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For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader CM, who lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son and works in D.C. in BigLaw. Our usual caveat applies: Please remember that this is is a real person who has feelings and isn’t gaining anything from this, unlike your usual friendly (soul-deadened, thick-skinned, cold-hearted, money-grubbing) blogger — so please be kind with any comments. Thank you! — Kat
If you’d like to be featured (anonymously or otherwise), please fill out this form! You can see all posts in this series here.
First, Some Basics About This Working Mom…
Name: CM
Location: Live in Northern Virginia, work in D.C.
Job: BigLaw lawyer
Age: 30
Home Situation: I live in a 3,800-square-foot house with my husband (31-year-old BigLaw lawyer), our six-month old son, our very enthusiastic dog, and two foxes that have taken up residence in the backyard. We just moved to the suburbs after living in a condo in D.C. for two years, so we’re getting used to the space!
Childcare Situation: Nanny 40 hours a week (M-Th), Grandma comes over on Fridays
A Week in My Life
Sunday
Everyone’s up by 7:15 a.m.! We’ve made great strides in sleep training but baby still gets up once a night — usually around 3:00 a.m. — and then is up for good around 6:00 a.m. My husband and I switch off, so whoever does the 3:00 a.m. wake-up gets to “sleep in” until 7:15 a.m. Today is my day to sleep in! I wake up and take the baby from my husband, who then feeds and walks the dog. I feed the baby and we hang out in bed for a little bit.
Monday
6:15 a.m. Woke up with the baby. We play in his room, then sit in front of the living room windows to see if we can spot our backyard fox friends (the cleverly named “Foxie” and “Foxo”). I let the baby wake up my husband by smacking his face and shrieking excitedly. He takes the dog out while I start feeding the baby, then we play hot potato with the baby while we take turns getting ready. Fortunately the baby thinks watching us brush our teeth is hilarious and exciting, and I’ve gotten good at applying makeup with one hand (or at least I think I’ve gotten good at it. Maybe everyone in my office thinks otherwise).
8:30 a.m. The nanny arrives and takes the baby to finish feeding him breakfast. Since the nanny works until 6:30 p.m., our goal is to be out the door by 8:45 a.m. so we can be back home on time — which with D.C. traffic means leaving no later than 5:45 p.m. so we can make sure we’re home when she’s supposed to leave. My husband and I work next door to each other, so we commute together, which I really enjoy.
9:15 a.m. I’m usually at the office by now, and every morning I debate whether or not to have a coffee. (I’m trying to take it easy on the caffeine since I’m still breastfeeding). It’s Monday, so coffee wins. Grab a coffee and chocolate croissant to eat at my desk. The first thing I do every Monday is map out the week — noting to-do’s, meetings, reminders. I find it really satisfying to cross things off as the week progresses!
12:00 p.m. Grab a sandwich and eat in my office while I pump. Then it’s meetings, Excel sheets, a quick dip into the Boden sale, and conference calls.
4:00 p.m. I pump again.
5:00 p.m. I check in with my husband that he’ll be ready to go at 5:45 p.m., then we meet in the parking garage to head home.
6:15 p.m. We hear about baby’s day from the nanny when we get home. Then it’s a rush to feed and walk the dog, make dinner, and eat by 7:30 p.m. I make dinner today. I do most of the cooking — my husband is trying to get into cooking, so we’ve agreed he’s in charge of dinner one night a week and picking brunch on the weekends. Today is a very quick kale-chicken sausage-crouton saute from Smitten Kitchen. We eat, the baby throws peas at the dog, and then my husband does bathtime and bedtime while I clean the kitchen and make breakfast for tomorrow (something I try to do every day but that actually only gets done 2–3x a week).
11:00 p.m. Asleep.
Now that CM’s son is 18 months old, we asked her how compatible pumping was with her BigLaw job and how long she was able to pump/breastfeed:
I breastfed/pumped for a year, so the full six months I was on leave plus six months after I got back to work. Pumping at work was actually not much of an issue because I had a lock installed on my office door so I could just pump in my office. I do remember slightly agonizing over what to write on the little sign I would post on my door when I was pumping (so people wouldn’t knock and try to come in) — I settled for “Please call or email and I’ll swing by shortly!” The few times I had to pump while traveling were kind of awful, though. (I distinctly recall pumping in the Newark train station bathroom.)
