I'm a legal secretary and every female attorney I've worked with has had anywhere between zero and five kids. The ones who have four and five kids also have high earning husbands, and hired help.

One of the moms in my kid’s preschool class is a big law partner. She has 4 kids. Their nanny transitioned into a full-time housekeeper and also cooks for the family. They have the full gamut of other hired help too.

Anonymous wrote:Am female attorney with a toddler and people keep pressuring me to have more. However, most female attorneys have one or no kids. How many kids is it feasible for a female attorney to have without impacting marriage and legal career badly? (Assuming the father is hands-on, excellent dad, working a full-time job?) I know this is a weird question but there's nobody I can ask in my family since I'm the first attorney in the family TIA!!

The female attorneys I know have:

C= 3 children
A= 1 child
S= 2 children
P= 3 children
D= 0 children
R= 2 children
K= 3 children
C= 2 children
A= 4 children
T= 0 children
M= 2 children

That's an average of 2 children, which is pretty average in this country. Of the attorneys I know, fewer than 30% have zero or one child, so a far cry from "most."

I left these statistics above, but they really don't matter. You need to do what I right for you and your family. One child, two children, or 22 children. You do you.

Do we actually believe the person who wrote the op is an attorney??

As a lawyer, OP should know the answer is “it depends.”

I stopped at one with no regrets.

Anonymous wrote:You are an attorney. You should be smart enough to know what you are capable of and not ask DCUM. Obviously, you are not.

Obviously snark and not empathy is PP's strong suit. As other posters have mentioned, the level of support is very important, if you have gparents nearby who are available to do childcare is very different vs you having to solely rely on paid caregivers. So bottom line do what works best for your family whether its 1, 2 ,3 or more kids and take what others say with a huge heaping of salt.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most female partners at my biglaw firm have 2-3; having just one is not the norm. I don’t know how they manage it all - a few have husbands at home but most have lawyer husbands who also have full time jobs.

My husbands co worker has an au pair for her teenagers.

A teenager who can't take care of themselves and who needs an au pair has parents who have failed the most important aspect of parenting that of teaching your child to be independent!

Your parents unfortunately failed to teach you critical thinking skills! The au pair is probably there to drive the kids to afterschool activities and help with cooking/laundry.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most female partners at my biglaw firm have 2-3; having just one is not the norm. I don’t know how they manage it all - a few have husbands at home but most have lawyer husbands who also have full time jobs.

My husbands co worker has an au pair for her teenagers.

A teenager who can't take care of themselves and who needs an au pair has parents who have failed the most important aspect of parenting that of teaching your child to be independent!

So the 13 and 15 year old are driving themselves home from tennis practice at 7pm? Really? Teens still need caring adults around to help them out sometimes, even if they are independent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most female partners at my biglaw firm have 2-3; having just one is not the norm. I don’t know how they manage it all - a few have husbands at home but most have lawyer husbands who also have full time jobs.

My husbands co worker has an au pair for her teenagers.

A teenager who can't take care of themselves and who needs an au pair has parents who have failed the most important aspect of parenting that of teaching your child to be independent!

Anonymous wrote:Am female attorney with a toddler and people keep pressuring me to have more. However, most female attorneys have one or no kids. How many kids is it feasible for a female attorney to have without impacting marriage and legal career badly? (Assuming the father is hands-on, excellent dad, working a full-time job?) I know this is a weird question but there's nobody I can ask in my family since I'm the first attorney in the family TIA!!

You just tell whoever is pressuring you to have children to mind their own business unless it's your husband. If you knew prior to marriage that he wanted more than one child then you have a dilemma.

Curious what you mean when you say most female attorneys have one or none? Most of my friends (also lawyers as am I) have 2-3 kids and busy careers, though we have transitioned from firms to in-house or government….at least those of us that had 3 have. It’s totally doable. I also don’t know why lawyers get singled out over other professionals…we aren’t all that special, especially if you’re not trying to bill 3000 hours. But if you are at a crazy high billable requirement place, you may want to rethink where you want to be anyway, whether you have 1 kid or none.

I’m a female attorney. I have 2 kids. I have 2 female colleagues with 4 kids, and another with 3 kids. One woman just had her first child. The rest of us have 2 kids or 0 kids. No idea if any of that is by choice or just how things have worked out.

Anonymous wrote:Most female partners at my biglaw firm have 2-3; having just one is not the norm. I don’t know how they manage it all - a few have husbands at home but most have lawyer husbands who also have full time jobs.

My husbands co worker has an au pair for her teenagers.

Anonymous wrote:A female Supreme Court justice has 7, so you should be good to go up to that at a minimum.

+1

About negative three.