Married to Medicine

Married to Medicine

Friday, March 22, 2013

Yes, You CAN Be a "Feminist Housewife."

Even if this article does a fairly poor job of showing you how.

Growing up in the the "Berkely of the Midwest" (Madison, Wisconsin), I self-identified as a feminist from a very early age and frankly, I really despised anybody else who didn't.  Back then, that was a lot of people - even in Madison.  Honestly, I was cutting edge.  My mother not only went back to school (part-time) and earned her PhD in clinical psychology, but she focused her studies on women's issues.  She volunteered in a battered women's shelter and wrote a dissertation on dating violence.  She and my pediatrician father would give talks to medical students on how to recognize signs of domestic violence.  My formative middle and high-school years were spent living and breathing feminism.  I chucked all college pamphlets sent my way from schools starting with a "Saint" because of my assumptions about sexism and anything even remotely religious.

Fast-forward twenty years and I'm a "former lawyer, now SAHM."  In the whopping 2.5 years I've spent as such I've noticed that people make assumptions about me they wouldn't have made before.  Assumptions I really do not appreciate.  Many reading this blog post are already assuming that I "went off the deep end" in college and am some sort of secretly self-loathing anti-feminist, in spite of the happy childhood I spent with two great parents.  Unfortunately I have yet to read a truly compelling summary of why that isn't the case for me or for many other women like me.  So I'm going to continue with my story in the hopes that I can provide a better example of a SAHF (stay-at-home feminist) than the women featured in the above article.

I got here in a roundabout way.  I grew up with the absolute assumption that I would be a professional (a lawyer, a doctor, a professor, or maaaaaybe a teacher) and I felt that anything less would be a disappointment to both of my parents, my mom especially.  And to be honest with you, it probably would have been.  Yet the entire time I was growing up my favorite part of the day was coming home after the academic and social stresses of school and having a snack with my mom while we chatted about the day.  2:50 p.m. could not have come soon enough for me; I was by nature a homebody and my mother was always so insightful.  I could, and did, tell her anything and I definitely assumed I would have the same tradition with my own future children.  And so unbeknownst to me I was already straddling two different sets of expectations for my life.  Not that these two dreams are entirely incompatible, but when someone like Anne-Marie Slaughter can come along and describe "only" being a law professor as taking a huge step down, I already wasn't out to be the full-on career woman I assumed every sane woman wanted to be.  And boy did I assume it - and judge.  When I found out my college boyfriend's cousin was going to become a P.A. instead of an M.D. because she wanted to be able to balance family life with her career, I could not believe it.  Ha.  Now I sometimes wish my husband were a P.A., even as I myself stay home!

Yes, as I made my way through college the concept of "balancing family life with career" did not even enter my mind; I just carried on with the dual assumptions that I would both have a professional career and also (magically) be home after school and summers.  I started out wanting to be a French professor but after spending a year in France to prove to myself that I wasn't going to be limited by "having a man," I just simply never wanted to be away from him that long again.  My other major was history but after writing my "Senior Thesis" (on women in the French Resistance and subsequent historiography on that topic) I was disillusioned.  I believed that because history had already happened, people were largely trying to rewrite it or focusing on something so narrow as to not really be significant.  The only out I found was writing about writing about history - essentially my thesis argued that recent historiography had gone overboard in downplaying how revolutionary gender roles were in The Resistance - and by the time I was done with it I was just sort of done, even though I scored an A and a very difficult professor told me I was "playing in the big leagues."  Later I flipped through GRE and LSAT prep books and I liked the LSAT book better (I considered memorizing vocabulary a waste of time, and I loved logic games).  So I headed off to law school, my progressive boyfriend and I still believing we'd both eventually work part-time, since we did want our kids to largely be home with one of us.

Law school turned out to be everything I wanted it to be.  I remember after the first few days of class excitedly thinking "Oh please, let me be good at this if nothing else ever again!"  And I was decently good at it.  I graduated top 20% and I was one of the top 2 finalists in Honors Moot Court, so out of over 80 other students originally.  But the job market was bad even back in 2006 and my first job was in a practice group that grossly overworked its associates.  I was doing what I wanted to do - I was getting significant litigation experience in a trial-by-fire atmosphere, going to court probably once a week and largely handling my own cases unless they were worth reeeeeaaaally big money.  I had a gorgeous office on the top floor of a downtown building with big, beautiful windows and views.  But I wasn't actually happy.  In fact, I was miserable - as were almost all of my colleagues in that particular firm, male and female alike.  Turns out working 60-70 hour weeks in a super high stress environment wasn't the key to happiness after all (blasphemous, I know).  I did eventually find a much more family-friendly firm but it was a step down in prestige (no partner track), and the work was not nearly as interesting to me.  But working "just" 45 per hours per week and working those hours with other happy, normal, well-adjusted people felt like a permanent vacation.  I loved life again.  I lived life again.  And I remembered many a French person who had asked me about the "American workaholics" and explained to me that the French believe you must "work to live, not live to work."

