BigLaw Wives/Mothers: Do you WOTH or SAH?

[Anonymous]

I’m a biglaw senior associate and my view is that it is both generational and economic. The senior (age 45-50+ at my firm) partners are more likely to be married to women who did not have their own careers or at most had administrative careers before they married; once they married a biglaw associate, they didn’t slog through a secretarial job. Now I’m seeing more junior partners and senior associates married/dating women who are intellectual peers. A woman who has struggled to earn her own JD/MD/PhD/MBA is not likely to quit just because she met a biglaw associate. When kids come along, decisions need to be made about whether co-parenting is possible given the schedules and stress of that firm/practice area -- and some spouses do SAHM/downsize their careers then. However, now many don’t because the market has changed.

Back in the day, it seems like making it to the 6th-7th yr was highly indicative of partnership. Now there is no guarantee whatsoever -- there are associates who are in the 10th-12th+ years who may or may not ever make partner; thus, couples are less likely to decide to have one person stay home in anticipation of partnership because if the biglaw associate doesn’t make it, they can still have a good career doing something else but sometimes there ends up being a few yrs of bouncing around to settle into something good. That bouncing around is more doable if the other spouse is still bringing home a stable paycheck.

[Anonymous]

I'm a biglaw wife and I WOH FT for the fed gov. I feel like a single parent, and it's hard working and managing the household but I wouldn't quit ever quit my job or I think I'd go crazy. So I juggle and make it work somehow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok, this is not my personal opinion, so please don't bite my head off...

But, my DH was told (off the record, of course) after we had our first child that if he wanted to make partner that I should quit my biglaw job to SAH. The reasons given were 1) that two full time big law parents are either neglecting their kid or their jobs and that neither thing will be looked favorably upon; and 2) that (some lower paid partners who's wives don't work) will resent the fact that you and your wife together out earn them, especially when you have to stay home with a sick kid.

This advice came from 3 partners who were ~40-45.

Wow, how sad for those bitter partners to have said those things. There are plenty of families who make it work. Probably jealous because they couldn't figure out how to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a biglaw wife and I WOH FT for the fed gov. I feel like a single parent, and it's hard working and managing the household but I wouldn't quit ever quit my job or I think I'd go crazy. So I juggle and make it work somehow.

this is me too!

my DH is in litigation so it is cylical and at times he can be home at 6pm for a week or two (hey, i take what i can get!). im actually a lawyer w/the feds but w/a more transactional practice, and therefore more predictable. it's a sustainable combination of careers for us.

[Anonymous]

As the wife to a hopeful future biglaw partner, I have become fearful that I am never going to have the professional career I thought I would. I am highly educated and worked hard for it, but DH's career is so demanding I do not feel I can work more than PT and still spend as much time with the kids and home as I want to and we need. I guess it's a good problem to have, but I still mourn the likely loss of the career I imagined when we first got married to the greater certainty of DHs high pay and long hours. Maybe when the kids are school age more options will open up, but I worry I will have timed out of some opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok, this is not my personal opinion, so please don't bite my head off...

But, my DH was told (off the record, of course) after we had our first child that if he wanted to make partner that I should quit my biglaw job to SAH. The reasons given were 1) that two full time big law parents are either neglecting their kid or their jobs and that neither thing will be looked favorably upon; and 2) that (some lower paid partners who's wives don't work) will resent the fact that you and your wife together out earn them, especially when you have to stay home with a sick kid.

This advice came from 3 partners who were ~40-45.

Did you ignore this advice? did you husband stay in big law? did/will he make partner? did you stay in big law? did/will you make partner?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As the wife to a hopeful future biglaw partner, I have become fearful that I am never going to have the professional career I thought I would. I am highly educated and worked hard for it, but DH's career is so demanding I do not feel I can work more than PT and still spend as much time with the kids and home as I want to and we need. I guess it's a good problem to have, but I still mourn the likely loss of the career I imagined when we first got married to the greater certainty of DHs high pay and long hours. Maybe when the kids are school age more options will open up, but I worry I will have timed out of some opportunities.

This is me too. We are similarly well educated (we met in college and I have a Ph.D.) and I am very good at my job. However, my job is not as high-flying as I think I might have been capable of achieving if I had had the kind of career support that I gave my husband. I feel like I might have pursued career success with more vigor if DH's job hadn't sucked so much of the oxygen out of our family life. He loves his job and is very good at it and now that he has made partner it provides a level of security that my low paying field will never do so I have ended up scaling down and picking up the slack at home. I do not blame him since I was a willing participant in allowing him to work the insane schedule that was necessary for him to make partner. I just feel like I got a little lost along the way.

