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For this installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader Lori, who lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two kids and is the founder of Mindful Return as well as a partner in Biglaw. (Mindful Return’s tagline is “Planning a peaceful, empowered, and radiant return from maternity leave.”)
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
First, Some Basics About This Working Mom…
Name: Lori
Location: Live and work in Washington, D.C.
Job: Entrepreneur (founder of Mindful Return) and a partner in Biglaw
Age: 41
Home Situation: I live in a house with my husband (44-year-old career coach) and our kids (two redheaded boys, ages 7 and 9 [now 8 and 10 in 2021]. Each kid has his own room, and we’ve all gotten very into gardening in our little patch of grass in the front yard.
Childcare Situation: At the moment (i.e., COVID), almost non-existent! Both of my boys went to daycare when they were young, and before COVID hit, they were in elementary school + aftercare. Now, we have a babysitter coming for a few hours a day Monday–Thursday, but that solution is only for the month of June [2020]. Then we have NO idea what we’re going to do.
Note: Lori submitted her Week in the Life in 2020, so she recently shared this update about childcare:
We wound up having a 4-day-per-week babysitter for most of the summer last year. Then we had a few weeks without childcare before school started. Our kids went back to school virtually in September, and we had a tutor come from 9:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. for 4 days/week to help out so that we could work. The kids finally — after 13 months at home — went back to in-person school last Monday!! Now they’re in school 4 days/week, and we’re left to split up childcare between us on Wednesdays.
How is the work-life balance in your industry in general? What are common ways of juggling responsibilities that you see your colleagues and coworkers doing?
Both entrepreneurs and lawyers struggle, generally speaking, with work bleeding past time boundaries. Client needs can’t be anticipated, and a business will take everything you give it. I am on a 50% schedule at my law firm — so that I can also run my company — and my husband and I are very much equals on the home front.
We asked Lori to tell us more about her 50% schedule, e.g., how she negotiated it:
I actually joined my firm as a Partner on a 60% schedule back in 2015. I left a full-time in-house role at a trade association and only interviewed with firms that were willing to be flexible about hours. I wanted to spend some daylight time working on my own company (and passion!) Mindful Return, and I was very straightforward about that during the interview process. Nearly every firm I approached was open to the idea, and when I decided I wanted to be a Partner (rather than entering at a Counsel role), they also said yes. The key lesson I learned — helpful for all moms — is that you never know what you can get unless you ask. Never assume that a particular situation is off the table, just because you haven’t seen it before. These creative asks are worth making.
I shifted down to 50% in January of 2020, when Mindful Return had really taken off, and more than 70 employers were offering my program as a parental leave benefit.
How do you handle household chores, such as laundry, grocery shopping, housecleaning, etc.? Who does what, and when — and how often?
I’m it for laundry, and I probably do a load every 2–3 days. My husband is it for grocery shopping. Pre-COVID he went to the grocery store a few times a week. Now, he only goes once. We outsource housecleaning (well, we did until COVID hit!). Now, on the housecleaning front, we play a game of “not it!” until someone caves. We split the cooking (though my husband admittedly does more of it). One benefit of COVID has been no dry cleaning to worry about!
{related: would you hire a housekeeper or household manager?}
A Week in My Life
Sunday
Hubby and I get to sleep in until around 9:00 a.m., which is glorious. On the weekends, our kids are allowed to get up when they want and can start watching some TV at 7:00 a.m. after they’ve done one assigned chore.
I did some yoga on our screened-in porch when I woke up, and my husband made pancakes for breakfast before he headed out to the grocery store. When he got back, we packed up and headed out to a nearby park for a hike, and the kids swam in the creek.
In the afternoon, my hubby got his weekend three hours of “alone time” while I played board games with the kids (and broke up innumerable fights).
I cooked dinner around 5:00 p.m., we ate around 6:00, and we did a Zoom call with my parents at 7:00. Then the kids took a bath and were in bed by 8:30.
My husband and I then had our “weekly meeting” to plan out our week, and we went to bed around 10:45.
Those three hours of “alone time” sounded pretty great, so we asked Lori if she could elaborate:
We started this weekend tradition of swapping “alone time” in the spring of 2020. We were at our wits’ end with remote school, all of us being home all the time, and never feeling like we had time to be alone and just think. This weekend “alone time” (which my kids started calling our “reward time”!) has worked so well that it is one of the 5 things I’ve declared that I refuse to give up, even after the pandemic is over.
Monday
I was the first one up (alarm went off at 6:15 a.m.). I took a shower and did yoga out on our porch for 15 minutes. By the time I was done, everyone else in the household had woken up.
