Law Schools

Negotiating With A Toddler

What happens when opposing counsel is your own child?

By Jean Marie Downing  
on

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 Jean Marie Downing to our pages. Click here if you’d like to donate to MothersEsquire.

I found out that I was pregnant and accepted into law school within a few weeks of each other. Because my husband was in the military, I only had a limited window to attend law school before he would be gone to another duty station. So, that is how I was a new mom and a first-year law student.

It worked out well because my husband was also in school and took classes at night while I took classes during the day. He was in an enlisted to officer program.

Fast forward to my last semester and my husband was being moved to a duty station in Rhode Island. Do we go with Daddy or do I stay to finish law school as a single mom? It was too hard to see my almost 2-year-old saying goodbye to his daddy and choose to be separate when the military separates families so much as part of the lifestyle. So, we decided that my son and I would also move up to Rhode Island. Thankfully, after a great deal of effort, I was permitted to do my last semester at Roger Williams law school and still graduate with my class at Stetson. We got student housing for married couples and were lucky enough to find a spot in a daycare near school — the only day care option, but we got in! It was so lovely!

Then, one day I got the dreaded call! When I went to pick up my toddler at the daycare center, he was in the front office. He was 25 months old and he had bitten another child. I was horrified! He had been bitten before, and now he was the biter. Really, the anger that I felt when my child had been bitten was only topped by the horror I felt when my child was the biter! We talked through the issue with my child. Daddy talked to him about it. We read books about not biting.

And then it happened again. The daycare had a three strikes policy. I felt like I was trapped inside a building crumbling from all sides.

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So, I will never forget sitting on the floor of our student housing apartment, crying, and telling my 25-month-old that if he didn’t stop biting his friends that mommy would have to drop out of law school because I would have to stay at home with him. “We don’t have any other options for childcare!” I sobbed. “You were potty trained at 22 months! I’m sure you can handle this!”

I don’t know, maybe it was because he attended all of those law school classes with me while he was in utero, but whatever it was, he didn’t bite anyone else after that.

At the time, it was an intensely stressful situation due to the limited childcare and support options available to my family. Now he is finishing up professional dive school (to work on oil rigs — hardhat surface-air-supply diving) and is enrolled at Gulf Coast State College to be an EMT and we laugh about this story.

To my fellow lawyer moms and dads, I hope you enjoyed my walk down memory lane and it helps you. I see you. I know this pandemic is switching your world into limited choices regarding childcare/school, and I hope you find the support you need — even if that support comes from a toddler finally not biting his friends!

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Jean Marie Downing is a criminal trial attorney in Panama City, Florida, where she lives with her retired Navy diver husband, a dancing daughter in high school, and 5 cats. Her two adult sons are in school, one for diving and one for pre-law. She’s against racial disparity in our justice system.  She also supports anonymity for an accused unless charges are proven. Watch Just Mercy and 13th Movie to understand. She can be reached at jdowning@pcbeachlaw.com.

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