So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People

“Yes, your kids matter. Yes, your job matters. But you matter, too.” - Dr. Anne Welsh

What if the answer to working motherhood isn’t about getting better at doing everything?

Maybe it starts with remembering that you’re a person in the mix and you matter, too.

In this episode of So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People, Megan Senese and Jennifer Ramsey are joined by Dr. Anne Welsh, clinical psychologist, executive coach, and author of Ambitious Mother: From Surviving to Thriving in Your Career and at Home.

Anne was one of the podcast’s very first guests, and she’s back to talk about the book that grew from sentences scribbled in pickup lines, gymnastics waiting rooms, early mornings, and whatever five-minute pockets she could find to write.

Together, they unpack what Anne calls the “ambition paradox”: the message that being committed to your career somehow takes away from being a good mother, and that being a good mother requires sacrificing parts of yourself for the sake of work or other people.

They talk about the mounting expectations placed on mothers, why work can actually enrich our lives as parents, the perfectionism and people-pleasing so many women internalize, and what workplaces could do differently to support people with full lives outside of work.

Ultimately, Anne offers a reminder that applies whether you're a mother, a parent, or neither: you don't have to sacrifice everything in your life to be successful.

You’ll hear about:
  • Why working motherhood can feel like an impossible, zero-sum game
  • How Anne wrote her book five minutes at a time
  • The perfectionism, people-pleasing, and pretending that affect women far beyond motherhood
  • Why having something meaningful outside of work can make us more productive and resilient
  • How expectations of mothers have intensified over the past two decades
  • Why parental leave is only the beginning of the support working parents need
  • How law firms can better plan for caregiving without placing the burden on child-free colleagues
  • The difference between flexibility and true autonomy
  • Why every season of parenting, your career, or simply life may require a different definition of ambition
  • What happened when Anne took a chance and asked Robin Arzón to contribute the foreword to her book

About Dr. Anne Welsh:

Dr. Anne Welsh is a clinical psychologist, executive coach, consultant, and author whose work focuses on helping women navigate the intersection of career, ambition, identity, and family. Her book, Ambitious Mother: From Surviving to Thriving in Your Career and at Home, challenges the idea that women must choose between meaningful work and meaningful family lives, and offers practical tools for building a life that makes room for both, without losing yourself in the process.

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Creators and Guests

Host
Jennifer Ramsey
Host
Megan Senese

What is So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People?

Welcome to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People where we explore the behind-the-scenes of work, law, life, and everything in between. We’re your hosts, business development and legal marketing coaches Jennifer Ramsey and Megan Senese, and we’re here to showcase the human side of the legal world, from marketing and consulting to the very real challenges of balancing ambitious careers with being human. This isn’t your typical, dry legal show. Instead, So Much To Say is a human-centered leadership, marketing, and culture podcast through the lens of law. We bring you real stories, candid conversations, and thoughtful insights that remind you that outside of being a lawyer or legal marketer, what makes you human matters too. So whether you’re navigating billable hours, building meaningful relationships, redefining success, or simply trying to stay human in a high-performance profession, this podcast is for you.
Stay human. Stay inspired. Namaste (or whatever keeps you human).

