How Modern-Day Feminism Fails Mothers

Can women have it all, at the same time? Not even Michelle Obama thought that would work.

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 Corinne Hoover to our pages. Click here if you’d like to donate to MothersEsquire.

Growing up in the 1990s in a traditional two-parent home, I was taught from the get-go that education was the pathway to success and that I was smart, capable, and hardworking, and could therefore achieve whatever I wanted. While my dad was a successful lawyer turned judge, and my mother was a devoted SAHM with side gigs, there was no pressure whatsoever for my sisters and I to choose different paths from our brother or to prioritize eventual parenthood more so than he. Although our mother selflessly devoted everything to us kids, I, of course, wanted to be just like my dad. Even at a very young age, I knew that my dad was well respected, smart as hell, adored, and extremely successful. It was no wonder that I rushed through college and headed straight for law school.

Shortly after beginning law school, the success my parents had promised me seemed inevitable. I was working my ass off and getting results. I came to realize that there was a direct correlation between what I wanted and how hard I wanted to work to get it. Connected to this discovery was also my decision to marry my college boyfriend. He was a wonderful guy, and I was in love, but we got married at 22 years of age because we couldn’t just live together without starting a world war with my mother who didn’t believe in that. As I was the overly ambitious type-A one, and he was the more relaxed type-B personality, we (really I) decided that I’d finish law school, start my practice, work like crazy to make real money, and run for office while also popping out three to five kids whom I would effortlessly breastfeed and find a doting Mary Poppins nanny to nurture and support them (and yet, not replace me). Unlike me, my husband didn’t know what he wanted to do, so we both had the notion that he would primarily support my efforts and find a career that filled in around mine. I would be the best of both of my parents in one, and he’d be the supporting actor in my production. When I could make success happen on my own, I needed nothing more from a spouse than love.

So, I did it all. I had four kids, one every other year, while also running my growing law practice. My practice not only didn’t take a step back when I was having kids, it exploded. At the same time, I was also really proud of how I mothered, and loved this role more than I ever anticipated. To me, doing both with success at the same time proved that I could do it all. The harder I worked, in both my career and motherhood, the greater the fruits of my labor.

Until I reached burnout mode so suddenly it felt as if I hit a literal wall. With two under-2 kids, I was so perpetually exhausted that I didn’t think I could keep going. In fight or flight, I had no more fight and was desperate for an escape from my life. And then, in the middle of this, an unexpected third pregnancy. I told my husband I was at my end and wanted to either quit him or quit my job, or maybe both. I wanted to spend my days rocking my babies in peace and simplicity rather than juggling motherhood and litigation and this life we created, which was all too much pressure. I begged him to step up so I could step back. He explained that it would take time to develop a plan where he could make dramatically more money and even then, could not provide nearly to the extent that I could, especially because he went into teaching high school because we didn’t need him to earn real money.

And this is precisely how modern-day feminism failed me. While I naively thought that I could be the lawyer my dad was and the mother my mom was, simultaneously, no one told me that there were reasons that women of prior generations rarely did both. When Michelle Obama came under fire for saying that women can’t have it all, not at the same time, because “that shit doesn’t work,” it was most reasonable and concise attack on modern-day feminism I had ever heard. While her comments came under fire for her perceived attack against Sheryl Sandberg’s 2013 book that called upon women to “lean in,” to me, Obama’s comments spoke truth to an entire generation of women who were misled to believe that modern-day feminism allowed us to do it all. Like Obama, I came to the same conclusion: this is bullshit.

Given my late realizations and constant exhaustion, there are many things I want to teach my daughters before they choose their own paths in career and family. Most importantly, I want to impress upon them how modern-day feminism failed me, and that the premise that we as women can have it all, greatly discounts the value that an equal financial partner can bring to a family. When I decided I wanted a husband who would primarily support my ambitions, I lost the ability for him to later take over as the primary breadwinner, even if only temporarily, when I needed it most. When biologically I was the only one able to carry, birth, and breastfeed babies, I resented my spouse for not being able to contribute meaningfully to our young family when I was doing this at the same time as killing myself to make money. And when I finally exhausted myself doing both roles simultaneously and reached my end, there were few opportunities to reverse course.

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And so, now, I remain trapped in the consequences of this notion, with constant pressures and pulls that sometimes are crippling but with at least a newfound perspective to pass on to the next generation of women who want to have a high-powered career and also be mothers. My advice? Marry for money (secondarily to love of course). Settle down when you are much, much older than 22 and know something about how exhausting your chosen career may be. Live with your prospective spouse first, even if it makes your mother mad. (Sorry, mom. This is what you get from raising a divorce lawyer.) Choose a partner who will be your co-star, whether you think that’s important now or not. Prioritize simple happiness and pleasures and rest at least as much as hard work because one day you will crave it.  And most importantly, whether you want to have it all, at the same time or not, having the option of just being taken care of is really, really wonderful, even if that does sound totally anti-feminist.


Corinne is the managing partner of the family law section group of her 12 attorney-firm in northeast Ohio, founded by her and her two partners in 2015. A certified specialist in family relations law by the Ohio State Bar Association, and a fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, Corinne now focuses her practice exclusively on domestic relations and adoption matters. Outside of her lawyer duties, Corinne  serves as CEO of her household and is the biggest fan to her four children in their academic, religious and extracurricular pursuits, which has unexpectedly added cheerleading coach to her resume as well.

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