take everything on, and celebrate with eachother that we live in a time that we have choices. And with that freedom comes the task of actually making choices... where do we spend our time?!
ReplyDeleteI don't think its impossible to be married with children and have a successful career, but the reality is it's likely you won't be able to devote the time you want to every area of your life. I recently read a book, "The Meaning of Wife" that was very interesting.
ReplyDeleteWhat you need to realize is that everyone had different priorities. And throughout ones life those priorities may change. The concept of "having it all" boils down to what your own perception perceives of "having it all". When you are single, married, and then decide to have children those priorities are bound to change but isn't that ok? Who cares if they don't fit someone else's view of "having it all" or "being a success" as long as you are doing what is important to you at that time. Success is in the eye of the beholder friend! Good luck!
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ReplyDeleteI need time to process this. The one thing I am certain of is that Wu is kind of an asshat.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that confounds me is that each generation of women since the late seventies has been told "you can have it all".
ReplyDeleteSo girls grow up believing that is the way it "should" be. The problem is when you are young, you haven't actually attempted to do it and you haven't experienced the exhaustion yet.
I think the younger you are, the more likely you will feel offended by the article. Try asking working women in their thirties and forties what they think of the article.
Not to mention working women in their fifties and sixties.
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