Long Time

The male chauvinists are right. Hiring women of a child-bearing age for positions in the corporate world is not an economically sound idea. I am sad to admit this, but being one of those (recently hired) women, who now also happens to bear a child I know that it is near impossible to focus on, say, making sure that "Mortgage Loan Interests" are capitalized throughout a 200-page document. If possible, I have even less interest than normally in never-ending heated arguments about the relative benefits and disadvantages of including "Preferred Equity Securities" in the deal structure knowing that it might lead to dire tax consequences for someone or other. Of course, there is a (not so slight) chance that I am wrong to generalize and that the only difference between my current state and that of a few months ago is that then I would have been counting the raindrops on the window whereas now I am counting my baby's kicks while on a hopelessely long and boring conference call.

I have heard of women (female partners mostly) who go to the delivery room with their blackberries still attached to them, screaming if someone tries to take it away...but I have not actually met one of these bizarre creatures and I can only hope that they are just part of law firm mythology (similarly to all-night orgies involving partners and secretaries recorded on security cameras, partners whose children walk past them on the street because they don't recognize them and the like).

As for me, I my only aspiration at this point is to be able to get through the next few months without having to stay in the office for more than 14 hours at a time. To be fair, my bosses have taken the news pretty well considering that I have been here for less than a year and I asked to take six months off...They have been surprisingly nice even. Last week one of them said something slightly worrying though: "We want you to do as much work as possible - bearing in mind your condition, of course - before you leave." Ugh.