All this while my husband was doing his own career soul-searching.  He'd taken a year off medical school to do medical research on a Howard Hughes grant.  His research was successful and he became one of the very few to ever receive a second year of funding from this extremely selective (read:  usually only Harvard med students) source.  By the end of his second year he'd won some contest out of 6,600 other medical students for best abstract... there was a press release about him!  He also had several papers, I believe first author on some and definitely published in the big time journals.   When he had me proofread his resume I had to pinch myself.  It was three pages long and full of awards and charitable work, and everything else under the sun.  His heart and his Christian faith (yes, I ended up there...) were leading him in the direction of a career devoted to cancer research.  Although I had NO IDEA how we would afford for me to stay home with him going into research instead of medical practice, it was increasingly clear to me that I wanted the after school snacks and summers at home with my kids, and that my kids (and our household) would need more from me due to the extreme busy-ness of my husband.  So when MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital - a Harvard affiliate and the #1 hospital in the nation according to last year's rankings) wanted him, we figured we'd find a way to make it in Boston.  And while finding that way has been anything but easy - we've struggled intensely with how to make our family work under extreme stresses of literally running out of money more than once, constantly worrying about our lack of savings, and Mark being unable to help at all or even be home and awake for more than a few hours a week for months at a time, for nearly four years now - the bottom line is we are both doing what we truly love and what we feel called to do, and what is (or at least will be, someday) best for our own passions and for our family.

Through it all I've remained true to my own feminist upbringing.  We left our first church here, at which we'd made many good local friends, after it became clear to me that the church's views on women were, in my humble lay-person opinion, unbiblically sexist.  And yes, I made clear to the head pastor why we were leaving (in spite of the awkwardness) and provided him with an excellent essay on the topic from my brother-in-law who is also a pastor.  Which, for the record, was just one of many things I read after consulting several theologically-educated people.

And so I have a few things I want to say in defense of being a SAHP.  I want to respond to some criticisms I've heard and I also want to note some of the benefits.  And that's not to say that there aren't benefits to both parents working as well.  For one thing, if we ultimately can't afford to send our kids to Saint Olaf College (or some other dream school of theirs) I'll be really heartbroken, no doubt.  And I have no shortage of mommy physician friends whom I admire and respect and whose absence from the profession would be a great loss for their patients as well as for themselves.  Without all my working mommy friends, my daughter might not know that she really can be whatever she wants to be in this world.  But having a parent at home does also have some pros.  That's why I think we need to stop asking "whether moms should work or stay home."  I even think we need to stop asking "Why Women Still Can't Have it All."  IMO, the only question we need to ask ourselves is "how do parents - moms AND dads - adequately show their children devotion, investment, and love?"  Having a devoted parent at home is one way of doing that, and for me it's a clear-cut, easy way.  It's not the only way; it's just the way that makes the most sense for us.  And my answer to Ann-Marie Slaughter's article is that parents can't have it all.  Because if my husband were keeping hours like Ann-Marie kept and it carried over past residency, yeah, our family would fall apart too!!

Responses to Criticisms:

  • No, my child is not short on "socialization" because he "stays home" with me.  Utterly absurd.  Read my rant here.
  • Yes, some parts of staying home are tedious.  Almost as tedious as some parts of practicing law or medicine!
  • No, I am not "mooching" off my husband.  Every single time he works late, so do I - at home without relief in the evenings or on weekends.  My work enables him to be extremely successful in his field and hardly a work event passes that an attending physician doesn't come up to me and tell me how "clinically brilliant" he is - even in front of other colleagues.  Frankly, if we valued the "women's work" of staying home more, maybe more men would do it - and then maybe more women would break the glass ceiling.
  • No, I am not setting a bad example for my daughter.  I never felt limited by my sex growing up - ever - and she won't either.  Honestly, if I were to worry that one of my kids might feel limited by his sex, it would be my son.  I hope (and believe) my daughter will know that she can do whatever she enjoys the most, whereas my son is much less likely to consider anything other than full-time big career person, even if it's not what he'd enjoy most in life.  I can't tell you the sympathy I felt for all the male associates in my first law firm as I left it.  
  • No, my kids aren't going to have too many sick days in school since they're not in daycare.  I didn't.
  • No, staying home is not "mindless."  Child development is fascinating from infant sleep patterns to language and ethical development, and everything in between.  As a pediatrician my father has spent countless hours fielding questions from new parents about starting solids.  How is that so different from me figuring these things out for my own kids? 
  • No, staying at home is not "socially isolating."  We now have the internet and free long-distance calling.  And even if it was, you can hardly count on the work place to provide you a socially appealing environment.  At least not at most law firms.  

