Today we share a presentation from a panel of experts including Alycia Kinchloe, Marisa Portuondo, Ryan McKeen, and Amany Hacking on Parenting from MaxLawCon 2019.
Watch the presentation here.
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Transcript: “Parenting Panel” at MaxLawCon 2019
Speaker 1
Run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson metrics. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.
Becca Eberhart
In today’s episode, we’re throwing it back to max law con 2019. We’re sharing a presentation of a parenting panel with Alicia Kinslow Marissa Fortunato Ryan McKean and Amani regard packing. Let’s get to it.
Speaker 3
We’re gonna be talking today about something that a few crazy people have decided to do, which is run a law practice while raising children. So I’m going to let all my guests introduce themselves. Starting with Marisa
Speaker 4
muddy support Donna, I have a solo practice. I have one assistant. We do have business and construction is about half of our practice. And we do first party, residential and business property damage as the other half I have an amazing husband and a three year old little terror.
Ryan
I’m Ryan McKean. I have two children. I have my daughter Italia who’s going to be nine. My son Luke, who’s going to be six. I’ve got a German Shepherd who’s about 18 months old and an old old mud that we rescued who’s older than dirt, I think. And I’m here with my wife, Alison, we practice together Alison, in my firm, really, we talked about finances before Allison became the CFO of my law firm. And Allison reminded wanted to want to have me remind you, she said You forgot something. She said we paid off all the credit card debt. So that’s that’s how that story ends. And now Allison is in charge of the firm finance, so there’s no more surprised credit card bills.
Speaker 6
Hi, everyone. I’m Imani. Regarding hacking, you might know my husband. I don’t know if you guys met him, Jim? No. Okay. So we have four children, we have a 17 year old. They’re running around yesterday, 1715 13 and 10. And I think, let’s see, I’ve been a lawyer for a little over 20 years, and I’ve been a mom at 18 years. So a lot of overlap there. And I think we’ll talk a little bit about that today. And when you know enough about our practice, but I’ll weave it in and out.
Speaker 3
Absolutely. So again, my name is Alicia, I’m married. I have three boys. They are 1411 and five. And they’re actually still in school right now. I know some schools are out, but they in school next week. And so being here, I missed a few things this week. And so I want to start off by talking about what we normally call mommy guilt. But Ryan, you probably experienced it as well. So my fire first of all, I have the best mother in law. She’s amazing. And when it comes to Grandma, I’m kinda like, second fiddle. And my mother in law does like the pickups and drop offs and all those things. But the day before I left, my firewall said, Mommy, I want you to pick me up from school tomorrow. And I’m like, now and this is one day that he asked me that he cares that mommy’s there and mommy can’t do it. And he also has a field trip to a big playground in Philly. And Mommy, I want you to come to the filter with me, again, can’t do it. I have to tell my baby No. And so that’s something that I know that you all probably experience and not just because you’re coming to a conference, but because of the things that you have to do at work. So let’s talk a little bit about mommy guilt, or daddy guilt. I’m gonna start off Marissa, tell us any of your experiences with that.
Speaker 4
Yeah, I have a lot of experiences with that. So as a solo, I have a lot of late nights. I have far too many nights that I come home, my son is asleep. Go in there. And I give him a kiss. He has no idea. But one of the most difficult times I was working late a lot. And I came home around 730, which was early for that time period. And he was in his PJs and his you know, hair was still wet from the shower and my husband was getting ready for bed and I walked in the door and he said, Mommy, what are you doing here? And it was like, I just it was like it was a gut punch. And that was a day I said I can’t do this anymore. I need help. I need to find someone, I need to start delegating more. And it was really they will keep you in check. Because they do not hold back and they let you know,
Ryan
I think my dad guilt doesn’t come from being there. I make it a priority every single morning to drop my kids off at the bus stop. I make it a priority to be home for dinner. I make it a priority to be at their T ball games or schedule. You know, their their concerts, my daughter had her school concert. So that’s been part of thanks to my team, my firm and partly thanks to my practice my role in the practice. And that’s been intentional, but that’s not where the guilt comes. The guilt comes from me and really and being present in that time because I always feel like I’m being pulled in a number of different ways. And just to give you an example last Saturday I was coaching T balls. Great time and in between innings. It just takes forever to wrangle up the kids. You know, I was out there messaging client on the T ball diamond on a Saturday morning. And I learned last night my, my daughter said, who’s on the sidelines? My son plays? You know, Daddy, do you think would you say is? Are you embarrassed about Daddy out there on the T ball field, trying to try to move, trying to move some business? I think that’s where a lot of that guilt comes in for me. And it’s it’s a hard it’s a hard it’s a really hard thing for me that I struggle with.
