Chasing Superwoman (2 page)

But teaching Sunday school has its low points too. Even Devoted Mommy gets tired of cutting out crafts late on Saturday nights and waking up early on Sunday mornings to get three kids out the door. Sometimes I wake up on Sunday morning and I'm sick and I can't find a substitute, or my kids are sick and I want to stay home and take care of them, but I can't. Sometimes my class is rambunctious, and I don't have a helper and they all have to go to the bathroom at the same time, or one of the kids freaks out, or I just feel like being with my own kids instead of spreading myself so thin. Sometimes I think it's not fair to leave Abby in the nursery for another hour and I miss her and wish she could join us in Sunday school, but the few times I have brought her I have been completely unable to give the rest of the class any attention.

Sometimes the whole class is staring into space and I don't think anyone is listening to the lesson, but I still know I am planting seeds.

My Sunday school class is filled with your typical upper-middle-class children, and while most of them are from loving homes, some of them are beginning to struggle with things that no one can adequately explain. Terminal illness of a loved one. Divorce. Even death. One little boy in my class, we'll call him Charlie, lost his daddy last year. When I pulled out the picture of Jesus knocking, Charlie's eyes locked mine, and I knew that he needed to know that Jesus would always be there and would never leave him, so I looked into Charlie's eyes and said, “Once Jesus comes into your heart, He will never leave.”

The next week, Charlie's grandma stopped me after class and told me that Charlie had asked Jesus to come into his heart. I gave her a big hug and we both fought back the tears. Charlie doesn't come to class as much as he used to, and I know it's hard for his grandma to bring him on the weekends, but I still had the privilege of planting a few seeds.

I like planting seeds. It beats billable hours. Lady Lawyer can't say, “Sorry I didn't get the agreement done, but I planted a few seeds.” Or, “I know we lost the case, but I laid some groundwork for next time. Give it a few years and you'll see some results.” Her clients would fire her.

Sunday school teachers don't have to worry about getting fired. Why? Because we teach Sunday school for free. It's not like there's a long line of volunteers waiting to take over. If you pass the criminal background and reference check and like kids, you're in.

The second we start paying Sunday school teachers, I'm done. Who wants the pressure of another billable hour? Not me. Some things money can't buy. Besides, even Lady Lawyer needs to hang up her cape on the weekends.

Can Superwoman really live in two worlds? What is really behind the cape, and am I ever going to figure out my true identity? And what does it mean to live out my “God-created identity”?
1
I know there aren't easy answers, but that still doesn't stop me from asking the questions. Sometimes I wonder,
Who am I really chasing anyway?

TWO

Superwoman Has a Day Job

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.

Colossians 3:23

Nick always asks me why I work while other moms stay home. There's no simple answer. The easy answer is that I work for money. But that's not the only reason I work. This isn't the answer I gave him.

What working mother hasn't had her children ask her why she works? It's a fair question with a host of possible answers. Money, of course, is the easiest concept for kids to understand. Some of my friends tell their children, “Mommy works so that we can pay for our house,” or, “If I don't go to work today, we might not be able to go on vacation this year.” While I often resort to these easy answers, I also try to explain to Nick that God gives us all gifts and talents, and I'm simply trying to do my best at my job. I go on to explain that, while I would rather not go to work some days, I believe it is the right thing to do, even though it can be hard. Nick understands that it's important to do your best, but he also understands that a job provides money, which isn't a bad lesson in and of itself, but I never want him to think that work is only about money. Work is about so much more.

Some working mothers set out to pursue a career with determination and never even consider staying at home full time to raise children. Others don't have a road map or master plan, and while we constantly feel the tug between home and work, most days we are thankful for our jobs. Still other working mothers would rather not work at all, but we simply need the income to provide for our families. I'm a mix. While I can't imagine life without my lawyer cape, sometimes the life of Lady Lawyer is a handful to juggle with small children.

Sometimes I envy my friends who work out of their homes, like Self-Employed Stefanie, my best friend from college. Stefanie and I never missed a party or a social gathering in college, and unlike me she wanted nothing more than to start a family in her twenties and be a full-time mom. But life doesn't always turn out as planned. When her husband was without an income and they had a young child to support, she started a part-time home business that became successful (she's more driven than she likes to admit), and now she and her husband work together, out of their home, in a family business. So in between client calls she bakes casseroles, and she takes breaks during the day for carpool duty—but that just means her workday lasts longer and starts earlier than most.