[00:00:00] Dr. Anne Welsh: It starts with this central question of essentially why is working motherhood feel impossible at this point? And we keep doubling down on solutions of working harder and harder and harder that are actually really disconnecting ourselves from our true needs and wants and desires. And I would say in the last 15 years, what we're asking of mothers continues to escalate. So I kinda look at why that is, what's happening now that makes it so hard.
[00:00:32] Megan Senese: Welcome to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People, where we dive into the beautiful chaos of work, life, and everything in between. Outside of being a lawyer or a legal marketer, we want to know what makes you human. And with that, let's get started
[00:00:49] Megan Senese: We're excited to have, like, have you back. You were one of our very first guests, and we've been doing this podcast game now for a year and a half.
[00:00:59] We've hit over 50 episodes, which apparently is a very big milestone. Not a lot of podcasts make it. So thank you for saying yes to us in those very, very early days. And we, like any good business developer, we said we would have you back on when you did your, when your book came out.
[00:01:17] Dr. Anne Welsh: And here we are. Yay.
[00:01:19] Megan Senese: Congratulations.
[00:01:20] Dr. Anne Welsh: Thank you.
[00:01:22] Megan Senese: I want to talk about the book. I want to talk about what's changed, what's stayed the same. Thriving, surviving. Like what... Talk to us about you and then we'll-- I'd love to know about the book and how that's shaped your, your life in the last, well, probably more than a year.
[00:01:35] Dr. Anne Welsh: Yeah.
[00:01:36] Well, it's funny, I've been, like, reflecting on that a lot lately and thinking, like, writing a book called Ambitious Mother as a mother for certainly a good way to test my material and, like, make sure I really, really believe it. Um, because, you know, when I, I started writing the book because I wanted to write, right?
[00:01:54] And, and it was this idea that was kind of bubbling up for me. But writing is a, at least for me, it was a very solitary activity, and I'm naturally introverted, and I really loved it and enjoyed it and found it energy-giving to go through that process. I liked interviewing women and doing the research and putting it all together.
[00:02:14] Marketing a book is an entirely different experience. Um, right? And I'm sure that a lot of your listeners can relate, right? Like, some might love the client work in law and hate the biz development of it, and it's a very similar, I think, experience. And so I've really-- The thing I think with marketing that I'm so always grappling with a little bit is that it is never done.
[00:02:39] Like, it's the, you know, it's very much something that I could put 24/7 into and very easily burn myself out, but I also have to do my client work, which is what pays the bills, and I would like to see my four children occasionally and spend time with them and my husband and my friends and... Right? I mean, it is so much what all of us get caught in of how am I gonna allot my energy to all of different things.
[00:03:04] And I think what's been particularly tricky for me with the marketing is some of it I enjoy, like the, the podcast, right? This kind of stuff I really enjoy. I don't love making Instagram reels, and yet I have to show up there, right? And write a million emails to people asking for help, and that stuff's more uncomfortable.
[00:03:23] And so finding the balance between doing the uncomfortable or unenjoyable thing, 'cause I kinda have to do some of it, and then figuring out what can I delegate? What can I get rid of altogether? What do I have to kind of push through for at least a little bit in this last push before launch, um, and still taking time to, like, enjoy my life, right?
[00:03:43] And not having it make me miserable in the process.
[00:03:46] Megan Senese: Yeah. I mean, that sounds like a true business developer, right? Yeah. Um, uh, that we... When we talk about that a lot just generally in our coaching with our, with our lawyers, which is exactly the framing that you're going through, which is what are the things that you absolutely hate, and do you have to do them?
[00:04:02] But where, where can you offload? But also, I mean, I hear you on the marketing. We are marketing the heck out of our podcast, and it's never done. And I love our podcast, and I love marketing the podcast, but again, like that, like non... You can go forever, right? Like, and so a part of where Jen and I have come up with is the framing of, like, micro-moves, which is one tiny business development or marketing activity a day, if that's all you have time for.