Speaker 6
I mean, yeah, we could talk for hours about this. I mean, for me, I’ve tried, I think my kids only really know, Gemini as working and as lawyers. So I try to make it not a competition, right? Like some days, mommy’s more lawyering. Some days, mommy’s more mommying. You know, it just depends on the days and the weeks. And so if there’s a field trip, okay, Mom’s gonna work on Saturday, because she’s here with you on Friday. So it’s almost like a negotiation. I try and do it ahead of time and get some buy in. Like, okay, so you want mom to come on Thursday, then I have to work late on Wednesday. And they’re asking permission, I want to be clear, I am the boss a mouse. But I do I don’t want we all think Jim knows that. But the key, the key, the key, I think is to get the buy in, right, as opposed to after the fact Oh, you know, I gotta run to the office now. And well, you didn’t tell me kids, the older they get, the more they argue and negotiate. And well, you didn’t say this. I don’t actually have to tell you everything I do. I’m I’m the boss. Remember that. But it’s easier, I think if you kind of give him a heads up. And so I’ve learned and that has mitigated some of our guilt, I think more of the planning. And so we’re going to do this. This is how this week is gonna go. And I guess we’ll talk into tips later. But yeah, the guilt is definitely always there. In working parents, anytime you have any competition, right? The kids believe that they’re the center of the world and, and for much of our time with them that that’s what we want them to believe. However, the reality is, there’s a lot of competition, right? The emails, the texts, the constant attention and questioning from clients and employees and other children. That’s another problem. We have more than one child. The other ones is what about me? What about this? So I think the more you can sort of lay the groundwork and expectations the more they understand, oh, yeah, Mom told me she had to work that day. And so I think that that’s maybe less guilt.
Speaker 3
Let’s talk a little bit about choosing between doing things maybe at your kids school, and doing things for work or at home. So for me, I was one year I was crazy and decided to like be all my kids go to different schools, which is awesome. And I was heavily involved in the PTA and a liaison group between the school board and the PTA Association. And I also decided to be an assistant coach for soccer because I’m a glutton for punishment. But it was a lot, but I was very involved. But I noticed that my kids were feeling like I wasn’t there enough. But I felt like I was doing a lot. And then at the same time, I was there with mothers who didn’t work at all, and had a lot of time to be able to donate. So I’ve kind of felt the pull. So not even just in really from home. But hourly as well about what I’m what I should be doing, what my priorities should be. How do you deal with choosing between being involved at school and with your kids there versus being at home? How do you make those types of decisions? Anyone who wants to say, oh, go ahead.
Speaker 4
I grew up in a very small town. We never had parents in our schools. It was just not a thing. I think this is like this Pinterest era be the perfect parent, you know, spend a million dollars on a party for a one year old. It’s just it’s gotten so out of control. And I told my husband, we had a big talk about it when I was pregnant, and I said I’m not my name. Pardon my French. I said I’m not buying into that bullshit. You know, I think as women we do it to each other. We kind of you know, oh, we got to one up each other. We got to keep up with the Joneses. She had this party she made these crafts for the classroom. I just don’t care about that stuff. To be completely honest. That is one type of girl I just don’t buy into it. These women want to compete sometimes when men get involved in it and they want to be the best room mom be the best room Mom, that’s really just not. I’m there for my kid. I’m not there to be the best for a mom. That’s that’s just the way I look at it.
Speaker 3
And what about you? Amani because your children a little bit older. So you probably had an experience where you’re seeing some of what I’m talking about?
