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I'm on pace for 2100 and I feel so horrible like heart beats fast, head hurts, etc. I commiserate
Mentor
Absolutely it's possible. It's possible to be a good parent without having much of a relationship with your child, depending on the needs of the child and parent. Life deals all of us different cards, some of us have to work lot more than others to provide our children with the possibilities we want them to have, don't be ashamed of that. Try to balance the need to provide with the need to form a personal relationship based on yours and your child's needs. If you listen to others, especially these days, you might get away with the impression that caring about your career or doing anything more than the bare minimum equals robbing your children of their childhood.
Coach
Well, just because you have to do something, doesn’t mean you don’t fall into the not good parent bucket. Like I said, we have different definitions of a good parent. In my opinion, you can be a good parent while living in poverty as long as you are nurturing, supportive, a good teacher, etc. If you don’t have “much of a relationship” with your child, you’re not a “good parent” in my book. And you don’t need to make 300,000-500,000k a year to support all of those people. I grew up with very little money, I’ve paid for everything in my life with my money and time, but I was lucky enough to have amazing parents. I would never in a million years trade the connection I have, and time I spent with my parents while growing up, for having better financial upbringing of any degree.
Your loved ones can be gone at any moment. I know this all too well. Make sure you’re spending time with them and forming truly strong familial relationships—assuming you value that.
I think communication with your spouse is key. I’ve had very direct conversations with mine where we both agreed that the big law salary and bonus is something our family needs right now and there’s no ambiguity as to why I can’t help with the kids many nights. Spouse also works full-time (but makes less) so there is inevitably tension from time to time when she’s on a deadline and I’m trying to bill time to keep pace.
I tell myself on any given day, even though I will strive to be a good spouse, good parent and good employee, I will inevitably fall short on at least one if not two of those fronts. If I fail on same front for more than a few days in a row, it’s time to take a step back and re-order things.
It’s a work in progress.
2100 hours averages to 40.3 hours a week. So, yes. I imagine you’re probably under billing for your time if you’re thinking 40.3 hours billable each week means you have no personal time.
And I don’t mean that rudely, at all. I certainly underbilled when I first started and felt like 2100+ was unreasonable. But when you actually bill for all the work you do, I’ve found myself hitting 50+ hours without much difficulty.
Also, I should say that I’m a married junior associate with two kids under three!