Biglaw, In-House Counsel

Female Breadwinning In America

A day will come where no one will think twice about a career-driven mom and a stay-at-home dad. For those of us in that camp now, it can be lonely.

By KATE LANDIS  
on

Dad and son watching movies together at home.

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts on motherhood in the legal profession, in partnership with our friends at MothersEsquire. Welcome Kate Landis to our pages. Click here if you’d like to donate to MothersEsquire.

I’m Kate — wife, mom, and lawyer (not always in that order). In my nine years of practicing law, I’ve glowed up from a public defender to in-house counsel at a national company, a feat that would not have been possible without hard work and determination. But also completely inconceivable without the unwavering support of my husband, who gave up his dream career to support mine and eventually left the workforce entirely to stay home with our two kids.

When we met over eight years ago, he and I were making roughly the same annual salary. That changed when I left the public defender’s office and started in private practice doing mostly civil litigation. During that time, I was a high billing, well-liked associate on the path to shareholder-dom at some unspecified time (private firm speak for “I worked A LOT”).  Then, in November 2019, I got pregnant with our daughter. Between morning (all-day) sickness for my entire pregnancy, the ever-demanding caseload, and a global pandemic, I was spent. At the same time, underperforming was not an option — our family relied on me to remain financially stable. Always one to buck the system, I was empowered by being the breadwinner.

After 12 weeks of maternity leave, I was so ready to return to work. I expected to jump right back in and pick up where I left off. That did not happen. I struggled. Month after month, I missed my billables, getting so far behind that it would be mathematically impossible to meet my yearly goal. As year-end approached, my anxiety was through the roof. By my firm’s standards, my billables were terrible. I knew there were repercussions for not meeting billable goals — docked pay, reduced hours, no bonus. Between a new house, my student loans, and a baby, a reduction in pay would have been difficult to navigate. Luckily for me, I worked for a firm (and a few specific shareholders near and dear to my heart) who saw me as more than my billable hour.

In that moment, I would have told you that my anxiety was solely related to failure and my bruised ego. However, a few years wiser and another baby later, I realized that the very thing that I was empowered by — carrying the financial burden for our family — almost broke me. I was torn between what society tells me a good mom should be and being the “all-in” lawyer that I worked so hard to become. I love my family and cherish the moments I have with them; but I also love being a lawyer. To this day, I hold my breath when I say that out loud. Do people think I regret having my kids? Do they think I am selfish? Am I a bad mom/wife? Is it possible to be a “career woman” and a good mom?

Somewhat recently, I saw a TikTok of a woman standing in her kitchen with the text: “My favorite part of being a ‘working mom’ is that I’ve literally never heard anyone use the term ‘working dad.’” For us working moms with spouses that stay home, there is another layer. When my male peers talk about their wives staying home with their kids, no one thinks twice about it. When I am inevitably asked what my husband “does” and I reply that he stays home with our kids, the reactions vary depending on the setting. Most often, I’d say it’s a mix between a flat, dripping with traditional gender norms “How does that work?” and a somewhat sheepish “That’s great!”

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My mind then immediately goes to all the negative perceptions that society has of the “career woman.” Do “career men” experience this? Perhaps. But, chances are these men have friends in similar situations who can, whether they realize it or not, empathize with each other’s similar family setups. As a working mom with a stay-at-home spouse, I don’t have anyone in my life who is in a similar situation.  Notably, neither does my husband. When he takes our kids to the park, he is surrounded by stay-at-home moms. He worries if the kids make a friend at the park, how does he ask for the mom’s number without coming off as weird. Is it creepy to invite a mom and her kids over for a weekday playdate while the spouses are at work?

While I have worked on silencing the negativity, real or perceived, that comes with being a female breadwinner, I am still working through the emotions that come with having a stay-at-home husband. Will he resent me? Does he have enough support? Does he know how invaluable he is to our family? A day will come where no one will think twice about a career-driven mom and a stay-at-home dad. For those of us in that camp now, it can be lonely. Sometimes I come home from work and my husband is ready to pull his hair out. Those days, I feel guilty that he has to deal with being the default parent. On other days, I’m sitting in my office, and my husband sends a video of the baby using the walker for the first time. Those days, I’m sad that I missed another milestone but happy that my husband was there to support our kids.

No matter what kind of parent you are — working, stay at home, single, intergenerational — parenting is hard. Projecting traditional gender norms on families with different situations can have real consequences. Here’s to focusing more on raising empathetic, intelligent, caring humans, and less on how each family divides their responsibilities.

Kate Landis 2Kate Landis is in-house counsel for a national construction company where she fills her days reviewing contracts and putting out random fires. Although her days of public defending are long behind her, Kate is passionate about criminal justice reform and dreams of the day that she can retire and volunteer for the Innocence Project and/or Equal Justice Initiative. She and her husband have endeavored to raise their children, ages 3 and 10 months, to be compassionate, empathetic, and curious human beings in hopes that they can make this world a better place for all. Feel free to follow Kate on Instagram @mama.esq_ where she hopes to create a community for career parents to connect and share the joys and struggles of parenting.

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