On the leave point, my firm offers four months paid leave and the option to take another two months unpaid. I planned to just take four and then realized two months in that I should have done the full six. So I sent an email to the heads of my group (the awesome CorporetteMoms commenters gave me lots of advice on how to draft that email) and they responded almost immediately granting the extra leave. I am very grateful for that.
Tuesday
7:15 a.m. Wake up, take the baby for breakfast and hanging out. I get a text from our cleaning lady that she’ll be coming by today, so I make sure to leave a check for her on our kitchen counter. She comes every other week. Nanny arrives at 8:30 a.m., out the door at 8:50 a.m. My mom sends me a text at 11:30 a.m. to let me know she’s at our house — she stops by a few times a week to hang out, see the baby, and (embarrassingly) do our laundry or make us dinner. We don’t ask her to, but we don’t complain about it, either. She sends a couple of pictures of the baby. Lunch, pumping, calls, research, pumping. Home at 6:25 p.m. — traffic was a little heavier than we expected. The house is clean and my mom has left us some curry for dinner. We play with the baby, eat, then I do bedtime so my husband can work. With two BigLaw associates, someone is always working from home. Before the baby — when we also lived much closer to our offices in D.C. — it wasn’t a big deal to stay late, order some Seamless, and crank out those billables. Now we need to be home on time. Sometimes it’s tough to have two people with such demanding jobs, but we’re (knock on wood) usually not terribly busy at the same time, and the upside is that the other person understands the nature of the job and can help make things easier without needing to be asked. Tonight, that means I bake a couple cookies for my husband to eat while he reviews SEC filings. (Side note: we freeze a huge batch of chocolate chip cookie dough every few weeks. Fresh baked cookies on demand!) In bed by 10:00 p.m. but I stay up an hour to finish my new book.
Wednesday
5:30 a.m. Wake up — oh well. Usual morning routine.
8:40 a.m. Out the door. It’s definitely a coffee day. I run some errands during lunch, including a stop at Sephora to pick up some eye cream I want my mother-in-law to try. Like any trip to Sephora, I stop to pick up one specific thing and walk out 30 minutes later with nine things. I eat an unsatisfying sandwich at my desk and remind myself for the zillionth time to start packing my lunch.
6:00 p.m. Home, and it’s my husband’s night to cook. I play on the floor with the baby and the dog, and we play music in the kitchen. We have pasta. (It’s usually pasta when he cooks :) ) We both have to work tonight, but I have much more work than he does, so he takes bedtime. I pop in during the baby’s bath to make silly faces and squirt him with bath toys.
8:15 p.m. The baby is asleep and my husband works until 10:30 p.m. and goes to bed.
3:30 a.m. I finish work — this is very unusual — and finally go to bed at 3:45 a.m.
Thursday
I figured I’d do the middle-of-the-night wake-up since I was up all night anyways, but miraculously the baby just sleeps until 7:00 a.m., so we all get to sleep until then! Usual morning routine, but moving a little more slowly this morning.
9:00 a.m. We’re out the door. I order diapers and more wipes in the car on the drive to work. My husband reminds me that tomorrow is date night — we try to go on a date every other Friday night — and asks me what I want to do. I don’t have anything in mind, so he says he’ll figure it out.
2:00 p.m. I don’t get to eat lunch until now — busy morning.
5:30 p.m. My husband leaves for home, but I have an event to attend in D.C. (firm Recruiting asks me to go to a law school reception).
7:00 p.m. I leave the office to walk over. I eat hors d’oeuvres for dinner.
Friday
Friday mornings are easier because my mom stays over — she just takes the baby so we can get ready at a more leisurely pace (and with both hands). I still take the baby while I brush my teeth, though, because he’s hilariously obsessed with our robot toothbrush. (He puts his hands on it and stares at it wide-eyed when it vibrates.)
8:50 a.m. We mosey on out. I’m hoping it’ll be a quiet Friday, so of course it’s not! Meetings, research, and a filing to review and get out the door. I stop at the awesome French bakery near my office to get my mom an almond croissant.
