I had a baby during my second year at Stanford Law School. I returned to class--my daughter in tow--a week after she was born, and immediately felt welcomed back. Every week, my Tax Policy professor introduced Leila to our guest speakers as the youngest member of our seminar and appeared unperturbed when she added her indecipherable comments to the discussion. The Law School gave me a key to an on-site nursing room and arranged note-takers for my classes. It almost seemed too easy.
And then there was the week I had to hand in a 50-page paper, negotiate a contract for a house on the East Coast and plan Leila's first birthday party, for 40 people. All that might have been manageable, except that my husband was away on business for the fourth week in a row, my postgraduation job negotiations took a turn for the worse, my child care provider needed an unexpected day off, my study plans for the bar exam collapsed, and Leila decided that 4 a.m. was a perfectly reasonable time to wake up every day.
When I was pregnant with Leila, a friend described motherhood as a process of juggling three balls--your child, your spouse and yourself--and the ball that usually drops is yourself. I thought I could keep my ball in the air by having a baby while in school. But it wasn't quite that simple.
In some ways, school is more mom-friendly than work. For starters, it offers the ultimate in flex-time. I can plan my classes around my day care schedule and skip class, if necessary, when Leila is sick. I have been able to shift credits across semesters, taking more classes before Leila was born so I would have a lighter load thereafter. I was even able to take the entire summer off after her birth. Furthermore, I am my own boss in school. I will not get fired if I miss a deadline or botch an exam. If I perform poorly, my colleagues don't shoulder an extra burden.
But ironically, the thorniest trade-offs stem from being my own boss. Flexibility can be agonizing: how do I justify reading an extra case rather than an extra Dr. Seuss? Without co-workers or clients depending on me, I'm left with academic pride as the only reason to be away from Leila--and often that's just not good enough. On days when I've worked hard at school, I feel like a bad mom. On days when I've spent more time with Leila, I feel like a bad student.
I've also had to accept that I'm no longer on the same path as most of my classmates. In deciding to have a baby, I had to decide not to do other things--the opportunity costs of being a mom, as my economist husband would say. For example, many of my friends will be clerking for judges after graduation. I didn't think I could balance motherhood and the time-intensive responsibilities of a clerkship. Becoming a parent has also meant that I can't be a full member of the Law School community, since speakers and social activities inevitably conflict with Leila's schedule.
I'm not the only one making these choices. In my class of 180 students, four women--and many more men--have become parents over the past year or so. Although it's hard to find good data on student moms, anecdotal evidence suggests a marked increase in the pre-bar fertility rate at Stanford. A couple of national trends illuminate this phenomenon: there are more women in professional school than 30 years ago, and law students are older than they used to be. Since women are more likely to be in professional school during their prime childbearing years, those who ultimately want a baby must decide whether having one in school is preferable to waiting until after graduation.
My own decision reflects these timing pressures. I started law school when I was 26. If I didn't have a baby while in school, I'd have to wait at least five years to do so. Sure, I could have planned to have a baby immediately after graduation. But taking time off then might have made it difficult to re-enter the labor force later. And it didn't seem fair to a new employer for me to get pregnant until at least one year into the job. The upshot would be waiting until I was at least 31 to start a family--not too old physiologically, but older than I wanted to be.
I might also have been influenced by happy memories of my own childhood. I was a toddler when my mother attended Stanford Law School in the late 1970s. I remember her joy when she passed the bar. I also remember a series of unfamiliar baby-sitters while she was studying. I have had to make trade-offs, too, but overall I believe that my decision to become a student mom was a good one. I only hope the youngest member of the Tax Policy seminar agrees.
Cameron R. Orszag, '94, is a third-year student at Stanford Law School.