Speaker 6
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I think the guilt from the get kids is one thing. Guilt from other parents and moms is another thing. So because I have four kids, I think I have the luxury of saying I have four kids. So I did that. You know, I was PTO president. I did that 10 years ago. I don’t know where have you been? But I’m done. Now I did that. So Jim and I kind of made choices. Like we ran the school trivia night, which is the big fundraiser. We pick that, right. It was a controlled environment. It was a lot of time and a lot of effort and he was fantastic. And we had a really nice committee but that’s what We chose and so by doing that, then I think we were able to let go of the 50. Other because there’s so many things, and you can’t do everything, and you certainly can’t do everything well. So I think if you’re proactive and say, This is my contribution, I’m gonna write a big fat check. Right? So I’m gonna write that big fat check. I’m sorry, I’m really busy my practice right now. But next year, I’m going to join this committee, right? I think if you’re proactive, and you have a plan, and you show that you’re committed, and you pick something, I think people respect that. And then they kind of leave you alone with the trivia night, I don’t think they bothered us with anything. They were just grateful. And it was a huge responsibility, right, and we enjoyed it. But that was our contribution. Right. And so I do think you have to pick something, I think kids want to see that. But I don’t think you have to do everything. And you have to coach every game, I don’t think you have to be the room mom, for every kid for every classroom. But you know, as long as they see that you’re present and contributing, and the parents know that you’re there as needed, or for this particular events, they’ll go on to the next person.
Speaker 3
Absolutely. And for me, it definitely wasn’t experience doing all that what I did, what I did like was that I was able to really see what was going on in the school district, I was able to kind of really have a handle on what was going on. But it was a lot, it was a lot to be able to do. And there are some mean moms out there. There’s a real thing. It’s a little scary. You just
Speaker 6
remind me of something. There was one thing I did in junior high. And I thought oh, this is great. I’ll I’ll be in the school, I’ll see the kids. And it was really inconvenient for me, I should not have done this. But it was I thought it’d be a nice idea. And I volunteered in the library like one day a week and I help with the books and I love libraries, it’s on a gray and I was idyllic I thought the kids would come visit me not one time, not one child, not one time, the entire year, I did not do that again, that every That was lovely. And I contributed I volunteered. But it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. And that probably wasn’t the best use of my time, if that’s what I wanted. It depends what I was trying to achieve, and how it was gonna help the school and see the kids that wasn’t it. So you got to find what makes sense for you and what you’re gonna get the most out of and how you can give the most back.
Speaker 3
So having children who are different ages, let’s talk about what parenting looks like as your children get older. So any Amani, do you want to take that?
Speaker 6
Okay, how many of you have teenage children, please raise your hand. And you’re still here to tell the story. See, and there’s so many stories to tell. So I’m not gonna lie three year old is hard. Three year olds who they will wear you out, they will argue with you, they will chase you down, they will lay on the ground. I mean, there’s so many things that they do, they have so many tools at their disposal. And you’re and you’re in the grocery store, you’re totally embarrassed, whatever you’ve whipped up, or you whatever you want to speak quiet. You know, the teenagers? You know, I’ve chased my kids up the stairs, you know, I mean, it’s like, you don’t talk to me that way. Why are you talking to me like that? How could you do that? So it’s a different kind of parenting. And I’m afraid I wasn’t totally prepared for that. I’m trying to read some books and get some Zen about this. It’s their little people. And they want control over their little world. And they don’t make particularly good decisions. And so that’s very hard for me to learn a three year old, eventually I will win, right? Eventually I would be my son the other day, I think I told you this on the phone, my son said something to me like, well, you can sign me up, but you can’t make me go. That how I can make you is I sure as hell can make you go Give me that phone, give me that car, you give me everything you have, then you can decide if you want to go. I mean, but how sad that I have to do that. Right? And so I’m sitting here, like, I don’t want to parent like that. But sometimes you have to it depends. So for me, it’s the struggle of how much do I just sort of let them make a stupid decision that I’m watching. I’m watching this stupid decision being made. And it’s a learning opportunity. And, and so watching that versus just going in and fixing it and making the right decision. I struggle with that with my clients. I struggle with that with my kids. And if I meet you in the hallway, I may struggle with you as well. Okay, it’s hard for me to watch people do something, I think, oh, maybe that’s not the best thing. And that’s what you have to do as they get older. Is that how old are you?