6:00 p.m. We get home and my husband feeds and walks the dog while I play with the baby and chat with my parents — my dad has come by after work. I hand over the baby and the almond croissant, then my husband and I head to a local sushi place to have dinner. We try not to just talk about the baby but of course we just talk about the baby. We also debate whether or not he likes mochi ice cream (he does, he just forgets that he does) and the upcoming work we’re having done on our house.
In addition to doing date nights every two weeks, we’re also supposed to do “financial check-ins” once a month. My husband takes care of most of our finances but I’m trying to be better about knowing what’s going on. We’re also trying to be better about budgeting since the reality is we won’t both be in BigLaw forever. The financial check-in is supposed to be separate from the date but they always get conflated because time gets away from us. Today’s is mostly about making sure we have enough cash to pay for house repairs.
9:00 p.m. Home to a quiet house. We say goodbye and thank you to my parents, then we watch an entire episode of SNL (… from like three weeks ago, but woohoo!).
10:00 p.m. Asleep.
11:30 p.m. The dog barks at a ghost at and wakes up the baby, but he’s mollified and back in bed by midnight.
When we asked, CM expanded on her comment about not being in BigLaw forever:
Since I submitted this piece, my husband has actually left BigLaw to go in-house. He had been wanting to for a while before we even had a baby, but kind of put those plans on hold so we could deal with a tiny new human, then so I could get situated back at work. There was a financial change with him going in-house, of course (although he moved right when BigLaw associates got raises last year, so that kind of softened the impact), but not so much of an hours change. The HUGE change has been that he is roughly 1000x happier, which I will take over extra money any day! I am starting to think about my next move now, but no concrete plans yet. We’re planning to have a second kid at some point and I’m tempted to stay for another paid leave, but would probably jump ship if something great came up before that. I’m in a pretty specialized legal practice so I’m not sure what that looks like yet. Some days I think I should tough it out for partner and then some days I do a lot of research about how to open an ice cream store.
Saturday
Every weekend we say we’re going to relax and every weekend we run around like crazy.
7:30 a.m. Wake up, and my husband has coffee while we figure out what we want to do today. We go to the grocery store early — we’ve found that pre-10:30 a.m. is the best time — and do our shopping for the week.
12:00 p.m. Back home to unload and feed the baby lunch. It’s nice out, so we go for a long walk around the neighborhood with the baby and the dog.
2:30–3:30 p.m. The baby takes a nap and I read with him in my lap — I could put him in his crib but it’s nice to just snuggle after a long week.
4:00 p.m. He eats again. I take the baby and the dog out to the backyard to sit in the grass while my husband does some chores. We order takeout for dinner, eat, and then do the whole bedtime routine (together tonight).
8:30 p.m. The baby’s asleep but wakes up again at 10:30 p.m. and again at 11:30 p.m. Everyone’s asleep by midnight.
Here’s what CM said when we asked how her weekends had changed:
The change is that we’ve stopped telling ourselves we’re going to relax! But on balance, it’s more fun running around on the weekends because we have an opinionated toddler now and he gets a kick out of going places. We do a toddler gym class on Saturdays now, and try to get outside or to a museum. I end up working a lot of weekends, but it’s usually flexible enough that I can do it during naptime or after bedtime. I just tell myself I can sleep in ten years, maybe (hopefully?).
Thanks so much to CM for sharing a bit of her life as a working mom! Readers, what’s your biggest takeaway from her week of work as a BigLaw lawyer as well as her general work/life balance?
Stock photo via Stencil.
Psst: check out some of our other top working mom diaries, including:
- a BigLaw mom in Chicago and a BigLaw mom in LA
- a mom in finance at a Fortune 500 company
- an income partner in Boston
- doctor in NYC
Anon says
I’m in BigLaw (and sticking it out for counsel, partner, something long-term) with a very unpredictable deal flow and the only way we can make it work is to have my husband (also a lawyer) stay home, so props to you guys for making it work.
CM says
Thank you! Honestly, I would love if my husband stayed home. Rooting for your long-term success at the firm!
bakinginthelaw says
I love this! I too switch between wanting to make partner and wanting to open a bakery :) glad I’m not the only one! Would love to be in touch with you! Working biglaw lawyer moms unite :) bakinginthelaw@gmail.com.
rosie says
Thanks so much for sharing! Is your childcare arrangement the same as it was when you wrote? Your mom still taking 1 day? Are your parents local or semi-local? Very curious about how that is working out.
