Blog #32: Lawyer Parenting

There have always been differences in the way men and women parent their children and stereotypes associated with each gender. Women lawyers and men lawyers differ in parenting and thinking as well. When it comes to parenting it ultimately comes down to what the mother and father want out of their family relations and out of their careers. Women have been stereotyped as the care taker of children and domestic chores at home. With that stereotype in mind women lawyers have many decisions to make. If a woman lawyer goes after her career while she has kids than she is deemed as an unfit mother. How can a lawyer work long hours and be good at her job and be a good mother to her young children? The common thinking is that she cannot do both. If she goes the other way and wants to reduce her hours so she can spend time with her family and do her motherly duties than there is no way she can be a good lawyer too. It is common thinking that you cannot be both a good lawyer and a good parent. This also effects whether or not woman put pictures up in their office or if they decide to not even mention their family lives.

Men are playing on an entirely different playing field. If we go back to the stereotype of women being the care provider, then the men are the financial providers. When a man in the law profession gets married and has a child, then male colleagues welcome him into the “club” and assume that no he is going to work more hours and work even harder to provide for his family. But, when this same man decides that he actually wants to have a life outside the office and be a part of his children’s childhood then he received even more criticism than the woman lawyer. He is going against all the traditional roles men are expected to have. Why would he want to be a part of his kid’s lives? That is a woman’s job. His job is to work and put food on the table. English’s (2003) study showed that there are actually a lot more men out there who do want to be family men (and even if they are not family men she found that they want to have a life outside the office). These men are not free to express their views though. Instead of saying their child is sick so they will not be making it into the office; they just say they will not be in today. No explanation offered at all and none wanted.