Ryan
My kids are my kids are six and nine, which is, you know, I think for for us, it’s like, you know, infants and young children are training in one way like terms, like you’re changing diapers and they’re crying and they’re teething. And it’s just, it’s just a it’s just a mess. I mean, like if I had to have another child be like, hand me at least a five year old, like, like, that’s the minimum cutoff age for a child. For me, so we’re done. We’re done with children. But I think I think that as my kids have gotten older, it’s become so much more involved. Our kids lives are ridiculously busy. I mean, sometimes my wife and I will just be like, Oh, practice is canceled. Because it’s like we are we as a family are like so exhausted. That it’s like we need to we need to call a timeout in our life in our children’s lives. And especially this time of year. It’s just like we our kids are still in school. So it’s field days and end of the year kind inserts and baseball end of the year baseball parties and end of the year Girl Scouts and everything. And it’s this children’s party, that children’s party. And then and then the kicker of it is when they’re when they’re young. I mean, my wife and I used to have like, it used to be nice, they go to bed at like seven o’clock. And it’s like, oh, wow, we’ve got like, two hours, three hours to be adults to talk, you know, just to be to be to be present together. Now, it’s like my daughter’s, like, coming downstairs at like 10 o’clock at night is go, sleep, like get back up there and go to sleep. So I think that they become, I think, at least in my in my life, they’ve they’ve, they become in a lot of ways easier, in a lot of ways, a lot more exhausting.
Speaker 3
And Marissa, so you already hit on a three year old thing. The one thing I really wish people told me when I had children was that is not really the terrible twos is the terrible, and then I’m gonna save that T that alliteration for three because they really are crazy at three. But then there’s another age that you hit on, I think that you don’t realize as difficult which is third grade, like that age group is really kind of hard. At that point, your kids are learning to be a little bit more independent at school, they’re not coming in coming home and telling you everything, they have to kind of take on a lot of that stuff themselves. But you still have to check in how do you do that? Like, how do you have any tools that you use at home to kind of know what’s going on with your kids at school, but also give them some independence? I know, the three year old may not need that. Yeah, Marissa,
Unknown Speaker
or he thinks he does. But
Ryan
I mean, I guess I mean, in our firm, we sort of have, we sort of have buckets of we call them buckets. And let’s just like okay, intake, this is your bucket attorney, this is your bucket paralegal. This is your bucket. And in our house, we have buckets as well, though we don’t have a Wikipedia page for our house or anything. But honestly, most of that burden falls on to my wonderful wife, Allison, who is, you know, can’t work constantly coordinating? What’s this? When’s that scheduling? And she she manages, manages that for our kids. And I mean, I’m just really grateful for that. And I’m really grateful for the childhood that she’s able to give them through through her involvement. But it’s probably probably because I’m a guy that’s, that’s off my plate.
Speaker 6
I think that’s probably true. I think I spend probably an obsessive amount of time coordinating schedules and times and dates and events and where people need to be where, because it’s a little bit of a puzzle, right. And sometimes your spouse is super busy with other things. But you still have children, children have to eat children have to go, you know, to places and you know, so you have to communication, I think is the most important thing. So for me, it’s making sure I have a shared schedule, right, definitely show schedule. But also make sure you talk about, hey, this weekend looks kind of busy, who’s going to take so and so to this game? And who’s going to you know, who’s taking who were, what your contribution this weekend is right, right? Who’s doing what. So I think that’s huge. And making sure that there’s no resentment, right, that you’re not like, Well, you didn’t do anything I did all I did wrong. And where have you been, you know, that comes out. But again, if you don’t have good communication skills, and a good division of labor, at least as fair as possible, that both people feel that it’s equitable, and that you respect their time and and what they’re doing, then you’re just gonna have resentment, they’re gonna have angry kids and unhappy kids and fighting kids and fighting adults. Right. So then that makes things even more complicated. So the hope and the idea is each week, you kind of look at the schedule, you look at the work schedule, you look at the family schedule. And you know, if Jim’s got trial of Jim’s gonna be out of town, I kind of coordinate and schedule things to make sure I get the support I need. And if it’s the other way around, if I’m traveling for a case, or if I’m traveling with one of my kids, because I’m, you know, going to a soccer tournament or whatever, making sure that they’re supported home to do that. So, of course, this is ideal, right? So sometimes you look up and you’re like, oh, we have four baseball games, right? Now, how did that happen? Right? So it gets a little stressful if you’re not paying attention. So it I think it pays out dividends, if you can look at it ahead of time and kind of distribute who’s gonna do what, where, and God forbid, if it’s canceled, or, you know, hey, that’s just the way it happened. Sorry, you know, so you try and be as fair as you can to everybody. And sometimes you gotta miss something. And that’s just part of the deal. But that’s the hardest part. And I think we as parents don’t want to disappoint our kids. But I think life is full of disappointments. And I have to I struggle with that, right? Trying to make everybody happy and get everybody where they need to go, Well, you know what, I’m tired. I’m not taking you today. I am dead tired. It’s not gonna work. So I have to just remember that there are days that that’s okay. But the guilt and the societal pressure of all you know, and being the working parent as well, you don’t want your kid to not be there because you are working somehow that that there’s shame and guilt on top of that. So trying to mitigate all of that, but also keeping perspective. You know, it’s one thing He, we’ve had hundreds 1000s of games, you know, but to them, it’s everything. And if you think back to our parents, I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t think my parents ever want anything. I don’t think my parents set foot or my so not that this is the standard, right. But I mean, that’s something to think about that, you know, we’ve gone from a generation where I think parents were far more removed, and kids who are a lot more independent, too. We are on top of them, you know, with every assignment and every game and every issue at school, you know, and I think we as parents maybe have to remove ourselves a little bit from that.
