Mothers in Law

Dad is at the office and mom is in the kitchen – it’s a stereotype deeply ingrained in our culture. While we fondly remember the likes of June Clever and Carol Brady, there’s a cultural shift taking place in America.

As President Barack Obama said in his recent State of the Union speech, gone are the “workplace policies that belong in a ‘Mad Men’ episode.” Ladies such as Jessica Kruse and Lori Rook are proving women can bring home the bacon – and fry it up, too.

The partners at Ozarks Elder Law break the traditional lawyer mold.

With six children under the age of 10 between them, Rook and Kruse didn’t put their family life on hold until they made partner. In fact, they were both pregnant with their first child while still in law school.

“I went into labor during my last final,” Rook said, noting she finished the test and passed. “We entered our careers with a baby on our hip, so to speak. I think it gave us thick skin.”

The president’s Jan. 20 address highlighted a reorganized idea of what a working parent should look like, taking a stance on historical inhibitors, such as child care.

“It’s not a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have,” Obama said. “It’s time we stop treating child care as a side issue, or a women’s issue, and treat it like the national economic priority that it is for all of us.”

Both previously working in traditional law settings on a partner track, Rook said she was once told by a firm to be a good lawyer she needed to choose between her family and her career – an ultimatum she didn’t take lightly.

“What I do as a job doesn’t define me,” she said. “Work is just part. I’m also a wife, a mom, a member of this community and I serve at church. The sum of that whole defines you, not what it says on your business card.”

Riding the teeter-totter
The traditional mile marker on the road to partner for most lawyers, Ozarks Elder Law has done away with billable hours. It’s a strategy the partners say works for their 13-employee firm split across offices in Springfield and Ozark.

“There is a level of trust in our office,” Kruse said. “You have to get your work done and that’s the bottom line. If you leave at 3 to attend your child’s soccer game, it means you might be working on your iPad from the sideline or after the kids go to sleep.

“You do what you need to, when you need to.”

Often characterized as the work-life balance – or the splitting of time between work and home activities – Kruse says the term should be thrown out.

“It’s not a balance and it will never be in balance; at best, it’s a teeter-totter,” she said. “Every day is different. A balance suggests the two things are even, and they aren’t. On any given day, one will take precedence over the other. That’s just life.”

The mothers work through the constant ups and downs by protecting their schedules.

“You have to calendar everything from meetings to the day you’re homeroom mom,” Kruse said.

Rook adds, “My kids don’t suffer because I choose to work. If I sleep less that night because I’m working late, then so be it.”

Paving the way
The life approach works well for the all-woman firm, which Kruse notes is coincidence, not intentional. But she says the strategy could go mainstream.

“It’s something that’s becoming more in demand in our workforce,” Kruse said of a flexible hour structure. “People are realizing there is an alternative and employers less willing are starting to lose good people.

“There is a shift happening in Springfield, and not just in the legal field but with most professionals.”

Practicing since 1980, Husch Blackwell LLP Partner Virginia Fry said she’s not sure about a shift, but rather an awakening.

“It wasn’t any different back then,” she said. “Some younger attorneys think this is something new. It’s not. It’s always been there, there are just more women in the workforce now. I think it’s more talked about.”

Fry was one of just a handful of female lawyers in the Queen City when she began practicing more than three decades ago. According to the Springfield Metropolitan Bar Association, women now comprise roughly 25 percent of attorneys in town.

“I waited until I was partner to have kids,” said Fry, whose children now are 26 and 30 years old. “I wanted to practice a while before I added another ball to juggle, but life is never in balance, that’s just the way it is.”

Fry, whose husband John also is a full-time lawyer, said the couple hired a live-in nanny while her children were young.

“You can’t feel guilt as a working female professional. You are not the only one having kids – the spouse has to be invested, too,” she said.

“When you decide to have kids, you always make sure they come first.”

According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 56 percent of working mothers said it was very or somewhat difficult to balance the responsibilities of their jobs and their families, but nearly 50 percent of working fathers said the same thing. The study points to two surveys, one taken in 1965 and one taken in 2011.

In ’65, on average, women spent just eight hours per week on paid work and 42 hours on housework and child care, while men spent 42 hours on paid work and 6.5 hours taking care of family needs. Conversely, in 2011, women increased time doing paid work to 21 hours a week and men increased home work to 17 hours weekly.

Fry said as long as there are mothers in the workplace, there always will be an underlying tension.

Kruse agreed, saying while societal guilt seems to be decreasing, it may never go away.  

“We work to live, not live to work,” Kruse said. “I enjoy what I do, but I enjoy my family more.”[[In-content Ad]]