Face it fellow evening students, we have no more bargaining power with our families. A few of us were talking about this on the way to the parking lot after class last night. Your husband made a huge mess trying to clean something up? Smile, nod, and be grateful he tried because you have elected to be away from home, away from your family, and away from your right to have much of a say at all in anything anymore. Your partner is upset because you forgot to (insert any chore here)? Just apologize and do better next time! Let’s face it, for those of us who are married or partnered and have kids, we are putting a huge burden on our families. They have to pick up the majority of the slack our absence is creating. This includes cleaning the house, doing laundry, running errands, shopping, taking care of the kids and the pets, yard work….most everything that we are unable to do due to our work and school schedules. Not only do they get the brunt of the work, but they get no glory. We have the respect of our co-workers and other peers – “Oh, you’re in law school and you work? Wow! Congratulations! How do you do it?” They get dirty diapers and the dog throwing up on the floor.

Seriously, though, we are at the 4-week point and many of us seem to be riding some rough waters – both internally and externally. The honeymoon is almost over and we (families included) are getting a picture of what our lives will be like for the next four years (and the legal writing assignments have barely begun!). I sometimes wonder if I am doing the right thing. Is getting a law degree worth what I am putting my partner and my kids through? Is it really going to be worth it?

Should I have waited until the kids were older?  How the heck am I going to pay back those insane student loans? Can I become a lawyer without understanding Civ Pro? It’s hard to have to look into the eyes of my sweet son and tell him that I have to leave him to go do homework, or that I am not going to be home when he wakes up in the morning. It’s hard to hear my partner on the phone struggling with our 3-year-old who is testing every limit ever created and know I can’t be home to rescue her at 5:00. I know I’m not the only one questioning this crazy thing we are doing. Many of us are going through these struggles. I wonder if the men are experiencing it as much as the women? As women, do we have more of a sense of duty to being at home with our families? Is there still a cultural bias towards it being more OK for a man to be going to school so he can be a lawyer and take care of his family? I have no answers. Just thoughts. I love being in school. I hate that it is hard on my family. If only we didn’t need my salary to live on!