Becca Eberhart
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Speaker 3
you touched on something that I really want to talk a little bit more about, which is a division of labor within the household. And even when men step up, my husband is awesome. He cooks dinner, like every night. And that’s just worked out. But it was after I had a meltdown. Like it wasn’t. And he he’s been cooking the entire time. But it was just like, I just like lost my shit, like one day, because I was coming home and I’m checking homework for three kids. And then I’m cooking dinner. And it was just he was just oblivious. And a great guy was just kind of oblivious to it. And then that was something like now that he steps up. And he does like six days out the week he’s cooking the dinner. But what also happens to was that even when we do divide the labor, right, we say you’re gonna do the dishes, I’ll do this or, you know, you make choices, women still tend to carry the mental load of everything. Talk to me about how you deal with that. How do you not go crazy? So the all of us are married, right? Unfortunately, I’ll have any, I think another interesting perspective would have been to have a person who’s single here who’s doing this, because that would be even a greater deal. But for all of us who are married, how do you deal with that like carrying the mental load of making sure that things get done?
Speaker 4
Honestly, I am a Systems person like Ryan, and I started assigning things. My husband, it was the only way things ever worked out. So I started tagging him in my calendar, I set up his calendar, so he got reminders. Every time I knew I wasn’t going to be home unexpectedly, I invited him to that event. So he gets notified way in advance that he’s going to be on his own. I actually created Asana projects, even though I use it for my firm. I also use it for home for going on a trip I we sit down together and we start Okay, what do we got to do before we go on this trip, and then we assign it to each other and I can literally see him completing the list. Sometimes when I’m at work, I’ll check in Oh, my God, you got six things off the list when I came home. Yeah, it really does work out. I nag him through Alexa the best. She reminds him like it’s time to take out the trash because there’s recycling tomorrow. And it’s just it’s eliminated. So many of the arguments that we had in our marriage. So it’s not just for work. I mean, these systems. At the end of the day, your marriage is it’s a project, you know, and it’s it’s it’s a partnership, and you have to treat it, I think you can use technology to really avoid so many of the arguments. It’s really worked out really well for us and him knowing what is expected of him and me knowing what is expected of me, I think is the big one because like you said, you know, there’s just so many assumptions being made about who’s going to pick something up and it always seems to fall on the woman and you know, even my child’s school, they all know I’m the attorney, they all know I work late, but who gets the notes at home even though my husband picks up my son, the note still says mommy Jake needs XYZ. Mommy, this is happening. And it drives me bananas. I don’t say anything because I’m not going to make waves at my kids school. But you know, they call me by my husband’s last name. And it’s still very much not an equal thing. I think when it comes to parenting so you got to do what you can I think to change that.