Why I Do What I Do:

  • Makes it very easy for us to show our kids that someone is devoted to them and that they matter.  Again, it is NOT the only way for parents to do that.  But it does make it easy.  
  • We have no stress about finding good childcare.  After working in a very reputable daycare in college, I do believe that quality non-family childcare is harder to find than many people assume it is.  I always encourage friends in the daycare selection process to find out how much the workers are actually paid at the daycares they're considering.  The bottom line is that with few exceptions (and those exceptions are almost always placed in the infant room to attract new parents) you can't hire lots of quality people for barely above minimum wage.  Ask yourself if you'd like to make $8.00 an hour manning six two-year olds and their diapers all day, 5 days a week.  If you think you'd "go crazy" taking care of your 1 or 2 kids full time, just imagine that!!  The food at this particular daycare was also not what I'd want for my own kids, and led me to wonder if the obesity problem doesn't start long before the oft-criticized school cafeterias.  Hopefully that's changed some over the past decade, I have no idea.
  • We like that I can take the kids to various parks and museums around town during the day.  A nanny would also provide this advantage.  And I'm not sure to what degree it would be really available if we didn't live in such an urban area.
  • As someone who was bullied in school, I am personally not comfortable sending my kids off into the social world without my guidance until they're school-aged.  Or even then, really.      
  • Again, with the after-school-snack-chats and summers at home.  Probably my deal-breakers.  
  • I like being the boss, not having one, because I'm a perfectionist and I want things done my way.  If I ever "go back" it'll either be doing freelance legal work or I'll start my own business.  A food-related business, of course!  And my husband is the same way.  I can see how running his own lab will be a much better fit for him than practicing medicine.      
  • We like only having to plan vacations around one schedule.  And believe me, my husband's schedule is already plenty to plan around.
  • When I read threads on my list serves about "how to get out of the house by 7:15 with my 1 year old and 3 year old" it all sounds like my idea of misery.  Maybe not anybody else's, but definitely mine.  And these posts and the answers to them are all written by moms... never by dads... so I'm not convinced that just because both parents work, gender equality has been achieved in any household.
  • I like doing all the errands and housework during the week so that we can have fun on the weekends.  BUT I will say that because I need my husband's help with some things, we often still end up stressed for time on the weekends, since he really doesn't have real weekends as a medical trainee.  One thing you can't understand unless you're married to someone who works insane hours is that it's not just the time they're gone, it's what happens to the time they're home.  They're sleeping, or catching up on other work, etc... in any case, it's hard to have quality family time and it's stressful when you need them to help with anything time-consuming.  I truly cannot imagine how we'd function if we both kept the hours he's currently keeping.  
  • I like cooking and baking for my family, and someday when I don't have a baby and a toddler I'll be able to do it again!  I hope!  
  • Whether or not anybody else feels the same, I would someday regret missing this time with my children if I worked.  I know they'll leave the nest and for me, when they do, I want to console myself with the knowledge that I got to see and "live" as much of their childhoods as I possibly could.   
And there you have it.  That's my explanation for why I stay home, and why doing so doesn't mean I'm anti-woman or anti-feminist.  And for how it is that I can value the work I do for my family without devaluing different choices made by others who have different life experiences, different children, different spouses, different career paths, and different personalities.  The bottom line is that if you love your children, you *will be* devoted to them, whether you work outside of the home or not.  And they will know that they're your priority.  How that love and prioritizing expresses itself for each family is as diverse as the families themselves; this just happens to be how it does so for ours.

Credit for this Awesome Photo:  http://www.strawberrymohawk.com/2012/06/we-can-do-it.html  



10 comments:

  1. What a wonderful and illuminating reflection on a question that is also very dear to me. Thank you for forcing me to make some time for feminism. Your post is certainly much better than the article you link above! (I am troubled by the way the author regressively suggests that women are just plain “better” at housework and child rearing.) The personal story of how you two made your choice is very compelling, and I couldn’t agree more that our society needs to value traditional “women’s” work (and not emasculate the men who do it). You are right that valuing “women’s work” is an essential (and often disregarded) part of the feminist project.

