Reply to BigLaw Wives/Mothers: Do you WOTH or SAH?

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[quote=Anonymous]DH is a young biglaw partner, I work PT. It works for us.  DH works all the time and travels overseas a couple of times a month for days at a time.  It would be a challenge to work full-time for me (I realize others have the energy for it) given that I have all home/family/house/dog/bill-paying responsibilities. And, quite frankly, we don't need the money.

Most of the young partners/senior associates with kids have partners who SAH or work PT, although one of my husband's senior associates just came back full-time from her maternity leave. Anecdotally, in talking with my friends who have husbands in these kind of high intensity jobs, it seems like a pretty consistent opinion that the spouse is the happiest when working 20 hours a week.

One thing I have noticed is that everyone has a really well-educated spouse who has had some sort of professional success (no trophy wives to be seen.) There are a number of reasons I hold onto my job (including that I like it and I worked hard for the Ph.D. it took to get it) but one of them is that I like it that I can to go to firm events/go out with DH's colleagues and have my own professional life to talk about.  But, that is my own issue.  I don't feel like there is a lot of judging going on.

There are so many people on DCUM who knock families who have a spouse working in biglaw and I don't deny that it has some serious downsides.  I also don't think that the job works for every family. The other spouse has to be pretty independent and comfortable spending time/handling things on his/her own.  But, there are some upsides that people don't think about as well, at least for biglaw partners.  Besides the money (and there are other jobs that pay better at the higher levels than biglaw and don't require as many hours), the thing that we like the best is the flexibility. DH works a lot but there are no such thing as vacation days and as long as his clients are happy, he can work remotely or take a morning off.  Because I work PT at a really flexible job, we can all have a long leisurely breakfast together.  We joke that we have family breakfast instead of family dinner.  We can also tag along with DH when he travels. Internationally, I can travel business class with him for free (thank you Amex Platinum card).

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