[Anonymous]

DH and I were both BigLaw when we had two kids. I was PT after our first, then made partner. He made partner shortly after our 2nd arrived. When we decided to have a third, we did it with the idea that I would SAH, where I've been for about 2 years now.

I love being home and was totally done with BigLaw. Plus, DH was the type to say "you're part time, you have to deal with sick kids/school stuff/everything kid related." And weekends just made me ill -- all we did was negotiate who could work when. It wasn't the family life we wanted. Having me home has made things function so much more smoothly.

Honestly, many of DH's young partners are women/mothers themselves. My former firm, not so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As the wife to a hopeful future biglaw partner, I have become fearful that I am never going to have the professional career I thought I would. I am highly educated and worked hard for it, but DH's career is so demanding I do not feel I can work more than PT and still spend as much time with the kids and home as I want to and we need. I guess it's a good problem to have, but I still mourn the likely loss of the career I imagined when we first got married to the greater certainty of DHs high pay and long hours. Maybe when the kids are school age more options will open up, but I worry I will have timed out of some opportunities.

Unless you and dh are both committed to your career being an equal priority, it won't be. BTDT. This is a good thing to think through now, although I don't have any easy answers. I do know that in my prime career years, I am doing a whole lot less than I could do, with the knowledge that it will be difficult for me to ever ramp up to a serious career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As the wife to a hopeful future biglaw partner, I have become fearful that I am never going to have the professional career I thought I would. I am highly educated and worked hard for it, but DH's career is so demanding I do not feel I can work more than PT and still spend as much time with the kids and home as I want to and we need. I guess it's a good problem to have, but I still mourn the likely loss of the career I imagined when we first got married to the greater certainty of DHs high pay and long hours. Maybe when the kids are school age more options will open up, but I worry I will have timed out of some opportunities.

People make it work. You can if you really have drive. My DH is a biglaw partner. I WOH full time and the kids are fine. No need to be overly dramatic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the wife to a hopeful future biglaw partner, I have become fearful that I am never going to have the professional career I thought I would. I am highly educated and worked hard for it, but DH's career is so demanding I do not feel I can work more than PT and still spend as much time with the kids and home as I want to and we need. I guess it's a good problem to have, but I still mourn the likely loss of the career I imagined when we first got married to the greater certainty of DHs high pay and long hours. Maybe when the kids are school age more options will open up, but I worry I will have timed out of some opportunities.

People make it work. You can if you really have drive. My DH is a biglaw partner. I WOH full time and the kids are fine. No need to be overly dramatic.

I guess it depends on the career and how established you were before you had kids. I don't think that drive is my problem, though perhaps indeed I am being overly dramatic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the wife to a hopeful future biglaw partner, I have become fearful that I am never going to have the professional career I thought I would. I am highly educated and worked hard for it, but DH's career is so demanding I do not feel I can work more than PT and still spend as much time with the kids and home as I want to and we need. I guess it's a good problem to have, but I still mourn the likely loss of the career I imagined when we first got married to the greater certainty of DHs high pay and long hours. Maybe when the kids are school age more options will open up, but I worry I will have timed out of some opportunities.

People make it work. You can if you really have drive. My DH is a biglaw partner. I WOH full time and the kids are fine. No need to be overly dramatic.

This is 10:09. I WOH full-time but that is not the same thing as having the career I might have if I was willing/able to devote as much time to it as DH does to being a partner at a law firm. Just working full-time does not mean that you are living up to all the potential you saw in yourself when you were younger. I only know of one family with kids made up of two full-time high achieving biglaw partners. They do make it work, but basically do it by outsourcing everything and never sleeping. Most of us scale back even if we stay full-time at our jobs.

[Anonymous]

It can work but only if the partner sees his spouse’s career as important. Often partners think that even if their spouse works, she should still be fully responsible for kid duties, doctor appointments, sick days etc. because her job is less important to the family. This can be rightful as the partner is often bringing in the salary that covers the mortgage etc. and is also not necessarily guaranteed to make $x for the year so they constantly have to push to make sure their existing clients are happy, they aren’t overlooked for new business etc. The ones where I’ve seen it work are the ones who are willing to draw some lines and say that they have to work from home/take a day off once in a while to take a child to a doctor, do a pick-up/drop-off if the wife has to travel for her job etc. So much of this is dependent on the firm and the practice group. A lot of the younger male partners at my very traditional firm have taken this approach and the senior partners are constantly irritated and make comments about how they don’t care, are all about lifestyle, should have realized what life was like before they even got on partner track etc.; in reality it’s about the senior partners either being jealous of the family lives or not understanding why a man wants to be so involved with kids and it’s about the junior male partners saying “do what you want in terms of my compensation but I will stand my ground once in a while to support my family/wives’ needs.”