[00:04:30] And at least it can help reframe your thinking in that I did one thing, and my, like, list is done, complete, and I can move on to the next client work or spending time with my children. And it's, it's something I have to remind myself as well, 'cause I have a lot of energy, and then when I am depleted, I'm always kind of surprised by that at the end, right?
[00:04:51] Um, and so I have to remind myself that, like- Sometimes in like, uh, done, one thing is enough. And so it's, it's ve- it's so sim- it's just that there's a lot of overlap. There's a lot of similarities there, so I love to hear, I love to hear that. Talk to us about the, the framing of your book and, and the interviews, and how all of that came to be.
[00:05:10] Jennifer Ramsey: Like, I'd love to hear where the light bulb idea and inspiration hopped into your brain, and then how did the process unfold from there?
[00:05:21] Dr. Anne Welsh: Yeah. You know, it's funny because I think it came as, like, sentences at a time, and very early stages I would say were, like, during COVID, and I'd be out walking our dog, and it was, like, the only moments maybe where I had where I wasn't, like, inundated with noise, 'cause we have four kids that were now at home and schooling in a 1,600 square foot house, so we were all on top of each other.
[00:05:47] And I'd have, like, one sentence bubble up at a time, but I kind of dismissed them. It was like, "If I wrote a book, which I'm not gonna do, this would be a sentence in it." Um, and, and I don't have time, and I don't actually have that much to say. These are just kind of ideas. I really dismissed it a lot. Um, but over time, those sentences kind of became paragraphs, and I started, like, actually writing them down sometimes.
[00:06:13] And then I thought, "Well, okay, maybe I will just write it for me, or I will self-publish, or I'll just see, kind of explore." And the more I started working on it, the more I got interested in it and kind of slowly, slowly, slowly it unfolded into something obviously much bigger and kind of went the whole traditional publishing route.
[00:06:34] Um, but it's so funny what you were talking about, about those five minutes, because I do get asked a lot, like, "How on earth did you have time to write a book when I am also seeing clients and, and have these kids and a million other things?" And it was so much five minutes here and there. I mean, really, right?
[00:06:50] It was written in a sentence or two waiting in the pickup line. And, you know, I remember I would be super productive somehow in my daughter's gymnastics waiting room, where I'd get a couple pages written an hour a week at this gymnastics class. Or we were traveling and, um, one summer when I was working on it abroad and I was super jet lagged and I got up at 5:00 in the morning every day on that vacation.
[00:07:14] Everyone else seemed to figure out how to sleep, and I couldn't. So I wrote at 5:00 in the morning on vacation because I was interested in it. Uh, and so it came together in this little one piece at a time. I, I kinda use the analogy of, like, making a quilt. I made a quilt once when I was pre-children and, um, you know, it was one of those things where I would pick it up and do a couple stitches here and there, and over time, those couple stitches added up to a whole quilt.
[00:07:39] Doesn't seem like much in the 30 seconds that you're working on it- But it does accumulate when you continue to come back to it again and again and again. And I think for me, the idea was important enough that I kept coming back to it. And because it's something that I'm talking with my clients about all the time, it was always kind of fresh and important, too.
[00:08:02] Jennifer Ramsey: Mm-hmm. Ta- talk to us a little bit about the, the structure of the book.
[00:08:06] Dr. Anne Welsh: Yeah. It starts with the central question of essentially why is working motherhood feel impossible at this point. Uh, and I name something I call the ambition paradox, which is the sense of we're being pulled in two directions that are labeled as competitive, right?
[00:08:22] And we are told that if you are working, you are abandoning your children. If you are being a good mom, you can't possibly be showing up at work. Well, these are two things that have a zero-sum game. And so often we try to solve that problem by spreading ourselves thinner and thinner and thinner between the two so that we become transparent in our own lives, right?
[00:08:41] And we don't even know what we want or who we are or recognize ourselves. And we keep doubling down on solutions of working harder and harder and harder that are actually really disconnecting ourselves from our true needs and wants and desires. And so that is kind of the core of the question. And so the first part talks about how did we get here.
[00:09:01] So that's a little bit of mixture of sociology, psychology, looking at the current picture of working motherhood, and motherhood in particular in the last 20 years. And, you know, my oldest is 17, my youngest is 10, and I would say in the last 15 years m- what we're asking of mothers continues to escalate.
