The Redefinition of Herself

We go through many phases of finding ourselves in life. Changes in life often trigger new emotions and new perpectives, leading is to re-evaluate where we are in life and what we want out of it. Thus, some of the things we wanted last year may not be what we want this year.

I found myself in this place recently, at the age of twenty-seven. All my life, I had assumed I was to be a career-woman. Perhaps, this thought process came from my upbringing and the messages I was given as a young woman. Perhaps, this mentality came from the messages from society and from the people I surrounded myself with. Or perhaps this idea came from the desire to achieve and to do big things with my life. Regardless of how or where these notions came from, I was left at a starting point in self-discovery again after I had my first child.

And now, I find myself at the same crossroads I was at ten years ago, when meeting with career counselors in college, trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. Only this time, I am armed with a law degree and two bar exams under my belt.

You see, when a woman has a child, her whole world changes and so does her role in life. Where she was once a careerwoman, a student, a wife or a sister, she has now become first and foremost, a mother. Motherhood is not just a physical responsibility but also, an emotional responsibility. Where she may once have had the unconditional committment to devote to something, her unconditional devotion is now to her child.

For me, it was not the demands of motherhood that ignited my desire to redefine myself. It was the realization that perhaps what I thought I wanted to do was not what I wanted to do at all. It was the realization that I could only leave my daughter behind for a job that was truly worth it. Yet, no job felt worth it and I began questioning whether I really enjoyed the career path I was on.


They say that we re-invent ourselves numerous times in life. This could be a way we deal with the changes in life. Or it could be a way we deal with changes in our philosophy on life. Sometimes, this just means changing the methods we use in what we already do.

Other times, it may just mean changing ideas we held so tightly on to or paths we followed so obediently.

Nanny Rivalry

Interestingly enough, yesterday someone mentioned an emotional struggle her friend had gone through while leaving her daughter with a nanny. She mentioned that her friend, who was a working mother, would feel jealous of the nanny. These feelings of jealousy had to do with her fear that the baby would like the nanny more than the mother.

Once again, prior to having children, a working woman does not contemplate such emotions. But here they are, in full swing.

I can't say that I have ever felt nanny rivalry but I admit that sometimes, I do feel resentment that the babysitter gets to spend the day with my child. It's hard to leave the baby with a caregiver and even the most career-oriented mothers find themselves having a hard time leaving their children at a daycare or with a nanny.

I recently heard a surgeon talk about her disappointment in leaving her six month old son at a professional day care center. She had always hoped that her mother would eventually move to the area and take care of her children while she worked.

Are grandparents the ultimate solution to nanny rivalry? Do we overcome our child-care anxiety by leaving our children with their grandparents?

Growing up, I knew of a woman whose daughter referred to her grandmother as "mama". I find it hard to believe that the mother did not feel some sense of discontent at that, after all, hearing your baby or toddler call out "mama" is one of the most rewarding parts of motherhood.

How do we overcome nanny rivalry? Or do we even need to overcome it? Maybe we just need to accept it as part of the deal of leaving our children behind with a caregiver.

The Anatomy of the High Powered Career

Are high-powered careers really what they are cut out to be? How mother-friendly is the working world?

Last month, I learned the hard way and I am still struggling to reconcile the managing a high-powered career with the demands of motherhood. I was so happy when I finally got a job, for 30 hours a week, at one of the most prominent boutique tax law firms in the state of California. Of course, I never did tell them I was a mother, or even married, for that matter. The truth did have to comeout inevitably when my one-year old daughter got a really bad cold and didn't sleep at night. As a result, I didn't sleep and the next day, I was not functional, even with three cups of coffee. In true Murphy's Law fashion, that was also the day a major Circuit Court Appellate brief was due, and to be informed that your new hire has a sick child at home was not news the firm took too lightly.

You see, even though I was only supposed to be working 30 hours a week, firms want to know that their young associates will be available indefinitely and at all hours. They want someone with no attachments who is devoted solely to the partners of the firm.

The result is that there just are not too many jobs in high powered careers which are condusive to the lifestyle of the working mom. It's not easy to be a mom and to work over 40 hours a week. The ideal would be the option to work part-time and have time for oneself but when starting out a career, these options are rare.

What's the solution, the, for women who wish to pursue high-powered careers? I see two possible options. One is for such women to spend their earlier years building their careers so that when they do have children, they are at a place in their careers where they are afforded the option to have a more relaxed schedule. These options are generally not available to those who are new and starting their careers, though. Thus, a woman would have to plan accordingly and spend at least three to five years building her career and then have her children. The result of this is that a woman would have to start thinking about having children a lot later in her thirties, since many of these careers only begin in the late twenties. And truth be told, it is much harder to raise children when one is in her late thirties than it is when one is in her twenties.

The second option would be to have her children early and then wait for the right job. Such jobs do exist, they are just few and far between.

I realize that this post may sound sexist to some who don't have children and may even lead them to ask "well, where is the father in all of this? Why must the mother be the one who is faced with career dilemma?". I, myself, would have asked such questions at one time before having children but the truth is that a mother deals with a separate set of emotions that the father does not deal with and a mother has a bond to her child that the father cannot begin to understand. The bonding that occurs during pregnancy and nursing is a strong bond that the mother shares with her child.

I always thought it would be so easy for me to leave my daughter in daycare. I have a husband who changes more diapers than I do when he is home and who never hesitates to eat out if there is no dinner on the table. I though I had it very easy. I found that it was really not the case. Even though he pulls his share of the weight in parenthood, I still found myself to have an inevitable bond with my daughter that he could not comprehend. Don't get me wrong, he loves her to bits. But he does not have as hard a time leaving her with his sisters or with the babysitter. I, on the other hand, sometimes feel like breaking into tears after I drop her off at daycare. I have strong feelings of guilt leaving her with my sister-in-law at bedtime, panicking that she would be frightened at bedtime if one of her parents did not place her in her crib.

In the end, I have foregone concerts, planning nights out with friends and have rushed home from class early, hoping that she has not already gone to bed by the time I came home.

The inevitable truth is that it is brutally hard to be a working mother, from a physical and an emotional perspective. To juggle the demands of career and family life demands flexibility and perhaps a change in the way we view our careers.

The Myth of the Modern Day Superwoman

Ten years ago, I was eighteen. I was a lot more idealistic at eighteen that I am now, at twenty-eight. People from that era remind me when I see them now how I used to believe that married life would be like a 1980's Indian movie- full of love, music and fantasy, with people jumping out from behind trees and serenading eachother. Although I don't remember every detail of our conversations ten years ago, I do remember one particular conversation that group of us had regarding the role of Superwoman. Ten years ago, we all wanted to be Superwoman and we thought it was possible. We thought it was glamorous to be the powerful working mom who pulled in a high salary and managed a full household at the same time. We promised ourselves that we would be that woman one day, the woman who could win in the courtroom or save lives in the operation room and then make it home in time to put a steaming hot lasagna on the table for our family of five. Yes, Superwoman was who we told ourselves we would be.

That was then and this is now.

Ten years later, I'm married with my first child. I wrote and passed the two hardest bar exams in the United States and am the owner of my own law practice, all while working to complete my Masters in Tax Law. Ten years later, I am still struggling to be Superwoman.

The glamorizarion of the modern-day Superwoman is a fallacy.