Ryan
Yeah, I think I mean, I think divisions of labor are fantastic. I mean, I have different jobs in the house like mowing the lawn taking out the trash. I try as much as possible to do dishes and to clean to fold laundry to do laundry to do to do all these as much as I can. But I also think it’s so important. I I had a friend who told me right before we had children, he’s like, look, sometimes you have to leave the dishes in the sink. And sometimes that laundry is going to sit in the laundry basket. I think I swear to you, I think we bought about three laundry baskets this year that I don’t know if our clothes know, some of the times where drawers are. But that’s, that’s something that, you know, in my practice, I’m very, very precise. My office is very clean everything. And it’s something that at home of with, like, I’ve had to come to the conclusion like it’s okay to let go of that, you know, we have a house cleaner, the house cleaner comes once a week, because once every other week, that was not enough. And so to the degree where you talk about, you know, you know that Sandy had spoken about about outsourcing and doing these different things, I think, I think home is good for that I for years had the one mode, and then I got fat. So I look at it as exercise and it’s pretty damn meditative. Because I’m awfully president, I don’t have any headphones on. I’m not listening to any business books. It’s just me quietly working through whatever I’m working through. And I’m getting some exercise. But yeah, I think sometimes it’s okay to just say it’s okay, the lawns a little long.
Speaker 6
So yeah, this is where I’m letting go. I was talking about earlier letting go, this is hard for me to let go to. So there are six people my house lots of shoes, okay, people have more than one pair of shoes. For some reason. There we have a giant shoe bin, it’s actually a bench, okay. And when my kids come home, and my husband is included, they leave all their shoes right next to the bed. They don’t put it in the bench. I don’t know why I cannot figure this out. How hard could it be? I think I’m gonna put a sign up. Please put your shoes in the little bench. I don’t understand. So you know, each night, I get a little resentful. I asked you to put your shoes in that mirror, I’m running around the house, where are your shoes, I told and then they can’t find your shoes because they’re in the bench. So you know, some of this is training, right? Trying not deal and chasing your children in teaching them. This is what we do. Because it’s calmer. It’s nicer. I don’t want to trip over your shoes and die as I’m coming into the house. Lots of little things. So I have to pick pick and choose, right? That one I will not I want I want the shoes in the freaking bed. Okay, other things, you know, school paper, there’s so many school papers, there’s so many things. There’s so many things to keep track of, and I’m an orderly person, I like order. I like rules. I’m kind of linear. And it just makes sense. If you do this, then the house will be cleaner and everything will be better. But you have to teach it and you have to practice it. And you have to tell them why. And so and and you have to let go of stuff, you know. So I like a clean house. I like things clean and organized. But I don’t have as much time to do that. And so Jim, one day I’ll never forget this early on our marriage. He said, Well, maybe we should get someone to help clean houses. What’s wrong with the house telling me the house isn’t clean? So this turned into like, oh, I call my mom, I think He’s insulting me saying that isn’t clean. He’s not helping. How could this be? My mom’s like, money are you. She said, Just get the house cleaner. Okay, Mom, that’s a great idea. And it helps a lot. It really helped. But at first I thought I was supposed to do everything. And I was supposed to do that well, and I wasn’t supposed to take help. I wasn’t, you know, good at taking criticism and the whole thing just snowballed a little bit. And then when I looked back, I thought he really didn’t want to do it. And he didn’t want to ask me to do it. And I thought I was doing it. But at the end of the day, it gave us both more time, it gave us more, a little bit more time a little bit more freedom to do other things. And so I had again, letting go of I can’t do everything and be a happy person, you know, be a happy person might be happy mommy will be an angry mom, angry lawyers and fun. So you know, how do you do that? So I think you know systems and asking for help knowing when you need the help what you need the help with? Is it the laundry? Is it the shoes? Is it the dish? You know, what is it that you want to do if you like doing the grass, great, if you don’t like doing the grass, get somebody to do the grass, you know, and if you have kids involved them too. So now we have a chore list. That’s, you know, hard to keep up. But we try. You’re in charge of this this week, you’re in charge that you know, and so we try to get everybody sort of on board. And then the older they get, I think that’s what’s even more interesting and more important that they can see us as a team. We all have to make this work, right. We’re the parents, but we have a lot of responsibility. And you can help with that responsibility. And so everyone play, play your part and play your role. So we can have, you know, a nicer life and a nicer family time. So if I
Speaker 4
could just add on to that I think we underestimate how much our children can do. And if you ever print up there’s a like a suggested chore chart by age and you see what they tell you that like a two year old can do. And only a two year old can do that. But try them. And I know it takes time. It does. It does. And that’s the thing. And I had a co counsel who was a mom, she had twins when I was pregnant. She really lectured me about this. And she said, I’m going to tell you my secret. I really took the time to teach my children. She has a boy and a girl twins. And she said and I hope no one gets offended when I say this but she said I never want my son to be a burden on his spouse. And she said I am going to teach both of my children how to be self serving Shouldn’t and she said and it makes me cringe to watch them fold their clothes because they’re so bad at it and it takes them so long. And I just want to rip the clothes out of their hands and do it. But now they know how to fold their clothes. And now they know how to make their beds. And now they know how to keep their house, you know, their rooms clean. And if you train them from the moment, they’re young, I mean, I just want to pick up my kids toys and get on with my day. But even if it means that we’re late to school, sometimes I make him do it. And I’m not gonna say I’m 100% of the time because you know, sometimes you just lose your patience. But I really think it’s like building a system, you got to put the time in in the beginning, and then it just kind of creates itself. And it continues on and it really, I think it really makes a difference we take on too much as moms. And you know, it starts with the kids.