[00:09:22] So I kinda look at why that is, what's happening now that makes it so hard. The second part, it really challenges directly that, that myth that work and, and family are opposing forces, and I call that section the motherhood advantage. And this really talks about what does the research say around how work and motherhood play together.
[00:09:42] Um, and some of it is clinical experience, some of it is clinical storytelling, some of it is interviews with other women, and some of it is research. And so really kind of how do we think about these questions from a totally different angle. The third part is then, okay, how do we apply that to our actual lives?
[00:10:00] So one of the things that happens is there's all of this systemic stuff going on, but we also internalize that, right? We internalize it as perfectionism and as people-pleasing and as pretending that everything's okay, and we need to find ways out of that internally for ourselves, right? And so this is where I really get into this, the kinda clinical psychology skills-based work.
[00:10:21] And then the last part is- The and, and there is the systemic contribution and how do we change that? And so for that, there's a chapter speaking directly to men and male partners and what they can do and how they can get on board, and then one for employers looking at how can employers address this question and actually make work truly family-friendly for everybody, and what are the advantages for a workplace that, um, pursues that
[00:10:47] Jennifer Ramsey: I love that.
[00:10:48] And let me, I have a follow-up question for you. So I'm a child-free-
[00:10:52] Dr. Anne Welsh: Yes ...
[00:10:52] Jennifer Ramsey: ambitious woman. And so talk to us a little bit about, because point three resonated with me, your three Ps, the, the perfectionism, people pleasing, and pretending. So, like, boom. But talk to me a little bit about, like, and, and our audience for child-free women, how this book can, can be relatable.
[00:11:15] Dr. Anne Welsh: Yeah. Well, so this is funny. So, the, I, I talk so much about motherhood because the book is from that perspective, but I would say half my clients are not mothers. I have a group program for working mothers, but a lot of my executive coaching clients are not mothers, and these things come up for all women because they are socialized in all of us from the beginning, right?
[00:11:33] We are socialized to never make mistakes and to be perfect, don't take risks. We are socialized to prioritize everybody else's needs above our own, and we are socialized to do it all with a smile, right? It's better with a smile, right? Pretend and make sure that nobody knows that you're struggling. And all of these things are things we actually kind of have to do as women.
[00:11:51] We are punished more for our mistakes, right? We are actually asked to meet everybody else's needs and punished when we express our own. So it's not like we're just doing this for fun. We're doing it because we're told to do it, and it's the thing that's, to some extent, keeping us safe, and yet we can't wait for the system, the systems to change.
[00:12:10] We have to start making some of those changes internally as well. It's kind of a both and piece.
[00:12:15] Megan Senese: Mm-hmm. I remember, so when you were, you were talking about the, like, research on, like, why, what happens to parents, working parents for businesses, right? It actually, I, I think there are stats that say, like, working parents are better for businesses.
[00:12:30] But I remember when my children were very, very little in, in daycare, and actually my, my friend, the one that you know, was, kept sending me all of these articles about how important and how much more the family earns when the mother continues to work, right, and, and how much the, the children see, like, leadership skills.
[00:12:47] And she kept sending me all these articles 'cause I was freaking out about how many hours I was away from them. N- um, now I don't really care, but, like, then when they were babies, I had done a spreadsheet, and I don't remember if I've, I shared this the last time we chatted with you. But I created a spreadsheet that counted how many hours I was with them versus how many hours I was away to, like, calculate if I really was home that much, and this is when I was still commuting into the office all the time.
[00:13:12] And, and it, it was pretty much like a even split of us. They were home with me, but they were sleeping, so I didn't actually really see them that much. But you sort of make yourself a little crazy, right? Because everybody... My husband did pick up. He did drop off, right? Like, he, he was around and, but it was still about, like, what I wasn't do- What I, you know, what I wasn't doing.