CM says
Hello! Yes, my childcare arrangement is the same as when I wrote this (although our nanny has changed). My mom still comes on Fridays. She does less popping by during the week now since my son and the nanny are usually out at activities or home napping and she doesn’t want to intrude. My parents live about an hour away; they actually used to live several states away but moved here when we started planning to have kids.
I think having family childcare can be tricky – setting boundaries, etc. – but we’ve been lucky that everyone is really cognizant of boundaries. They always call/text to see if it’s okay to swing by if they happen to be in the neighborhood (my mom is really good about that, even though we always say it’s fine); conversely, I try to give her any schedule deviations a few weeks in advance. My family is really small, and really close-knit, so the expectation was always that we’d end up near each other (I like to joke that I grew up with a stay-at-home mom and then she followed me out of the house).
rosie says
Thanks so much for responding. So interesting that your parents moved to be near you. Not sure if my parents would do that or not.
Anonymous says
Mine would not (although it would be so amazing). We have one child, and (granted she is still only 3) plan that we’ll do something similar if she chooses to have children. My in-laws wouldn’t at this point – they’re situated in the middle of their three kids and are close to their aging parents.
Anon says
Are you South Asian? The reference to curry and your parents moving to your area made me think that might be the case… My best friend is Indian and her parents similarly followed her to her new city once she was ready to have a baby. I know there can be downsides to having such tight-knit family relationships, but it really seems like a lifesaver for working parents, especially ones where both adults have demanding jobs.
CM says
I’m not, but from a similar culture with respect to tight-knit family relationships. And appreciation for curry!
Legally Brunette says
I thought you were Indian too, OP. :) Thanks for sharing.
We don’t live near my parents but my mom moved in with us for 1.5 years when both of our kids were very young. She did all the cleaning, cooking, dropped/picked up kids from daycare, and was full time nanny for my youngest for about 4 of those months. It’s not for every family but my mom and I very close (and DH loves her) and I remain so grateful that she made that sacrifice for us and helped us when we really, really needed it. I hope that I can be as helpful of a grandma when the times comes.
AwayEmily says
aw, this is wonderful.
More Sleep Would Be Nice says
I had the same question! :) The close family and “curry”.
Anon says
This looks somewhat like my life except that you sound much less stressed and like you have a more positive attitude! Kudos to you.
CM says
You too! Re: the stress – when I was pregnant and panicking about something, my husband tried to tell me to relax but couldn’t think of the word “relax” and just blurted out – BE A JELLY! I try to remind myself to be a jelly once a day.
lsw says
Ahhh, that made me laugh. I love it. And I really enjoyed this post – thank you for sharing!
Anon says
I love that someone else keeps frozen cookie dough on hand for on-demand freshly baked cookies!
I’m always impressed by Big Law moms, doubly so if they don’t have a stay at home partner. Kudos to you. I work 9-5 and have a professor husband (pretty long hours, but tons of flexibility) who does a lot around the house, and it still feels like a pretty constant grind. I need more sleep than you do (and more than most people do, I think) so that probably doesn’t help me. But still, I’m impressed!
AwayEmily says
SAME. I am from a 2-professor household and feel so lucky to have so much flexibility. It’s awesome that you guys make it work with such demanding jobs. I do sometimes wish these posts came with photos (though understand why they don’t) — I love picturing your little 6mo in total awe of the toothbrush.
CM says
The frozen cookie dough was a GAME CHANGER in our house (Bad day? Cookies. Good day? Cookies. Watched too much Great British Bake-Off and now you’re hungry? Cookies!).
The 6mo is now 18mo and still obsessed with the toothbrush, so much so that we have to pretend to make the “whirr, whirr” robot toothbrush sound when we brush his teeth with his normal one!
Anon says
That’s adorable.
Anonymous says
We do this too!