Speaker 3
So running a practice a lot of those things that Tyson mentioned earlier, those things that are kind of like popping up in our head those failures that we feel like we’ve had a bad day at work upset client or client fires you are sometimes those things that we take home with us. How do you deal with that, like not taking home your work, to the extent that it will interfere with your relationships at home?
Ryan
I think I’ve gotten to a point through meditation and therapy, that I am pretty Zen of like, okay, I like like the Univer everything is as it should be like this client is not for me, this case got lost, like whatever, whatever that is, and I don’t think it I don’t think it affects me what really does affect me is I mean, like my team, you know, they call me Hamilton because they say like the man is nonstop. Like I like I could be here forever talking about law practice with you going back and implementing ways to do it. Like I don’t turn off and and I think that that’s really my bigger problem. And it’s it’s one that you know, I really do struggle with, you know,
Speaker 6
so in our work we do immigration work in some of our cases I’m I have a bunch of asylum cases right now. And these cases are heart wrenching. You know, the stories that this one I one case, in particular, this young woman, and it just about torn me up, I I tried not to cry in the room with the client, I excused myself, but man, these are hard cases. And when you lay a bed in bed at night, I think about this woman, right? I mean, I think about these cases, and you know, if I don’t win what’s going to happen, right? And so I do carry it with me I do. And what we what we’ve been doing at the dinner table is talking kind of generically about, Hey, how was your day to day at work? What kind of cases are you working on? So I’ll talk about asylum cases, you know that there’s some danger for this person. And this is why, but at the end of the day, I try and focus on what I can do and how I can help this person as opposed to what bad things will happen if I don’t win. Because if I do that, I can’t, I can’t I can’t go to bed, right. And then the fact that once you trusted me with that story, and that I’m able to take that story and tell her story in a way that hopefully is convincing, and she can prevail. But I do some of these stories keep me up at night because they’re so emotional. And they’re so you know, intimate. So and I like what I do is I try to show the kids, this is what mom’s doing, right. So this is this is an important part of my day, this important part of my practice is part of why I go to work every day. And so, so that way, they can see the value in that. So I try and turn it into, I love my job. I love that I’m able to help this person. But there are days are going to be harder for me, right? If I If I lose, or if it didn’t go the way I wanted. Or something happened in the case, yes, I’m going to have hard days. But at the end of it, hopefully I’ve done my best. And I’ve done the best with what that client has given me. So I tried to put a little twist on it.
Speaker 3
Work life balance isn’t for you. Marissa, is there such a thing? And if there is how have you found it?