My husband packed up our breakfast and we hopped into our family minivan to head to a park for a morning hike. We arrived at the park around 7:30–7:45 a.m., ate breakfast in the car, then went on a hike from around 8:00–8:30. We drove back home and our babysitter arrived around 9:00.
I then attempted to work from 9:00–3:00, including doing an interview for BronxNetTV and advising a legal client. This stretch was punctuated by some kid fights and temper tantrums that my husband and I took turns addressing. Sigh.
At 3:00 p.m. I was on “kid duty” while my husband finished his workday. I played with the kids until 4:30, when they’re allowed screen time as “reward time.”
I made dinner around 5:00, we ate around 6:00, and then we all watched an episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood before bath and bed.
At 8:50 p.m. I led a community call for the parents who are alumni of my Mindful Return program. Then I worked for another hour and went to sleep around 11:00.
{related: here’s what happened when Kat tried to hire a virtual assistant to delegate family tasks}
Tuesday
Truly a replay of Monday, except with different clients and work calls.
Wednesday
Truly a replay of Tuesday, except that (1) I was able to work until 6:00 p.m., as my husband was “it” after the babysitter left at 3:00; and (2) we watched Fraggle Rock instead of Mr. Rogers together in the evening!
Thursday
A replay of Wednesday
{related: how to make mornings easier as a working mom}
Friday
We have no childcare on Fridays, so once we got back from our morning hike, we split our day in half. I was with the kids in the morning from 9:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m., and then I worked in the afternoon from 2:00–6:00.
I needed to go to the post office to mail out a few copies of my book, Back to Work After Baby, which a few new moms had offered to read and post a review for me. So my kids and I donned our face masks and took a walk (about a mile) to the post office and back. We stopped to identify birds and flowers we knew along the way.
I made them lunch when we got home. My oldest played chess with a friend online from 1:00–2:00 p.m. while I insisted that my younger son read me a book. I worked from about 2:00–5:00, called my mom, and then joined the family for dinner and Mr. Rogers.
After the kids were in bed, my husband and I settled in for an episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Saturday
Exact repeat of Sunday, except that: (1) I got “alone time” for three hours (used it to read a bit, journal a bit, and wander the neighborhood while talking to a friend); and (2) we had challah French toast instead of pancakes for breakfast!
Thanks so much to Lori for sharing a bit of her life as a working mom! Readers, what’s your biggest takeaway from her week of work as an entrepreneur and Biglaw partner as well as her general work/life balance?
Stock photo via Stencil.
Psst: check out some of our top working mom diaries, including
Anon says
I applaud Lori for the work life balance she’s been able to build for herself, but this reads like a sponsored post, with the imbedded links to the author’s business and book. I get it – this is her target audience and this kind of posts happen on other blogs all of the time but it was a big jarring to see on Corporette and I’m not sure how I feel about it. (Honestly, a little off-putting since I typically rely on these as candid perspectives on work life balance rather than a sales pitch.)
Anonymous says
I had the same thought.
Anon says
Same, I found it very off-putting.
Coach Laura says
I didn’t have that reaction at all. Her book was published in 2017 and if she had done this in 2017, I might have agreed. As it is she’s got something that might be useful to some readers and no one has to buy her book or join her support group if they don’t want. And the way she’s handling the pandemic is helpful too.
Anonymous says
I didn’t have that thought. But, honestly, during this weird pandemic time in our lives, I find these posts much less captivating.
Anonymous says
A post written last year is much less captivating than one written last week would be. Things are changing so much day to day.
This one was very light on details that weren’t related to selling the guest author’s book and services.
Anon says
Yes, I wish they would be written in real time instead of almost a year old. Life is not “normal” yet, but we’re no longer just staying home all the time and I could write a decently interesting diary at this point.
Anon says
Yeah I think this one felt light on details that weren’t business related, so felt too sales pitch-y to me. Normally I love these, but I felt like I didn’t learn quite as much from this one on what her days look like or how she prioritizes all of her priorities. I feel like there has to be a constant tension from what is essentially two paying jobs, the parent job, and also the supervising-schooling-at-home job, and I didn’t see much of that.
Also I’m fascinated by watching Mr Rogers with a 7 and 9 year old. OP, can you talk more about why/how that came about? Are the kids into the shows or do they dismiss them as babyish? My similar aged kids are barely able to stand a Disney Jr show, so I’m surprised with a toddler-esque show for the family.