[00:13:32] What else can I be doing? How could you leave your baby there so, so little? But at the same time, when I went back from my first maternity leave, it was questioned like I took extra time. Like, I took extra time when I was given, you know, I took the full amount, whatever. And so it was just like this never win, you just, like, never win.
[00:13:49] And so I, that part really kind of spoke to me. So what, what is some of the research that says, like, how working parents, do they help businesses? Like, do working mothers help businesses? Are there stats that are sharing it positively, negatively? Like, what... Do you have that information?
[00:14:05] Dr. Anne Welsh: Yeah. So there is some research on work-family enrichment that basically suggests that, and this is true for not just mothers, but fathers as well, or any parents, that Having that role outside of work actually makes us more productive.
[00:14:23] And, and I think you could probably extrapolate to having anything important to you outside of work. What makes you more productive, it makes you more resilient, right? Because your, your identity is then comprised of more than one thing, and not just work. And so when something goes wrong, you can actually bounce back from it faster.
[00:14:39] There's also a newer study that came out just this year, um, this spring, and it looked at working mothers are more likely to essentially derive meaning from their work, and then therefore be better corporate citizens. And corporate citizenship behavior was measured... It's basically the s- in some ways, it's kind of the unpaid labor of the workplace, right?
[00:15:02] It's the stuff that, like, benefits the workplace and builds community, and moms are more likely to be the ones doing that. Um, so yeah, there are benefits in terms of actual individual behaviors, and then there's financial benefits, right? Like, the ROI on any sort of investment in childcare that a company makes is massive.
[00:15:22] It's, I think it's 18 to one, if I remember the data correctly. And you also save in retention, and you get better recruitment, right? Because if you are known as a family-friendly place, you know, more and more Gen Z-ers are looking for that. So as you're kind of thinking about the people entering the workforce at this state, at this place, um, you're gonna be able to access more of them.
[00:15:44] And then in terms of the retention, right, especially in the field of law, it's a massive amount of money to replace a well-trained attorney. And if you can hold onto the ones that you already have, that is a huge, it's a huge cost. And I've even seen, and I share this story when I speak with firms especially, where you're n- you're also losing people who don't have kids yet.
[00:16:08] Right. Where I've seen clients of mine leave because they saw someone else have a kid and have such a negative experience at the firm that they choose to leave for another firm before they even get to having children. And that's not something that the firm is tracking or has any idea of, but I promise that it's happening.
[00:16:29] Megan Senese: Yeah. So the, the number to replace a partner at a law firm is $1.2
[00:16:35] Dr. Anne Welsh: million. Yes.
[00:16:36] Megan Senese: It's pretty high. And the childcare reimbursement, right? I remember one of the firms I worked at gave us, um, daycare credit, camp credit. So you just reimburse, and they g- just gave it back to you. And I remember being like, really, I felt thankful for that, right?
[00:16:51] And I, and I was appreciative of that. What do you make of recent policies changing where private companies are now, like, taking back all of their parental leave packages? What do you make of that?
[00:17:04] Dr. Anne Welsh: I mean, I think it's so shortsighted, but I do, I think it, it's- Kind of part of this whole bifurcation of, like, work and culture in general and saying, you know, I, it feels to me very directly backlashy, for lack of a better word, to the progress of women in the workplace.
[00:17:23] And I say women and not just mothers because we can't talk about women in leadership without talking about childcare, without talking about... Because pe- people are punished just for being women and the assumption that they might have children, right? And these policies end up affecting everybody. And we also can't talk about kind of division of labor stuff, and I think as we see in America, at least right now, that is more and more disparate in how we're thinking about women and gender.
[00:17:49] It's showing up in these policies, and I think there are workplaces who are saying, "Well, now we don't have to pay for this," and it's, like, a waste of money, as opposed to thinking about it again from the retention cost.
[00:17:59] Megan Senese: Yeah. Right, which would benefit their bottom line anyway.
[00:18:02] Dr. Anne Welsh: Exactly.
