Could be worse
I’ve never received a bad review at work. Ever. Not even a little “constructive criticism”. I’m always told how wonderful I am and that I just need to keep doing what I’ve been doing (I really like reviews, obviously). Well, it seems that what people say in their official reviews isn’t always what they tell those who matter when those folks go poking around to see whether someone should become a partner. I just spent two hours on the phone talking about my career and what I need to do to become an equity partner. Oddly, it doesn’t seem like that much. Even so, the conversation has me really concerned about how much I can trust the guys I work with and whether this list is the real list. I’m not sure why the things I was just told weren’t said to me earlier (e.g., when they were telling me how fabulous I was, perhaps they could have said, you know, you’ll be even more fabulous if you would do x). Even more confusing to me is that I’m not sure that the same folks who came up with this short list of things I need to do won’t come up with another one in TWO years (yeah, the worst news was that I’m really not going to be considered next year, which I knew, but I had not really internalized).
So, here’s the thing. I need to kick things up a little (perhaps a lot) in order to knock these things off this list by next April. There will be another assessment next summer as to whether I’m where people think I should be and therefore am ready to be made partner the next summer. You know what I was thinking when I was told this? Sure, aside from the obvious “they said what?”. How does this play into my adopting a second child. The one thing that was made clear to me is that taking five months off did not help my situation. I’m pretty sure that doing so again next year would be the death knell of my big-firm career. I’m fairly positive right now that if I were to announce that I intend to have another child, that in and of itself might be a fairly big strike against me.
Part of me just wants to continue with my adoption (from wherever I’m adopting) and just deal with things later – closer to the time I travel. Doesn’t seem like a really smart plan, though. I know I don’t need to take 5 months off. The length of this leave was predicated on the fact that I didn’t know how long I would be in VN waiting for visa approval. I also didn’t know how long it would take me to figure out how to be a mom and to line up a nanny, etc.
I suspect that to some of you, an analysis like this of how much time I can take off and the fact that I am concerned about how adoption/leave will impact my career leads you to believe that I should not adopt another child. Sadly, though, this is the reality of being a single mom (at least for me). My career is our only source of income. Being pragmatic about things like this seems essential to me. There’s also the fact that I think it’s somewhat important that people like doing what they do for a living. I think it’s a lesson to be shared with children – not that career decisions are more important than family decisions, but that a career should be taken seriously. I spend too much time working for me to not take it seriously.
This leads me to the question I’d like to ask. How long did you take off from work (if you work outside the home) when you had a child (through birth or adoption)? If you have more than one child, did the amount of time you took off differ? If so, what factors influenced that decision? I’d really love to hear from and/all of you out there. It doesn’t matter to me whether we have similar career goals, etc. I’d just like to know what moms out there have chosen to do.
Such a hard issue – lucky that men don’t face it – there would be no children in the world. I took 3 weeks. Yes, only 3 weeks. I am still receiving criticism about it 6 years later. Only you know what the right amount of time is. Personally, my decision turned on the fact that 3 weeks was all we could afford after the expenses involved in adopting. It was difficult, but it was … and is … far more important to me to have a child on a day to day basis instead of how many individual uninterrupted days I was able to be with him when we first met.
It always sucks to find out information like that at work. I also had some bad news come to me this week sort of in the same fashion you did.
Being military, we’re only allowed 6 weeks maternity leave after we give birth. Any other time, it comes out of our own vacation time. I took an extra two weeks after my daughter was born. I wanted to take more, but I didn’t have much saved up and still wanted some to take for the holidays.
Um, are you the same girl who didn’t even want to start blogging in fear of sharing too much of herself? You’ve come a long way, baby! I like this openness.
As for the substance, don’t let the bastards keep you down. You’ll decide whether being partner is even important to you. Was it a coincidence that you chose to start your family when the biggest career decision of your life was also being made? I guess not.
When I had my 10 yo bio daughter, I took abotu 12 weeks off, unpaid. We had just bought a new house and I had just started a new job, but that was what we had planned and it worked out OK. It was probably the best leave because my MIL watched her for about 6 weeks and then my husband was off for a month before I was for a month (vacation..we are teachers) before I had to hire a sitter. With my 6yo bio son, I took closer to 16 weeks because we had begun to save earlier (I had been pg and then m/c’d), so I had more $ saved, but it was HARD when I went back since my paycheck was much less for the remainder of the school year AND I had to pay a sitter for 2 kids! With our adoption, the plan is as close to the 12 weeks as we feel we can swing it when it comes down to the time and what we have saved and spent to travel, etc. My husband is begining to get more nervous about $ lately.
Okay, this is a response to the questions you asked BUT if I may chime in…
My daughter’s Mom is a single Mom and unfortunately she doesn’t think she’ll be adopting again. I think she’s a GREAT Mom and her being a single Mom that has to provide for her whole family doesn’t take anything away from that. I would be THRILLED for her to adopt again – even though I know that for her to adopt she would have to really think about her job and what adopting again would mean.
I think that ALL people, single parents, couples, whoever should examine how adding children to their family (no matter by what means) would affect their life – careers included.
Good luck on your family AND your career!!
I don’t have a child home yet, but I have certainly been thinking about how much leave to take. Unfortunately I was downsized last year and lost all my sick time (aka mama time). My new employer forces me to accrue time off based on how many hours I work. Basically, I can’t take any time off or I lose from my maternity leave. There is no way that I will have 12 weeks saved up so I have made peace with the fact that it will come out of pocket. I will have to empty the last of my meager savings to spend that time with my son, but I think it will definitely be worth it.
You are right, as a single parent employers are less likely to advance us. Sometime this is good though. Do I really want to be involved with the big projects that require 12-16 hours days when the employer’s daycare center is only open 10 hours?
Just my 2 cents.
I found you on MommyBloggersClub (actually, you commented me first!), and I think your blog is great. Honestly.
In answer to your question, I took 8 weeks (mostly) unpaid when my son was born 6 months ago. Other than the whole not being paid thing, I was in the fortunate position of not being pressured to come back sooner. I might have taken even longer, except for the guilt… I know that life sucks for my co-anchor (I’m an evening news anchor) when I’m not there. I just couldn’t make him work twice as hard for any longer. Now I’m trying to figure out how to spend more time with my baby– never being home to put him to bed is way harder than I’d anticipated.
what type of law do you practice? you should look for an “in house” counsel job…i work in a legal department that is “in house” for a large corporation and i know from my friends there that “in house” trumps “firm” in terms of life/work balance…just a suggestion. i hope things work out the best for you and oscar!!
love, felicia in n.c.