Lori says
Indeed, the tensions are there and real, but for me, one side of my professional life actually feeds the other, and the personal feeds the professional, too. In my legal work, I get to use an analytical side of my brain and do a type of analysis that I don’t on the entrepreneurial side. In the business side, I get to do more creative writing and community-building that I don’t in my legal work. There’s some research that also shows that people with their own side businesses and passion projects are actually often happier in their “day jobs,” because we don’t have to rely on own outlet for professional identity. There’s also research in the psychology that resonates with me about “work-life enrichment” (more here: https://www.mindfulreturn.com/work-family-conflict/) that our work lives can enrich our personal / caretaking roles and vice versa. Great question on Mr. Rogers too, as I was shocked, myself. The last movie we saw as a family in a theater before COVID struck was Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, starring Tom Hanks. We mistakenly went in thinking it was going to be kid-friendly (wrong: the kids were bored to tears!), but they left the theater wondering who Mr. Roger’s really was. We started watching an episode or two from his first season, and somehow we all got hooked. I was just as surprised as you that 7 and 9 year olds would be into it, but we ran with it. – Lori
Lori Mihalich-Levin says
I’m a big believer in sitting with feedback and making continuous improvements. Many of the comments here described a desire for more detail. I thought I’d take another stab at this effort and dig deeper into a day – here’s the good and the bad, warts and all, minute-by-minute in (intentionally) excruciating detail, if you are interested: https://www.mindfulreturn.com/day.
Anon says
Reply to a comment about inappropriate link, by including a link. Hmm. I had a big aha moment reading this post, because of the description of biglaw partner and entrepreneur. I assumed that the paid employment was full time, and it is 50%. That prompted me to ask a couple of mom friends about their schedule, and it turns out they’re also part-time attorneys. I always wondered how they “did it all”. I still think they’re amazing and feel so empowered knowing that’s it’s ok to choose what to focus on, and still keep a seat at the professional table, so to speak.
Kat, I can see how running this could have been a tough call. On balance, I’d remove all but one of the links including the ones in the comments from the original poster.
Kat G says
Not a sponsored post and there are no affiliate links. She’s kind of got a competing business model so we almost didn’t run this one at all.
DCJ says
Also agree, 100%. Very off-putting.
Anon says
I will say Lori, I read your website and your niche area of law is something I’d never even thought about lawyers having a role in and I also read the bios of the others who are part of your company and as a fellow twin mom my heart broke for the mother of twins who lost one at age 2.5
A says
Thanks for sharing! Can you talk a little about your weekly “meetings” with your husband? Any tips?
Lori says
Happy to share. They started when our kids were in daycare, and it seemed that every night we went to bed not knowing if they’d be able to go in the next day, what with illnesses, snow days, and all the unexpected events that occur in life. The meetings were designed to allow us to determine who was “on point” on any given day of the week, if something happened and we needed to go pick up a baby from daycare, stay home, etc. It turned into a deeper meeting though, about a number of subjects that help us focus on our priorities -including blocking time to be alone, see our own friends, etc. In this post (https://www.mindfulreturn.com/saturday-secrets/), I outline the rough agenda we use for these meetings, and in this post, How to Engage Your Partner in Weekly Planning (https://www.mindfulreturn.com/planning/) I talk about some ideas on how to get your partner on board. Hope this is helpful! – Lori
Anonymous says
I used to really like these but the most recent ones have been really light on detail, which was kind of the point of the posts, and the authors have not been answering follow-ups questions in the comments. Also wish they were a little closer to realtime- at this point I’m not interested in reading about what someone’s life was like in the thick of COVID closures. Is there a large backlog, or have there just not been new ones coming in?
Lori Mihalich-Levin says
Point well-taken re: adding more details…I am grateful for your feedback. I dug deeper this past week and gave the day-in-my-life another shot. Hope you find this more helpful: https://www.mindfulreturn.com/day. (I can’t speak to the backlog issues, but I am trying to answer questions in follow-up.)
EB says
Not to jump on the bandwagon, but wanted to put a finer point on some of the comments about a lack of detail. One thing day in the life posts tend to leave out, are all of the stress or negative emotions one has in a day. I KNOW it cannot possibly be totally rosy for these awesome moms who post here all the time. It would help me so much if someone would say “8:30 am – sat down to work, but couldn’t concentrate at all because I kept opening up the news and checking [whatever traumatic event is going on that day] and so actually only got an hour of work done even though I sat at the computer for most of the morning” …or something, you know? Surely there are people out there like me that are like a duck swimming on a pond – it looks pretty graceful above the water, but below the water, they are paddling like crazy?
Lori Mihalich-Levin says
EB – I am so grateful for your thoughtful feedback, which inspired me this past week as I sat to write my next blog post. I decided to dig deeper, along the lines of what you describe here, in my next day-in-the-life attempt. Here’s all of what’s going on under the pond – the good, the bad, and the paddling like crazy: https://www.mindfulreturn.com/day.