[00:18:04] Jennifer Ramsey: I wanna circle back to, like, structural equity within law firms, because they're su- they're such special little test cases because of the billable hour situation and how relentless it is.
[00:18:15] And, and oftentimes I think firms inadvertently pit women against women. For example, child-free asso- like child-free lawyers, associates sometimes have to absorb extra workloads or late-night emergencies when parents, working mothers, have to log off for family time, and, and that can lead to hidden resentment.
[00:18:36] And I'm curious, how can law firms design structural wellness that supports mothers without burning out the child-free attorneys who sometimes really do end up holding down the fort?
[00:18:49] Dr. Anne Welsh: Yeah. No, I think this is a really good question, and part of it is even from the early days of leave, how are we framing leave?
[00:18:57] So I was coaching, um, a leader at a firm and helping one of the junior associates with parental leave coaching, and the, this was the associate's second kid, and she, the associate, talked to me about how returning from her first kid, she'd gotten a lot of negative comments from the people that had to cover her work.
[00:19:17] And so one of the things that I did was talking to the managing partner around how can you as a leader lead through this differently? And that includes having very different conversations about work coverage and thinking about it more broadly, and also not making assumptions about who should or can what, and having it- Right
[00:19:38] all be more planned, right? And being thoughtful about who is on what case and who has time, and also recognizing that we're all gonna have things that come up, right? And so maybe it isn't a kid, but maybe it's your parent gets sick and you have to fly across the country and take care of them, or you lose a pet, or who knows what else is going on, right?
[00:19:59] That, like, this kind of stuff is going to happen for everybody, right? I mean, we are all literally going to be cared for or care for someone else in our life at some point. So if we can set up systems that are better able to absorb that, even if it is having maybe an extra person on a case.
[00:20:15] Jennifer Ramsey: Whoa. Whoa.
[00:20:17] Dr. Anne Welsh: Anticipating that we can do that. And I, and again, I d- I think the billable hour is really important here, because it's a billable hour and it's at such an astronomical rate, as opposed to any other job where people are also paid by the hour, but we just- If it's a minimum wage job, like don't equate it in the same way as a partner who's making $1,500 an hour for the firm.
[00:20:39] Um, but I will say I get the most push in my corporate work, law firms give me the most pushback about not wanting to bring in working mother programming because they don't wanna offend or hurt the non-mothers. So there is a, a sensitivity to that. Interesting. But I think then that the negative is that they pull any programming that could help anybody.
[00:21:00] It's like, "Well, you can't do anything," and that's actually not a very helpful solution either.
[00:21:05] Megan Senese: I think the point about, like, not making assumptions, so one of my... Someone in my network was saying about how there was someone who was, like, constantly going on leave. They were just having quite a large family, and it was time to, like, come back and then go on leave, come back and go on leave, and that it was just assumed that every time this person would go on leave, that she would cover all of their work.
[00:21:26] And she's like, "Well, I have vacation plans." They're like, "Well, like, she just came back and now her kids have school break, and so, like, you can't take your vacation." And she was like, "Mm, no. Like, that's not, like, that's not how this is going to work." And, and I think that's the part that, like, just because I have kids doesn't make my life more valuable or busier or, like, that I get to have more time off, right, to do whatever I need to do.
[00:21:50] Like, everybody should be entitled to l- live their life, and I think that's an important part to, to talk about and come up with solutions together versus it just being like, "Well, you gotta go, like, figure it out," right? And so I think that part is, is interest... It's, it's an interesting point, Jen.
[00:22:05] Dr. Anne Welsh: Part... I, I think part of the solution is acknowledging that, like, we can plan way better, right?
[00:22:10] And so when I was writing the book, I got to interview Claudia Goldin, who, amazing, uh, Nobel Prize winner in economics, right? And one of the things we t- And she talks a lot about the motherhood penalty, in particular the pay element of it. But one of the things she and I got to talking about is why are some industries really good at figuring out job sharing and others aren't that absorb it?
