It’s okay, go ahead — take a bow.
Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts on motherhood in the legal profession, in partnership with our friends at MothersEsquire. Welcome Krista Lynn to our pages. Click here if you’d like to donate to MothersEsquire.
Lawyer moms are fierce advocates. Whether it’s someone picking on our kid at the playground, a superior unfairly projecting on us in the office, or a car salesman trying to charge that absurd “delivery fee” when the vehicle you’re buying is sitting 11 feet away, lawyer moms aren’t afraid to speak up in the face of injustice.
Lawyer moms know how to get a job done. We manage to keep all the plates spinning at home and at work, often with less credit for the wins and more blame for the losses. We have a remarkable ability to multitask and work with little to no sleep. Most of the time with a smile.
Lawyer moms ask all the questions and fight the good fight. Whether the need is a strongly worded letter to the superintendent, a speech at the city council meeting, or defense of a child to the geometry teacher, when a lawyer mom is involved, you can #considerithandled a la Olivia Pope.
Lawyer moms are real life superwomen.
But what happens when that superwoman has superhuman struggles that understandably threaten to topple those spinning plates and send them shattering to the ground?
For most of the past decade of my life, I have been living through what felt like an extended Greek drama/tragedy. While most of the chaos going on in my life was created by or resulted from a very unhealthy marriage to a very unhealthy person, it was chaos nonetheless. One thing that became my superpower during it was figuring out how to keep kicking butt and taking names at work.
Whatever your personal crisis — maybe you’re going through a divorce, suffering from a miscarriage, navigating life with a child with special needs, or recently lost someone close to you — if you take nothing else away from this article, know that you are not alone.
I remember sitting at my law school orientation when then-Mayor Cory Booker told my class to “look left and look right because you just might end up marrying the person sitting next to you.” A few of my law school classmates did go on to get married to each other, but overall the frequency was quite low.
What he didn’t say was a much more likely statistic, though — that 6% of my law school classmates would seriously consider suicide during that first year, and that 18% of them would develop an active addiction under the pressure and stress. He didn’t mention that 1 in 4 of my classmates-turned-colleagues would suffer from clinical depression or anxiety, or that lawyers commit suicide more than all but three other tracked professions. I don’t blame him for that; that’s not exactly a cheery first day of the rest of your life kind of message.
As lawyers, and particularly as lawyer moms, we are more likely to pretend everything is alright and less likely to seek help when needed. We are more likely to stay isolated from communities that can support us and less likely to invite anyone in. We are more likely to “suck it up” and less likely to prioritize our own self-care.
First and foremost, today I am here to tell you that whatever it is you’re facing — you are not alone. If you looked left and right down your office corridor, assuming that one day being in offices is a thing we will again enjoy, you can take comfort in the fact that the devastating isolation that you have been experiencing is not unique. And there’s strength in numbers.
But how to navigate these waters?
I won’t pretend to have all the answers, but I will proffer some suggestions of things that were helpful to me. And like a good lawyer mom, you’ll find these suggestions things that aren’t on our shoulders alone, but things our employers and communities can do for us too. We already do #allthethings. This first one, though — this is for you, lawyer mom.
Invite someone in. Your island is isolating because you are on it alone. And this isn’t the kind of island in the Caribbean with unlimited margaritas, sunshine, and palm trees. This is the kind of island where despair is the substitute for sunshine and shame the currency. Find your safe space and get that burden off your chest. Employers, make and hold space for your employees to be human.
Create accountability. When I was going through the worst of my personal challenges, I worked for a company that took domestic violence extremely seriously. My employer’s response to my disclosure set in progress biweekly and then monthly meetings with corporate security personnel for an extended period of time. I was given a special parking spot in the parking lot with cameras fixated on it. A safety plan for home and the office was created. A compassionate, caring person was assigned to check in with me on a regular basis. Employers, do this. It might have saved my life because I was forced to talk about it.
Normalize struggle. When we feel like we are the only ones dealing with “stuff,” our years of training of being tough, survival of the fittest, and character and fitness leads us to internalize. This only perpetuates the problem. A flashing neon sign isn’t necessary, and you don’t have to be as open about your struggles on professional platforms like I am, but anytime you can help another person feel like there is a little less pressure because you share that you are — gasp! — human, you are doing a great service to the profession and the world at large. Employers, foster this environment.
I’d like to leave you with three quotes and corresponding takeaways that will inspire you as you gather the courage to let someone in:
- You can’t heal what you don’t feel, and you can’t feel what you don’t talk about.
- Takeaway — You have to talk about what is going on in your life in order to heal from it.
- Truth is the antidote to shame.
- Takeaway — You may think you are too ashamed to tell your story, but shame actually grows and multiplies when it’s living alone in our minds.
- Shame dies when truth is told in safe spaces.
- Takeaway — Find your safe space and watch the shame start to melt away.
Whatever is going on in your lives, know that you can and will get through it. Know that there is no shame in being human, in fact — despite what we may have learned in law school, it’s actually a good thing.
Personal crisis or not — go on and boldly live as your most authentic self. The world needs you exactly the way you are.
Krista Lynn serves as Deputy General Counsel of Airbus OneWeb Satellites and is the Founder of Recovering Superwoman, a company with a mission of normalizing struggle, eliminating stigma, and helping working professionals thrive by getting out of their own way. Krista’s most important work, however, is that of full-time single mom to her three young children- Eico (4), Gabriella (3), and Milana (1). You can email her at legallykristalynn@gmail.com, connect with her on LinkedIn, and follow her company through its website, on Facebook, or Instagram.