Boston Legal Eagle says
Your parents sound like my parents in that they moved here once we started having kids and seem to be pretty willing to babysit on the weekends and to help out at other times when we need them. I think it’s one of the biggest reasons both my husband and I can have fulfilling, busy jobs (though nowhere near biglaw for either of us) and not go crazy while having two small kids. I hope we can do the same for our kids when they’re older.
Best of luck to you at the firm, but I will say that if you do want to jump ship before the next kiddo, a lot of companies (especially tech) are starting to offer longer paid leaves. Probably not as long as biglaw, but definitely moving in that direction.
And wow, 3800 sq feet!! I am jealous :)
CM says
My job searching has definitely been skewing more tech company-heavy, partly because of things like paid leave and benefits. I’m glad to hear you can make it work with two kids – we are definitely hoping for #2 soon but kind of daunted by the prospect. (And 3,800 square feet but probably only 250 square feet that isn’t covered in dog hair, toys, or both :) )
Anonymous says
+1 to longer leaves in house! I almost stayed in BigLaw for the same reason, but jumped ship when an amazing in-house opportunity fell in my lap. And the policy at my new in-house gig is the same as my BigLaw job when you add PTO to the equation ;)
Anonymous says
Do you make your hours?
CM says
I did not make my (pro-rated) hours for the year I took leave, but that was true across the board for my practice. I am slightly ahead of track to make them this year.
Anon says
Gracious response to a rude question.
Anonymous says
Not the 1:24 Anon, but I didn’t read this as rude. I guess there could have been criticism/snark behind it. But I think a discussion around whether hours are made/whether and how hours change when you have kids (especially a baby) is definitely fair game and not rude. So I didn’t read it that way at all.
anon says
+1 Also didn’t read it as rude.
Anon says
Same. I also did not make my prorated hours in each of my leave years (my pregnancy spanned two of them), but while I am currently a little behind due to a (practice-group-wide) slow Q1, I expect to at least be within the realm of hitting them this year.
IHeartBacon says
I didn’t read it as rude either. I think it’s a very legitimate question. Billables are one of the unpleasant parts of private practice. They can be a very significant source of stress and some folks leave private practice solely because they want to get away from billables.
Anon says
I left for an in house gig before our fiscal year was up at my BigLaw job, but I was not on pace to make pro-rated hours either after taking my 18-week maternity leave. I think a flat pro-rated hours requirement screws people taking leaves (especially at places with an “unlimited” vacation policy) because there is less time throughout the year to make up any difference in slow weeks/months. Taking a week vacation? Making up 40(+) billable hours over 6 months is a lot difference than 40(+) hours over a year. Not to mention ramping up and down.
Anonymous says
I asked this question and did not mean it as rude at all! I’m sometimes just too blunt, I guess. I was in biglaw for 8 years and never made my hours. I had 2 kids and always left at 4 pm (started work at 7 am) and only answered or responded after 4 pm if I had URGENT deadlines. Otherwise it would for the next day. I had a great, work-life balance but of course you don’t make partner doing that! I’m in-house now and work a solid 8-4:30 – life is much better!
LR says
Pumping question …. How did you keep pump parts clean/sanitary between pumps? Put them in the fridge? Wipe them down? I’m back to work this week, pumping 3x per day, and that is the only part I’m struggling with.
HSAL says
Not CM, but I store them in the fridge and get them back out a few minutes before the next pump. I occasionally use the Medela quick clean wipes, but not every time.
CM says
I used pump wipes (I think they’re made by Medela) to give everything a quick wipe and stuck them in the fridge between pumps. Medela also makes a steam cleaning bag that you put your parts in and then microwave – I never tried that but a few friends seemed to like them (I think you can reuse each bag multiple times). Sending good thoughts your way for your first week back!
Lana Del Raygun says
They’re each good for 20-30 uses (I forget exactly) and they have little boxes printed on the side you can check off with a sharpie so you know when to throw them away. Some other pump manufacturers recommend against frequent sterilization because it degrades the plastic, though. I’m not sure if Medela uses a more durable plastic or what.
Anon says
I rinsed them off and stored them in the fridge in a tupperware between pumps.
rosie says
I put them in a bumkins reusable zipper bag (a gallon ziploc works, too) inside a lunchbox in the office fridge, and put any milk in that lunchbox as well. Did not wipe them, did not rinse them — that seemed like an opportunity to introduce dirt/germs/etc. FYI the CDC came out with different pump part guidelines, but I was ok with it for my healthy, full term baby.