    However, I disagree with your conclusion, in which you seem to suggest that being a good parent is the same thing as being a good feminist. I agree that you are a feminist—but, to my mind, it is not so much because you are a good parent (there are, of course, childless feminists). Rather, it is because you are blogging about feminism!

    So, on your public blog, I want to add another message: we should not give up the political project of feminism through a celebration of choice. Note that many women who are about ten years younger than us have given up on it for reasons similar to (although NOT the same as) the ones you mention. See this if you haven’t already: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20women.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

    It is unfair to ask young women to carry the project of feminism on our shoulders alone. But I also think that it is anti-feminist to celebrate choice and subsequently dismiss or downplay the fact that the project of feminism is in so many ways unfinished. It will be unfinished until we have: equal pay for equal work, better support for maternity (and paternity) leave, quality daycare financed by the government, a tax system that doesn’t penalize two working parents, etc.
    We should have a system closer to the one they have in Sweden—where the government gives a generous maternity and paternity leave.

    A system like Sweden’s would enable women like you and me to make choices unaffected by our country’s anti-feminist policies. Perhaps you would have made the same choices even if you lived in Sweden. But I—and many other women—would not have. If I lived in Sweden, I wouldn’t need to delay having children in order to ensure that I could have my career (which I love). The fact is that I live within a political system that doesn’t support me being the woman I want to be.

    And I also need to mention the messages we get from the media. You and I were lucky enough to be raised by wonderful feminist parents, but we were also subjected to TV, movies, books, etc. I learned from my larger society: 1) either I should sacrifice EVERYTHING for my children or I will not be a good mother, and 2) the most valuable and powerful asset I have is my body. Your daughter will also be exposed to these messages.

    I think that part of being a feminist SAHM/P should be recognizing these considerations, and perhaps admitting that the women of our generation are all (whether we put our career or our children first) imperfect feminists. But that is not our fault: all of society needs to be feminist. The feminist project should not be our job alone. It is a political project. And that is precisely why I'm so glad you gave feminism space on your public blog, and I'm grateful to you for inciting me to take the time to think about and write this response. Thank you.


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  2. Em, thank you for this very long and thoughtful reply!

    I did not intend for this entry to imply that one can be a "good feminist" simply by being a "good parent." Or that anyone should drop the very important feminist causes you mention. I'm wondering what made you think that?

    It's true that my blog entry focuses on mutual respect of choices. That's not because I think all of the problems women face today can be solved by mutually respecting the choice to stay home or to work; it's simply because that's the (narrow) topic of this blog entry. The blog entry was intended to simply be a response to (1) static I've experienced for my own choice; and (2) the NY Mag article and the Jezebel response to it, that called into question whether you can be a feminist *in terms of not having sexist beliefs about homemaking* and stay home.

    The only point I was trying to make is that the fact that I stay home doesn't mean I'm not a feminist. I.e., I am NOT staying home because I harbor sexist beliefs, like the ones that appear in the first article and are picked up on in the second. Having no childcare (not even from Mark until he finishes fellowship) I can't currently be "political" about feminism in the terms you seem to require for me to call myself a "feminist." I vote feminist, I donate what little we financially can to anti-sex trafficking causes, I read up on and spoke up for women's theological rights at our former church, I follow Nicholas Kristoff and his work (lol), and as you mentioned I'm technically blogging about it right now. But even if I didn't have the opportunities to do those very small things, I really wanted this brief, hastily written blog entry to simply be a response to the idea that women who stay home must harbor sexist thoughts or must be victims of a sexist system. The problem is that, as I mention in the entry and as is clear in the Jezebel article, a lot of people *really do* think that. This blog entry was meant to show that that's simply not true.

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  3. By the way, I just read the article you posted. I was expecting it to be about how women feel forced to stay home because of unfamily-friendly workplace policies, and if it had been I would agree with you that that would be alarming. And to the extent that the first woman interviewed felt she "had to choose" because you "can't be the best career woman and the best mother at the same time" I'll agree with you that it's too bad she thinks that, although I also REALLY BELIEVE that you cannot be the best career person and the best PARENT at the same time in many super competitive fields, like law - you cannot be a great parent if you're expected to work 60+ hours a week in a prestigious firm for the rest of your life, IMO, and I am so glad that NEITHER of my parents did that.

