This has been a great work week.
I’ve had a few decisions in my favor and worked a little magic with IRS. I got quoted in the paper (okay, it wasn’t the quote I was hoping that they’d use, but I’ll live with it). And I received an offhand compliment from one of the most respected tax attorneys in Philadelphia – and perhaps Pennsylvania.
So I felt particularly good about my business.
Actually, I usually feel pretty good about my business. I’m a good attorney. I work hard. I know my stuff. I read a lot about tax. I know what I’m talking about (or I simply don’t say it).
But sometimes, it’s hard running a business and being a mom. As I’ve posted before, I structured my business a certain way specifically so that I could have my children with me as much as possible. But every now and again, I’ll admit that I feel a pang wondering whether things would have been different if I had arranged my life a little differently.
Okay – go ahead, hurl the tomatoes. Say I’m a terrible mother for putting that out there for the world to see.
I don’t mean (ever) that I wouldn’t want my daughters around. They are precious to me. And clearly, I have made the decision that they are more important than work – or I’d be the Estates Chair at some Center City law firm. I firmly believe that to be true. I was headhunted five years ago (when pregnant with Katie) to manage the department at “Big Law Firm” and after a little consideration, I decided to not even meet with the partners.
But sometimes, when I have a shirt full of yogurt handprints and sensible shoes on (c’mon, you can’t chase an energetic three year old in heels!) and I’m standing in a crowd full of suits, I feel like they don’t take me seriously. You know, cause I’m “the mom.” Sometimes when I’m the one speak up and say that I disagree with the popular interpretation of a certain case, I wonder if the suits can tell that I have a briefcase full of pacifiers and Dora toys instead of PDAs and business cards.
I have pangs in the other direction, too. Today, while cutting a deal with IRS on the phone, my one year old had finished her milk and was wailing up a storm. She was hungry. I needed about five more minutes. And, of course, she didn’t understand that.
It’s tough, this balancing life. I don’t like to say “home” and “work” as if they are completely separate things that could be balanced. Not at my house. I work with my husband. I have a home office and a “real” office. There isn’t always a clear distinction between work and home. So I don’t like to pretend that I balance those things. I balance life.
And damn it, if it’s not really hard.
I don’t profess to be the only parent that has this issue. I know parents struggle with it all of the time. I guess at some point, maybe it gets a little easier? Or maybe we just dismiss it as part of the job. The parenting job.
But for now, it’s tough. I know the girls will grow up fast and I don’t want to miss a minute.
But I’m growing up, too. I’m at the top of my game, more or less, from a career standpoint. I don’t want to be like so many women that I know who put their careers aside and then wish they didn’t. And that’s not a slam at stay at home moms. Because I know plenty of women who put their careers aside and were glad that they did – and that’s not who I am talking about. I’m talking about the women that I see who, at the age of 60, after the kids are gone, continue tot talk wistfully about what they used to do and how they could have been somebody.
I’m somebody now. I’m Kelly. I earned my BA, JD and LLM on my own. I paid my own way through school (and am still paying), becoming the first in my family to ever graduate from college. I teach college. I run my own business. I am active in the business community. And I like it.
I don’t want to be wistful. I don’t want to look back and think “what if?”
But still, every now and again, I get a glimpse of the future. And I wonder what would have happened if I had waited five years to have children, or if I had decided on daycare as a permanent option for my girls. I never wish that I didn’t have my girls.
But I do wonder: Would I have done it differently?