Anon says
Wouldn’t you need to replace the ziploc bag pretty regularly? Storing pump parts for a few hours between pumps is one thing, but putting them into a ziploc with week old breastmilk residue seems like asking for trouble.
Anonymous says
Not the person you’re responding to, but I had the same system. I would wash the ziploc– squirt in dishwashing liquid, add water, slosh around, rinse.
rosie says
I would replace the ziploc every time I washed the pump parts (when I was pumping at work after a 6-month leave, I’d take them home every other night). That is why I got the reusable ones that I mentioned in my post — toss them in the washing machine. I have also heard of people using plastic rubbermaid-type containers as another, non-single-use option.
Lana Del Raygun says
I wash the bag every night along with the pump parts. (By this I mean my husband does it.)
Anon says
Oh man, I can’t imagine washing a Ziploc bag by hand every night. I used Tupperware, so I could just throw it in a dishwasher (I also put all pump parts except membranes in the dishwasher, which I think is officially ok if you have a dishwasher with a ‘sanitize’ setting, but even if it’s not officially ok I was comfortable with it for a healthy, full-term baby).
Lana Del Raygun says
Our dishwasher is a hot mess and doesn’t get plastic clean. :-[ Since he’s handwashing bottles and flanges as well, the bag isn’t a *lot* extra, but we are planning on replacing them with PUL bags.
Anon says
+1. Thus is how we handle it as well.
Anon says
I got 6 sets of pump parts (3 for each day) and ran them through the dishwasher at night (all of them, on sanitize and heated dry) and brought them back and forth to work in a wet-dry bag. Because in BigLaw there’s no time for washing and cold pump parts sounded terrible to me, and frankly one of the perks of the salary is having disposable income to throw at the “time” problems.
MD says
Ditto what HSAL said. And there is a Facebook group called Milky Mommas which is an amaaaaaazing resource for pumping. I was able to breastfeed my first child until 2.5 years because of the support (and still going strong at 17 months with number two!).
Jess says
I love the tone of your post – honestly your schedule is more than I could handle, but you sound so upbeat. Attitude goes a long way navigating the baby years.
Anon says
LOVE THIS! Fellow Big Law atty in DC planning to TTC. So many questions. Where on earth do you live that you have 3800 sq ft but still make it to the office so quickly at those times? Did you get push back on leaving the office when you did every evening at first (or still)? Was it easy to get assignments when you came back from leave? Any tips/experience you can share with how you’re managing it all? Kudos to you and your husband!
CM says
Hi! Love that your first question was about the commute (such a DC thing, right?) I live in North Arlington very close to a bridge. I did not get any push back on leaving the office back then, and I still try to leave by 5:30 most days. My firm isn’t big on facetime, which helps, and there are a few others who leave early for childcare reasons as well. It was pretty easy to get work when I came back, which I chalk up to a couple of things – two weeks before I came back, I sent an e-mail around to the partners just saying “Hey! I’m back in two weeks! Looking forward to hitting the ground running!” The second thing was mostly luck – a big deal that I was particularly well-suited for ended up walking in almost the same day I did, so I got staffed on that right away.
Happy to share more tips – if you want to leave a burner e-mail address I can shoot you a note if you want to talk!
Erin says
Former biglaw attorney here. I tip my hat to you, ma’am! I hated big law so much – and there’s no way I could have raised a tiny human or carried on a healthy marriage while I was there. It sounds like you’ve got a great attitude – and I’m sure it will bring you success wherever you land next (or if you stay)!
CR says
+1 Same. I love your upbeat attitude!
Anonanonanon says
Hello, fellow Northern Virginian! Thanks for sharing your week with us :)
Anonanonanon says
Also, loved the bits about how you and your husband juggle having similar jobs. My husband and I do as well, and have found more positives than negatives! It really helps when the other person can immediately understand why a certain meeting is so important, etc. It makes it much easier to decide who will take off when a kid is sick, for example. I imagine it would be much more difficult if I couldn’t immediately grasp if a meeting was/was not important for him, or exactly how much work a certain project was.