Leaning Together: How A Work-From-Home Dad Made This Full-Time Working Mom Possible

Why is the choice to be a stay-at-home parent only one a mother can make? We work hard to make sure we are in this as a team. 

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 Jamie Szal to our pages.

Quite a number of articles and posts filtered through my newsfeeds as of late, highlighting the many pressures and difficulties new mothers face in our society.  All of them were spot on — the unbelievably short amount of time (if any) mothers receive to bond and recover, the need to get our bodies back, the pressure to launch right back into the pursuit of various career goals, or the dilemma of whether to return to work at all.  It is intense, there’s no question about that.  But one aspect of motherhood seemingly slid under the radar: the work-from-home dad.

Our schedules these days look rather a bit like a jigsaw puzzle.  We’re both up before dawn to work until our daughter wakes up. My husband continues working for another hour or so after that while I get to spend some precious one-on-one time with our daughter.  We take a half hour together to get ready for our days and then I’m off to the office.  These days to a chorus of “Bye-Byeeeeeee” (the second “ee” drawn out long with a smile; she’s eager to hit the trails with Dada and #gusthegriff, something they do every day together).  Naptime is his golden hour, hopefully giving him a few hours to finish projects.  Then after getting home from the office, I take back the reins until bedtime so my husband can put in some more time working himself.  These days, our adult alone time is more often than not spent sitting near each other, working on those last few projects that need to go out to clients that day.  We’re just a little bit busy, a little bit exhausted.  We’re parents.  Together.

My husband and I waited a long time to start our family.  We both were lucky to be raised by stay-at-home mothers, and both felt strongly that if and when we ever had children, they would be raised by a parent.  He runs his own product and graphic design business, from home.  He sets his own schedule.  But while we are very fortunate that he has loyal, regular clients that make running his own business successful, we acknowledged my career had the greater potential for long-term financial stability.  So from the beginning we were in agreement — my husband would be (and is) the parent to stay home.

You know, the thing is that my husband being the stay-at-home parent really makes the unequal expectations we have for mothers hit home.  When I was pregnant and we shared with friends and family that my husband would work from home while raising our daughter, someone asked me whether asking my husband to stay home was really fair for him, to make him put his career second.  How is it any less fair to him than it would have been for me?  Why is the choice to be a stay-at-home parent only one a mother can make?  And why jump to the assumption I asked him to stay home, rather than my husband choosing to do so?  Similarly, I find that, more often than I would like to admit, I stop myself from thinking, “He is home all day.  Why can’t he [insert household chore] more often?”  Thoughts like that just contribute to the gendered stereotypes we perpetuate as a society: the breadwinner works all day, and the homemaker has all the time on [her] hands.  So I work hard to make sure we are in this as a team.

My daughter is one lucky little girl; she spends her days at home with her daddy.  They run and jump in mud puddles and read and cook and draw.  I’ll be honest: I am envious of the close relationship he will have with her. He works hard to raise our fierce, independent, budding feminist.  He is an incredible father.  As much as I spent months longing to hear the word “Mama” come out of my daughter’s mouth, I could see how much it meant to my husband to hear her shriek “Dada!” every time she rounded a corner and found him waiting for her.  (Jimmy Fallon, take note: seems being a work-from-home dad is the trick to making “Dada” word No. 1.)

I could not be the lawyer I am without him.  He knows that I love being a lawyer.  Whether it is Chamber breakfasts, bar association dinners, out-of-state depositions, or trips to D.C. to be present at the oral arguments of a U.S. Supreme Court case I worked on, my husband is 100 percent behind me.  He understands that commitments outside of the normal 9-5 business day are part and parcel with my job.  For me, being a full-time working mother is made much easier knowing that my daughter is home with him.  Are we both exhausted? Yes! Are there ways he parents that are different than the ways I parent? Of course!  The best piece of co-parenting advice I received was not to micromanage the way my husband interacts and guides our daughter.  Trust him.  The first trip away, I tried to think of every contingency: umpteen extra outfits, all the jammies and sleep-sacks laid out, all the bottles filled, diaper supply stocked.  We were both nervous.  At one point, though, my husband stopped me.  “I got this,” he said.  And you know what?  He does.  We do.  Together.

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Happy Anniversary, Honey.

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Jamie Szal focuses her practice at Brann & Isaacson on assisting businesses in all aspects of state and local tax controversy, from regulatory and administrative proceedings through civil litigation. In the wake of the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair, in which Brann & Isaacson represented Wayfair, she also works with remote retailers of all sizes to evaluate their economic nexus profile, consider a sales and use tax collection action plan, and register with state and local tax authorities across the U.S. Jamie came to Brann & Isaacson following several years at the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. As Counsel in both the Litigation Bureau and Office of Appeals, Jamie focused on complex tax issues facing corporations and pass-through entities. She earned her LL.M. in Taxation and Certificate in State and Local Taxation, both with distinction, from Georgetown University Law Center. Jamie is also trained in mediation. Outside of work, Jamie enjoys raising her fiercely independent, impish daughter; singing with the choir of the Episcopal Church of St. Mary (Falmouth, ME); exploring Down East and its many hiking trails with her husband, daughter, and dog; and indulging in all things chocolate.

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