There's no easy path for a working mother. In fact, Self-Employed Stefanie will tell you that working out of your home with small children can make life more complicated, not less. At least Lady Lawyer gets to sit at her desk and drink coffee without the distractions of screaming children and dirty laundry. So even though I spend more hours away from home than Self-Employed Stefanie, neither of us can claim the other has an easier day.

My best friend from law school, Sassy Shelly, also works out of her home to be with her four kids, three dogs, and five cats. I don't know how she gets any work done, but she never studied in law school and always seemed to get by just fine. Unlike most of my classmates, she wasn't uptight or intimidated. While everyone else was fighting over the library carrels and the study guides, Sassy Shelly and I shunned the library and regularly met at the coffee shop to study. Instead of studying, however, we always ended up debating religion or politics. Sassy Shelly would always take the opposite position of mine, and she would argue that religion was for the illiterate masses, uneducated, and weak. The great thing about Sassy Shelly is she has an opinion about everything, and she knows something about everything, which makes her one of the best conversationalists on the planet. Studying could wait. World problems needed to first be solved, and I cherished those times together, even if we never got any studying done.

Now that Shelly is married with four young children, we don't hang out in coffee shops and debate politics nearly enough. She's one tough lawyer, and like me, she's trying to juggle it all. So when I call her from work and hear her kids and the dogs in the background, I'm reminded that the peace and quiet of my office isn't so bad after all. She and Self-Employed Stefanie remind me to be careful what I wish for when I complain about spending too much time at the office.

Sassy Shelly and I always complain that we don't have jobs that actually help people. Why didn't we become nurses who save lives, or teachers who impact the lives of sweet little children? Instead, Shelly is busy helping her company ship more jobs overseas, and I'm busy working at one of the largest and most prestigious law firms in the world. We represent business. Big business. Sometimes I wonder how that fits into my faith or into motherhood.

My Lawyer Cape

When I started practicing law, my other college roommate, Built Becky—an Olympic cyclist who looks more like a body builder—framed a verse for me that I still hang in my office: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.”
1
I'll confess, I haven't looked at that verse in a while, and I hardly see myself working for God these days. What, if anything, about my workday is spiritual? Can I seriously claim that I'm working for the Lord? My clients call me when they get sued, get in legal trouble, or want to fire someone. No one calls me up to say, “Hey, I was hoping you could help me do some work for God today.”

Instead, Lady Lawyer has become an expert at firing people. I wonder sometimes, did Jesus ever fire anyone? If so, He certainly didn't make money off of the deal. I also can't find any evidence that He billed by the hour.

Lady Lawyer also has to skip the Bible passages that say “blessed are the peacemakers.” She's always in the middle of a fight. The better advocate I am, the better result for my client. If clients wanted to throw the towel in and make peace, they wouldn't hire me in the first place. And if you think I'm tough you should see Sassy Shelly or Jock Jill in action. Jock Jill—my best friend at the firm and one of the toughest lawyers you will ever meet—can take down a room of lawyers with one swing, and Sassy Shelly can outwit (and outtalk) even the best of the best with her silver tongue. It's nothing personal. Just business.

I was having lunch with my friend Bleeding-Heart Brian and our pastor, Eric. Bleeding-Heart Brian is another friend from law school (he was in the group that was in the library carrels while Sassy Shelly and I were at the coffee shop), and he was trying to explain the daily battles and utter spiritual void in the practice of law.

“You enter a battle every day. It's like jumping from an airplane into enemy territory without backup. You have to have all of your gear, and you can't let your guard down for a second. You are trying to be as much of a jerk as you can, because your client expects it and you are trying to get the best deal possible for your client. The attorney on the other side is trying to do the exact same thing. It's all-out war. There's no room to turn the other cheek or play nice guy. The biggest jerk usually wins.”

It's hard for me to refute Bleeding-Heart Brian's rendition of the legal world these days, although not all lawyers fit this stereotype. I've encountered several types of lawyers. Lazy Lawyer. Snake Lawyer. Liar Lawyer. Smart Lawyer. Workaholic Lawyer. Ethical Lawyer. Jerk Lawyer. Most lawyers are some combination.

My least favorite lawyer to deal with on the other side of the table is the Lazy-Snake Combo. He makes my life miserable on a daily basis because I'm always doing his work for him, and he's always misrepresenting the truth and picking a fight, which means I have to work twice as hard and charge my client twice as much to document every conversation and respond to lots of nasty letters. I've gotten good at responding to nasty letters. I just make sure I lace them with lots of kind words, including “Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation.” Contrary to public opinion, smart, hard-working lawyers usually don't have to be jerks.

