International Women’s Day
Today is International Women’s Day and I am reminded that this of all days should be celebrated. Women make a majority of all medical decisions - for their children, their husband, their elderly parents, and finally, for themselves. And most women are not trained medically but it seems they just know what to do in most instances. I know when my children were small, I knew when it was to the point of needing a doctor or if it was just the sniffles. I believe in women’s intuition.
Women also work harder than some think. Women have been hit harder during this pandemic relative to unemployment. Many of those jobs will not be coming back. But the unemployed women will adapt and reinvent their skill sets in order to get a different job. And it won’t take forever either. Women are resourceful, imaginative, and not afraid of hard work. I know. I am one of those women that have reinvented myself over the years more than once.
I was reminded of this over the weekend, again, how unlikely it was that I would become a lawyer and how I reinvented myself in order to do that. I certainly did not start out expecting to be a lawyer. Far from it. But when I got to law school at the age of 38, I had two little children ages 6 and 4. So every morning for at least the first year we were out of the house by 7:00 a.m. to drop my daughter at school and my son at day care and for me to be in class by 8:00 a.m. But I learned from that craziness and the next 2 years I had class at 9:00 a.m. and I arranged for the day care to deliver the kids to school. That helped but I always had to pick them up at the day care no later than 6:00 p.m. If anyone was sick, it was me that stayed home with them and it was me that had to find someone’s notes from all of the classes I missed. I know this sounds like I was a single parent. I was not, but if I wanted to go to law school these were the things that I had to handle myself. I know now that this arrangement was to hopefully force me to quit. But it only made me want it more. Once I started law school there was no way I would be quitting. Quitting was not part of the deal. I tried to teach that to my children as well. By example, if nothing else.
I think women in general are not easy quitters. I saw that in my practice as well. Women generally will stay in unhappy marriages or relationships hoping to find a way to make it work. But once they realize the marriage or relationship is over, they leave and file for divorce — sometimes quickly, but sometimes they take their time. Men, on the other hand, usually just find things or people to distract them from the unhappy home life. I’m not saying one way or the other is better. This is just my observations from 25 years of dealing with folks who are divorcing.
But on this International Women’s Day, let’s celebrate all the wonderful, hard working women, that make a difference in this world. You may never know their names, but they are out there making a difference in their world and yours.
