Anonymous wrote:

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.

I don't think 22 children is possible with a career in biglaw, even for a man.

I honestly don’t see the difference your job title makes. There are people with three different jobs, working 70 hours a week to make ends meet.
It’s an individual decision and only you can know how much you can handle and how much help you are willing and able to hire.

I work a lot for a Fed attorney (SES), but obviously that’s nothing like Big Law. I have 3 kids (all ES age). I am on the Board of the PTO at their school as basically my only “hobby,” because it also involves seeing/helping them. But it’s completely doable. (DH works similar hours to me; we split childcare/house stuff equally.)

Anonymous wrote:NP.

OP, the question should be framed independent of your job. Do you feel the pressing desire to have a second child? Do you think that something is missing in your life?

Those women who have more children do have these feelings. I did not, so I stayed with one child. I would not have been able to handle more.

My kid is now a young teenager, and she feels lonely sometimes. I have a bad conscience for "not giving her a sibling". However, even so, I was at my max only with her (she was an angel, no issues whatsoever), so I don't see how I could have done things differently. Even her loneliness does not make up for my lack of desire at that time to have a second child.

Anytime you feel a twinge of guilt for not giving your only a sibling, please give a though to the millions and millions of people whose sibling was their first sexual abuser, first bully and tormenter, and with whom they have either a very bad or no relationship as adults. Sibling love is no more automatic than functional marriage is.

How many kids do you need? There are 8+ billion of us despoiling the planet daily - if you care about the world your kid inherits, maybe one living an affluent American lifestyle is enough?

Tell anyone pressuring you to carry and bring life into this world to STFU - it is none of their business.

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.

I have a friend with an Au pair for teenagers. It makes total sense. They need so much shuttling to and from sports, friends,etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

PP here and yes the au pair is for driving and also enforcing homework gets done, healthy meals, etc.

Person you replied to, and this part is not great. Teens should be able to handle this themselves, unless SN.

Anonymous wrote:

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

Please.

She also had her aunt to be a SAHM to her kids. If you have a huge network of unpaid family members who will do the emotional and caregiving work for your children, yes, you can have as many as you want. Then you can put down other people who can’t “do it all”

Yeah here’s the thing: women can have children and outsource help in the year of 2024 you f***ing hillbilly.

Negative 2

Anonymous wrote: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.

It's a really weird thing. The job itself is sooo variable, a law degree is just a professional qualification. It would be very bizarre to ask, "how many kids can and MBA mom have?" Idk, what do you actually do? Do you like it or do you want to shift. Heck, a bachelor's mom who is a Big4 partner traveling 90% of the time would have these issues, very strange to view it through degree. Decide what you want with kids and build career around that.

NP.

OP, the question should be framed independent of your job. Do you feel the pressing desire to have a second child? Do you think that something is missing in your life?

Those women who have more children do have these feelings. I did not, so I stayed with one child. I would not have been able to handle more.

My kid is now a young teenager, and she feels lonely sometimes. I have a bad conscience for "not giving her a sibling". However, even so, I was at my max only with her (she was an angel, no issues whatsoever), so I don't see how I could have done things differently. Even her loneliness does not make up for my lack of desire at that time to have a second child.

I'm a government lawyer with regular hours, but see my biglaw friends and their families, and friends that have gone part time or quit work.

Honestly, if you're in biglaw and will have a nanny/au pair for kids past the daycare years, then have a second so they have a family member in their day to day life. Kids really do miss their parents when both are working nights and weekends regularly. And a sibling helps, but more than one sibling just dilutes the limited parent time too much. For families with a parent that leans out and can spend a ton of time on playdates and activities, have as many kids as you can personally handle. Only children get lots of friend time, bigger families have enough bandwidth to spread between more kids. For regular working parents with regular job hours (i.e., not enough flexibility to take on a ton of volunteer roles or shuttle to after school activities), stick with one or two.

This depends on exactly what your job is and where you are going in your career. None of this advice is valuable without taking into account what type of law, what type of job, how many hours you work.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

PP here and yes the au pair is for driving and also enforcing homework gets done, healthy meals, etc.

2 for me, and it's all I can handle. DH also has a big job. We have hired help. But even if I didn't work, I'm still determining if I can handle more than 2. I love my kids, but I also love quiet time and individual time with each of them, and the chaos of more than 2 would overwhelm me.