We pride ourselves at the firm in having the highest ethics and in outworking and outsmarting the other side. Like anyone in a new job, I remember feeling unprepared and even insecure as a summer intern. I had met my match. The good news? It humbled me, which was long overdue. And it gave me a passion for excellence and a work ethic that I never would have developed on my own. I'm blessed to work with people who are smarter than I, which usually makes me look good to my clients.

The bad news? Making partner was like climbing Mount Everest. I look at the young lawyers at the bottom of the climb and I don't envy them.

The road to partnership was like being on a treadmill that keeps getting faster and faster. Even though Devoted Mommy was in the midst of bearing children, I didn't have time to second-guess myself. Instead, I kept my lawyer cape on and convinced myself, “Just run one more mile.” I'd finish the mile and Lady Lawyer would say, “Just run two more miles, then it will be over.” Some people just quit. But how could I quit when I'd come all that way? If I stopped, I'd lose my spot in the race and have to start over. So I kept running, even though Devoted Mommy was exasperated.

Even if you've never been on the partnership track at a large law firm, you can probably relate to applying for a new position, reaching for a promotion, or even getting your degree or job training while you're trying to simultaneously raise a family and be the best mother you can. Something has to give, but the Superwoman within defies reason and your adrenaline just keeps going and going. I'd put the average working mom up against the Energizer Bunny any day. Who needs batteries? Something inside of us won't give up, because the thought of starting over is all the more exhausting. So while some days we want to throw in the towel and wrap ourselves in our mommy capes and take a long nap in a fetal position, instead we keep pressing on.

Saying No

Like me, most working mothers can't say the word
no
. Our brain is thinking,
I just can't take on one more thing
, but our mouths just won't cooperate, especially at work. As much as we try, we just can't seem to articulate that necessary but difficult two-letter word. Why are we asked to keep taking on more responsibility? It's easy to understand. We're running on lethal doses of adrenaline and so good at multitasking that everyone just assumes we can take on more. And more. Sassy Shelly kept hoping she'd get fired during the days her company was still giving good severance packages, but she just kept getting more responsibility. Finally, she decided she was going to
try to get fired.
She delegated, refused new work, and even refused to travel after she had her twins. But everyone knew she was an expert multitasker and highly competent, and as much as she tried she just couldn't fake ineptitude. So she continued to work, although she passed up a few promotions along the way. Her boss actually accused her of getting pregnant with twins just to avoid working on the biggest deal of the year. Why is it that employers too often take shots at working mothers when they know we are vulnerable—like when we're pregnant? Sassy Shelly has thick skin, and she fired back at her boss with some choice words of her own.

Like Sassy Shelly, I'm always asked to take on more responsibilities at work. Shelly keeps telling me I just need to start screwing things up on purpose, then I won't get any more responsibility. “Oh, I'm sorry. I thought the deadline was next Monday, not this Monday.” Or, “What I meant to say is that I'm totally unreachable tomorrow. I know we had a meeting scheduled, but I've decided to take the day off.”

I just don't have the guts. In this economy most of us can't afford to lose our jobs, and even Sassy Shelly isn't trying to get fired anymore. Besides, I actually like being Lady Lawyer, and I'm always preaching to Nick about doing your best.

Not being able to say no at work always gets me in trouble at home. The other weekend, I had a business trip unexpectedly cancelled on a Friday. When I announced to the family that I was staying in town, Doug and the kids immediately planned a weekend camping trip. It was one of those perfect windows of opportunity, which are few and far between. The surest way to have a chaotic week at work? Just plan some quality time with your family. If we had planned the camping trip in advance, my workload would have tripled, and the trip would have been cancelled. Sometimes unexpected windows are the best I can hope for, and I have to be prepared to make my escape on short notice. The plan? I would slip out of the office before lunch, put on my mommy cape and never look back until Monday morning. Then I remembered—I had an important 3:00 p.m. conference call. How could I possibly leave the office early?

Did I cancel the call? Of course not. I had already said yes. What was I going to say? That Lady Lawyer had gone camping for the weekend? Most of my clients don't know that I'm into camping, and I'd like to keep it that way. It would ruin my image. “No” was out of the question.

So, did I tell my family that I couldn't leave the office early? Of course not. How could I say no to my children who had barely seen me all week? They were so excited to go camping, and they didn't want to wait. This is where technology enters the picture. For working mothers, technology is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing, of course, is that we can be two places at once, allowing Devoted Mommy and Lady Lawyer to coexist. The curse? It just enables us to keep saying yes when we really need to draw some boundaries. Instead, technology helps me push the envelope.