Speaker 4
Yeah, a lot of people say it’s a myth, you know, you’re never gonna have it. You know, circling back a little bit to bringing work home I’m like you Amani, I can’t let go of my cases. And, you know, mentally my husband’s snoring next to me, and I’m just trying to resolve something in my head because I do get emotionally involved. Even though I have business clients and construction clients. These aren’t life. I mean, they can be life changing, but not to the extent that obviously, you know, being denied citizenship or something like that would be so I try to really get out of my head. I will say what has been life changing for me and I was really nervous about it is I have 100% rule that at 6pm my emails stopped syncing to my phone, and they don’t turn on again until 8am. And I was really nervous about doing that. And I thought I was gonna get a lot of pushback from clients and I thought I was gonna, you know, had FOMO business FOMO and it’s been over a year I have had zero, anything bad happen. I have not had you know, I’m not a PII attorney. I’m not a criminal attorney. No one needs a construction attorney at two in the morning. That’s your client being you know, anxious and writing to you. So I think you have to find a way to be present in everything you’re doing and that has to involve putting the phone away, put it on your nightstand, put it on the charger, be with your spouse, be with your children. You’re never going to be 100% everything but you can be present for what it is that you’re doing, and I think that is the best that we can do as parents and as business owners,
Ryan
I think for me to the degree that anything’s ever worked, it’s really owning your schedule, like, like, sometimes I’ll just schedule like whitespace from one device, like, do not schedule me, or scheduling your workouts or scheduling, you know, meditations, really scheduling, not just client appointments and client phone calls. And I really think in some ways, like kids are a tremendous gift in all of this for sort of two reasons. One of which is, you know, after getting my kids out the door into the school bias, it’s like, Oh, I’ve got to go in and give an opening statement where I’m asking for a million dollars and depose, you know, do a direct examination of a forensic expert. Okay, like, that’s relaxing. It’s all it’s all downhill after my kids have their shoes on or at the bus stop. Right? It’s so that it makes that it makes sense, sort of easier. But I think the second point is, I’m a Pearl Jam fan. I remember, Eddie Vetter an interview about parenting. He said, Look, when we used to before we had, he’s like, before we had kids, what we would do is he’s like it would be, you know, three weeks in the studio and kegs of beer and cartons of cigarettes and, you know, sitting there and meandering and dawdling and recording this album, and he’s like, then we had kids, and it was more like a pack of cigarettes, a six pack and three hours in the studio and the album was done. And I think that parenting in that constraint has made me so much more efficient on the business aspect of things. Because it’s like, I’m not wasting time like this is go time, I’ve got these three hours, we’re going to move these things, and we’re going to ship these things done.
Speaker 6
I totally agree about the efficiency, I think our kids have made us be more efficient with our practice with everything that we’re trying to do, because we are trying to do so many different things. And there’s so many moving parts. So I think there are a lot of positives to having kids. Of course, you know, was it a challenge, career wise, it was certainly and it you know, I made sacrifices of all of us made sacrifices, every parent in this room has made a sacrifice, you know, being being a lawyer, being a professional going to work, whatever work that is that you do anytime you’re away from your kids. To me, that’s a sacrifice, right? So if I’m sitting across the room from someone, you know, who’s, you know, a client who wants to hire me, but they’re lying to me, and I don’t really like what they’re saying, You know what, I don’t really need this case, I’d rather be with my kids. So you can go and done, right? That’s easier for me, I can screen cases better because I don’t need it. I don’t need it. There are other things I could be doing. And I think about my time, it’s more qualified. And it’s more quality with my kids. And with my practice, if I’m there, I want to be the lawyer when I’m when I’m at work. I’m the lawyer when I’m at home, I want to be the mom. Right? Well, sometimes I’m lawyer and home to that depends. So I think it’s knowing those roles and being consistent and being present. Right? Who am I today? What am I going to do, and remembering that everything you do at the end of the day is hopefully for your family and, and for your business to grow. But one thing I’ll add to this is that sometimes you see, like, frustrated parents are lawyering and of course, you’re gonna have days like that. But I think it’s important. It’s important for your kids to see some of that. But I think it’s also important for your kids not to see you as a frustrated lawyer or frustrated parent or an angry lawyer or angry parent. So I’ve worked really hard for them to know yet. You know what, today was a bad day. But I still love what I do. Right? You were terrible today. You Would you repeat to me today, but I still love you. You’re still my kid. Right? So I think it’s important for them to see that spectrum. It’s not all black and white. It’s not everything is perfect at work. Everything’s perfect at home, or everything’s terrible, right? I think they have to see. And that’s to me where the balance is some days are better than others as a parent, some days are better than others as a lawyer. And so and I think that’s okay. I think it’s important to share that with your kids and for them to see it. Because they’re going to experience that and that’s okay.
Speaker 3
Thank you so much. And I think it’s a blessing for us all probably to be able to share with our children, the ability, the skills to be able to build a business, I think we’re showing them giving them opportunity to see some different things, just like Tyson first generation business owner here. And that, again, that opens our children’s eyes and the fact that they get to see us day to day be able to do that and to be able to balance that I think is a great thing. I want to thank all of you for sharing your insights on parenting being so open about it. Give us a hand to our illustrious panel.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you for moderating.
Speaker 1
Thanks for listening to the maximum lawyer podcast. To stay in contact with your host and to access more content content, go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.
