Blog #34: Balancing Family & Law Career

The work/life balance has been a hard thing for all working mothers to overcome. They often recognize that their family comes first and that is a hard balance because many times you aren't able to figure out where your career is supposed to fall into place. You work so hard to become a career woman and break the stereotypes of not being able to succeed in the business world. Then you have a baby and you have a responsibility to your family. Or even without children, you still have a responsibility to the "2ND job" that you have when you get home. Cleaning and cooking in the house, is literally an entire 2ND job when you get home from work. Women are constantly expected to be the "mother" while their husbands are at work making all of the money. The problem with this, is there is not always a father figure that is out making the money. What happens when the woman is the only one working? They are forced to work just to afford the child care for their children while they are at work.

The Joan WIlliams interview compared to Putting Children First is amazing. They are dealing with the same types of problems in the book as many other women around the world. They are forcing themselves to work ridiculous hours just to pay for the day care and needs of their children, but the problem is, if they can only get low-wage jobs, their hours do not coincide with that of the child care facility. In order to make this work, they are relying on family or people that are not certified to be in the best in childcare. A live-in nanny would be way to expensive for a woman that is working a minimum wage job. Often, these women are missing work in order to care for their children. Also, if they are on government programs, they are forced to participate in programs and classes as well as working on the side in order to qualify. This creates another reason why the mother's will not be able to care for their children. When they stop going to the classes or programs they are dropped from the government assistance making them unable to provide for their children. This make the balance between work and home life nearly impossible, and it is hard as well for those mother's who have high paying jobs as well as a working husband bringing two incomes in instead of one minimum wage income.