    But this:

    "What seems new is that while many of their mothers expected to have hard-charging careers, then scaled back their professional plans only after having children, the women of this generation expect their careers to take second place to child rearing."

    And

    "The women they are counting on to lead society are likely to marry men who will make enough money to give them a real choice about whether to be full-time mothers, unlike those women who must work out of economic necessity."

    That's not alarming to me at all. To ME it's anti-feminist to assume that all these women are just simple-minded and mislead instead of respecting their thoughts on what they might enjoy doing and how they might want to live their lives. I wish I'd realized sooner that I wanted those after school snacks and summers with my kids. I wish I'd been the P.A. that I so looked down upon, and had a job that would allow me to contribute financially to the household but not miss out on my kids five days a week (although I'd still rather stay home - because I LOVE it). IMO, our mothers were raised with the idea that they HAD TO be career women and so was I, and that anything less was "a problem" as this article seems to think it must be. But now we're revisiting whether we needed to be quite so black-and-white in our (very necessary) rebellion against the social constructs of the 1950's. A lot of women like staying home. I love it, wouldn't give it up for anything. I would be SO SAD if I had to go back to work, and I read on the Somerville Moms list serve SUPER liberal women all the time struggling with how much they'd love to be home but can't afford it.

    If younger women are realizing they want it earlier than I did, more power to them. I think we should believe them that that's what they want. We're not defined by our degrees and our titles, and only successful if we have them. We're not "lesser women" if we are "just" a SAHM. More women wanting to stay home or work part-time doesn't mean there's a social crises of a new advent of sexism because they "must not be right" about what they want. If they're doing it because they feel forced to, YES, I'll be alarmed and pissed and irate. But that doesn't seem to be what the NYT article you reference is talking about.

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  4. Hello! Found your blog on reddit. What's interesting about "women's work" is that it might be the only real work! My partner and I live in a zen community. In leiu of what we are, let's say we're kind of monks. All we do is "women's work." I often think about the jobs we had before we came here and how invented they were, just little circuits in an industrialized civilization that signified self worth. This seems relevant to a feminist dialog when we talk about seeking to break down the hierarchal gender binary and an illusion of equality that takes dominant culture as a given; In short, the idea of a stay at home woman being equal with a high powered CEO seems to be a patriarchal washing of self worth. Why would we want to be equal with a society that needs to be dismantled!

    I really stopped by because my latest post was a similar question; can a man be a feminist? My heart says yes of course house moms are feminists. We shouldn't have to qualify in our pursuit for liberation.

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  5. Thank you for commenting! I will have to read your post on whether men can be feminists, because one thing I'm proud of is that when my younger brother took 9th grade history (in 1997), and the teacher asked if anyone in the class knew what a feminist was, he was the only kid who raised his hand. My mom had taught us that a feminist is "someone who believes that men and women are equal" - she had taught us that definition in response to the negative connotations that the term had back then (and for some, still has). So I have always proudly believed that yes, men can definitely be feminists, and my brother was one of the youngest male ones there ever was :) As he is planning to be a SAHD - with an engineering degree! - he'll definitely be breaking gender barriers. His wife is on track to have a super high-powered career and they're glad he'll be able to stay home. I think for us it's sort of the "family business" because my dad was a pediatrician and my mom a child therapist. We grew up pretty much immersed in child development and family dynamics and all that good stuff.

    You make very interesting points about "women's work" being "real work." Because my husband and many of my close mommy friends are in the medical field, my personal belief is that a lot of "outside work" is just as valuable as "inside work" ... and a lot of moms and dads are just happier at work than they would be at home ... but I agree with you that it's silly to make "CEO's of Major Companies" the measuring stick we always use. I agree with your underlying point ... "Equal to what?" I'm certainly open to being convinced that the CEO's of major companies are happy, balanced parents with emotionally well-adjusted children and content spouses... but based on what my family went through when my husband worked 80-100+ hour weeks for only 4 years, I'm not thinking workaholic jobs should be the gold standard by which we measure "success" - for anyone - just because they make a ton of money. It's possible that having more of those "top 50" be women would change the job ... but IMO it's more likely that some jobs by definition simply don't allow for the "balance of work and family life" that most women - and all *good* fathers - say they want. The work place is by nature competitive. If you look at any law firm you'll see that even significant talent can't make up for billable hours. So while my version of a nation full of psychologically healthy families involves a 40-50 hour work week for everyone, I don't think that's realistic in many highly competitive fields. And my two childless-by-choice friends will be the first to agree. Their careers *are* their babies, and they don't think people who made a different choice should be measured any differently than they are.

