I heart Grey's Anatomy, though for a long time, I had a real problem with Meredith. I mean, she's always up to so much damn drama, and wtf with the whole I love him/I love him not relationship with McDreamy. Hard time committing to a guy like that? Please. But then I remembered that as often as not, when I dislike someone, it is because that person reminds me of characteristics of myself that I don't like. Not that I'm a drama queen - sometimes I'm so non-drama, my husband has to poke me to convince himself that I'm alive. No, it's the dark and twisty. I'm dark and twisty.
So now that the tumultuous year of the first year associate is drawing to a close, and we're all breathing a collective sigh of relief, hubs and I are finally revisiting the issue of how we should be restructuring our lives. It's been a hell of a year, with childcare cobbled together through friends, family, a generous nanny, and some crying jags at the office. My mother, who helped us for well over a month, was unfortunately here during the cold season and caught a nasty bug from the babes that has, in quite dramatic fashion, apparently turned her asthmatic (I had never heard of such a thing, but it is what her doctor says). She has come to me, quite apologetically, and said that she didn't think she would be able to do that again, which given her age and health, is hardly surprising. J's family are no help whatsoever: the MIL is a raving lunatic and has very bizarre notions of what "watching" the grandchildren means (mostly it means doing absolutely everything that I ask her not to do with them) and the FIL (they're divorced) is so distant from his son that J has said that he's uncomfortable asking his father to sit with the girls for even a few hours because FIL has never indicated any interest in helping out.
Last night, at the firm holiday party, I ran into the partner who helped me get this job (he's on the board of overseers at J's school) for the first time since I joined. He asked me how things are going and of course, I cautiously divulged that things have been rough between the hours and the girls. He made some noise about how the firm was looking into ways of helping associates find better work-life balance and I could barely suppress my whatever guffaw (yes, there is theoretically "part-time" available here, but you can't take it until after you've been at the firm a couple of years, and I heard a nightmare story this year about a part-time associate who still billed over 2000 hours for the year). The motto of my firm should be: if you have a life, you must not be working hard enough.
The "talk", as I lovingly refer to our ongoing conversation about our jobs, has been progressing in fits and starts, mostly because there is actually very little time when hubs and I overlap, are not busy with the kiddos and are not exhasted. But with two slow weeks behind me, and a renewed sense of energy, I've tackled the "talk" with new vigour. Basically, I'm trying to convince J that it's time to let go of the dream. J has agreed that everything I say logically makes sense. I make more than double what he does, and my bennys are better. Furthermore, despite the income disparity, J often works into the night, usually past the girls' bedtime (though he has, thankfully, been around almost all weekends). But everytime we have the conversation, he looks at me as if I'm repeatedly slashing him with a large and very sharp kitchen knife. His arguments: but if I leave now, I'll never have another chance at the academe; what if we enter a recession, you get laid off, and we need my job; I have no other marketable skills. Fine, I say. You don't have to leave your job if you could just get yourself a more stable tenure-track position. J's been at this for a decade now. A decade of low-paying, three-year long associate positions with no possibility of extension. Each in a different part of the country. In short, I (bitch) want J to be successful. Unfortunately, J's published very little, has a caustic and wry personality (which has caused an inordinate amount of fisson in his work places) and is not personable enough to be a star teacher. So I tell J that if he can't do it, then he needs to be at home with the kids so that I have reign to be successful instead. At this point, he huffs and puffs, yells about how I'm a superficial bitch and how I knew what I was getting into when we got married and shouldn't be changing the terms now, and then refuses to talk.
The truth is, I don't really want to be the sole provider. I miss being a mommy. I was, for the most part, a full time mommy to Loo for the first two years of her life and to Kali for the first six months of hers. I can't imaging being a SAHM, but it has been physically painful to abdicate the role completely, which I seem to have done over the past few months. I would love it if J and I could just both find reasonable jobs with reasonable hours so that we could be home more. As it is, I feel that K&L and experiencing real reprecussions of having absentee parents: Loo, who has been potty trained for over a year, has been having daily accidents for the past few weeks and Kal has such a insatiable appetite that her pudgiliciousness is interfering with her toddling. There is no proof that these are connected to our parenting, but call it a mother's sixth sense.
I know that this isn't forever. Just like (it seems) every other biglaw associate out there, I'm just in it for the short term experience and cache, which will hopefully get me to something more stable, manageable and family friendly. But right now, the short term has filled every corner of my foreseeable horizon, and it's hard to be optimistic. See, dark and twisty. Dark and twisty me.
***
We went to a holiday party this weekend at a local hotel. It was an adult affair, but they actually welcomed children with open arms so we decided to bring K&L (well, it was also partly because we just couldn't line up any babysitting). I was a little apprehensive about the food situation, so I went armed with sammies and jarred babyfood. As it turned out, the kidlets were thrilled with the butternut squash soup and there was some nicely grilled flounder? trout? that they gobbled down as well. Of course, Loo couldn't sit still for even a minute (and where Loo goes, Kal goes as well) and so it was me with a plate of food chasing after them for a good portion of dinner.
At one point Loo befriended one of the other little girls at the party, a 7-year old, T. They were inseparable for the rest of the night (with T acting as hen mother). Loo has been calling T. her "best friend" for the last three days.
When dinner segued into dancing, who was first on the dance floor, with all of her foot stomping glory by little (and by little, I mean roly-poly) Kal. My baby is a dancing fool.
We left at 11 and the girls did not nod off until midnight. Bad parents. But a good time was had by all.
Hope you figure it all out. I've seen other women at my firm struggle with this and most go the live-in nanny route because then at least there is consistency for the kids. We do have one woman whose husband is actually an attorney and he stays home because they faced the same problem you do. They decided since she was the bigger earner, she should go balls-to-the-wall and he would stay home. It's working out so far (about a year into it). Good luck!
Posted by: PT-LawMom | December 13, 2007 at 11:07 AM
This was great to read. And trust me, you're no Meredith Gray. You actually seem to realize that there are other people in the world. (I mean, really, the scene where the two EMTs were dangling from the roof & SHE starts crying about feeling inadequate or some other such bullshit? Talk about your McJackass.)
Hang in there. (Not in the "EMTs dangling from the roof" type of way.)(Well, you know what I mean.)
Posted by: wa | December 13, 2007 at 05:19 PM