    In terms of real and natural work, one thing I enjoy about staying home is that it feels very natural to me. For one thing, it's very green (at least for us) - we have just one car and we don't always use it. I often walk to the grocery store and then the park... or bike to get ice cream with a bike trailer ... it's very green, very physical, and very healthy. I make as much food as I can from scratch. One reason I think we might stop at 2 kids is that I don't feel like I want to "keep up the pace" of having 3 kids in at least 2 activities a week, plus school... spending all my time in a car shuttling kids... we'll see.

    Anyway, in short, yes - I agree with your very insightful point - why are we looking to Corporate America to be our definition of gender equality? Why are we accepting the idea that a CEO is more valuable than anyone else? Maybe a better measurement would be political representatives... I'll be voting for Hillary (and assuming we'd all be calling her "Clinton" if not for the confusion!).

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  6. Are you planning to do anything law-related once the kids get a little older, like anything you can do from home? I started law school in 2005, and by the time I graduated, it was like the apocalypse had hit the legal world. People with law firm offers were having them deferred for a year while the firms gave them half the salary to go work non-profit, and the non-profit firms were advertising their jobs as "Bring your own salary" as a result. I know people who moved back in with their parents. I worked for two years and then got sick, and recently we had a baby with extra needs. Staying home with her just seems to make sense, but those student loans are killer. :-/ What do you do???

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  7. Oh man, that is the question. I would love to get paid for blogging now that my blog went viral lol. But that's quite the dream!

    I guess the answer is that I don't really know. I'm somewhat in limbo because we moved out here right when I wanted to get pregnant, and I'm not licensed out here - it made the choice an easy one, or rather it made it easy to make the choice I wanted to make.

    It's possible that 3+ years from now when we move back where I'm licensed, I'll go back in some capacity. It depends on how money is, and also on what opportunities present themselves. I'd consider going back for my LLM in health care law if I could do that part-time. And if it could be angled for a job that would be part-time. And if it didn't add to the loan burden too much...

    Yeah the loans are awful. We are just crazy cheap. We live in a 2-bdrm apt, we have 1 car for which we owe my parents lots of money, we only got smartphones last week and only because we found a $20/month unlimited plan, our TV is so old it doesn't get digital service, all our furniture was handed down, etc.

    So to answer your question, I guess what I do about the loans is we're super cheap right now, I hope it gets better later as my husband's career progresses, and I think we're stopping at 2 kids. And in general I'm not thinking about it much right now because my husband's career is already enough "working hours" for both of us and someone needs to run the home. And I'm enjoying my babies and already feeling like it's going way too fast. I'm open in terms of the future but it would have to be something I really love, and I wouldn't want to feel like I was missing any significant part of my kids in terms of after-school and summers. Time will tell, I guess. Good luck to you, and to all others in your/our situation. I think my law school class was the very last class for which there were generally still jobs to be had, and I have no idea what classes after mine did. It's really sad actually and it angers me that law schools have continued to accept far too many students for what the market can support.

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  8. Thanks so much for your response. I'm totally there with you - there are wayyyyyy too many people going to law school. I know why the law schools accept students but I don't know why they still go. :-/ I think I have to try to figure out a practice I can do mostly from home. OMG, paid to blog - that would be living the dream! I guess first we have to get home - we've been with the baby in the hospital for exactly five months today.

    A background in health care law seems like something that will be in high demand over the next few years. I wish there was more part-time work out there in general. It would be better for all of us. :-/

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    1. It would be :( Best, best of luck with your little one. I hope you get to take her home soon, happy and healthy as can be.

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  9. Living with my ex was awful. I payed most of the bills and ever remained faithful.He turned out to be a toxic and annoying jerk,he would bring home younger girls while am still at work,most times the bedroom will be smelling of CUM when i return from work.I knew he was cheating all along but I had no proof. Lately, I got in contact with this Spy-lord at 'hackingloop6@gmail .com, who hacked his phone and sent me a Spyapp that gained me remote access to his phone activities. I was able to access his activities on my phone and saw the exact time the other lady was coming to see him and other sexual chats he had with numerous babes on dating sites. I stormed home unannounced and caught them pants down. I kicked his sorry ass off my house and that's it.. If you ever suspect your partner of cheating, Spylord is the best hacking professional to help you out. email him at "hackingloop6@ gmail . com" or on WhatsApp + 1 484 540 - 0785.He's a legit hacker,tell him I referred you.

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