[00:22:35] And the example she gives, she gave a couple in medicine, right? So, A, OBs, right? Obstetricians. Nobody sees... Like, there's no one person OB practices anymore. Like, I don't think my actual OB delivered any of my four children, um, because, like, they figure out how to share call, and you, like, get to know all of the OBs in the practice even though you have one you work with, and that's great.
[00:22:57] And then she talked about that with, um, anesthesiologists, right? You can't have, like, each surgeon gets paired with one anesthesiologist. They all have to learn to get... work together and share data and information. There's absolutely no reason that a firm could not operate in a similar way with cases around leaves, right?
[00:23:16] And gradually planning and informing a handoff, letting people- gradually on board on the return of their leave, maybe even be part-time if they wanted to, to ease this exact tension. Because then you're actually staffing the case you have with the bodies that you have, as opposed to some theoretical staffing and pulling people out.
[00:23:37] If we have just a little bit more planning, you can absorb a lot of the stuff that then isn't planned, like a kid's illness.
[00:23:45] Jennifer Ramsey: Yeah. I think the operative word is share. I heard jo- job sharing and, and, you know, healthcare to me is a very sharing is caring type of... Whereas you look at a law firm, and share, that is a hard word for lawyers to, to get on board with.
[00:24:00] And, um, but I agree, 100% agree with you. I, uh, being... I, you, you say planning, and I think, I, I think you use the word intentional and intentionality a lot, and that, I think, I, I love that as a goal for the legal industry. I, I hope we can get there at some point, but it's, it's a challenge.
[00:24:20] Megan Senese: And I, and I don't know, like, I have been having some reflections lately about, like, it's not actually always the lawyers, it's the, like, it's, like, the system of which now they have been trained and operated in.
[00:24:32] Because there are more, like, dad lawyers who are like, "Actually, I wanna take my entire leave, and I'm getting penalized or being, uh, having negative comments sl- you know, slung at me f- because I wanna be home to help take care of my child." And they don't feel like they can take, they can take the leave.
[00:24:49] And so it's because the sy- like, then it comes back to, like, it being systematic, right? And that the system isn't set up to allow them to share, even if they wanted to, right? And I think that's what's been so nice about our... I'm always like, in our new life, but s- now it's kind of old. Um, in our new life is that I keep finding, and we keep finding more lawyers who are like, "Yeah, I want to share, and I want to be kind, and I want to do all of these things, but I'm either stifled or constrained by the big system of which now I have been fed into."
[00:25:20] So now we, we kind of talked about the beginning stages, right? Like, there's a lot of talk about leave, but that's just, like, the f- that's, like, the leave is like, that's been... For me, that's 10 years ago. I haven't, you know, yes, it was a sh- I had a shitty time the first time. I didn't have a shitty time because Jen was my boss.
[00:25:36] But then now, that's, that was 10 years ago. So now what, right? Now we're in the thick of, like, being a working parent and I, I'll get to my question 'cause I, people kept saying when they were infants, like, "Oh, they're gonna need you so much more when they're older." And I remember, like, it's our show, so I can say it.
[00:25:53] I remember being like, "Fuck you." Like, how is this possible? And, and I understand now, right, what that means is there's, like, way more emotional caretaking of feelings and trying to teach responsibility and being a good human and driving them places and, like, all, and, and being accessible that, like, honestly, my- I don't think my, I, I don't know what our life would have looked like if I continued in big law.
[00:26:19] Just the options and availability that we h- our children have now because my husband and I both work from home is Like, I just don't know how other people are making it work. So like, what, what advice do you have for people who are in this like middle chunk now? The time where everyone says that they need you the most.
[00:26:39] Dr. Anne Welsh: Yeah. Well, I will say, you know, I j- I think it's not that they need you more, it's just the need is so different, right? You know, my kids are 10 to 17, and I also lived through a period where they were zero to six, and I can tell you physically, that was way more exhausting than it is now. Like viscerally, I remember how tired I was physically with a preschool in my house.
[00:27:04] Whereas now I can like work for the day and they can kind of manage on their own and, you know, I can trust that they won't burn the house down if I go to the grocery store and things like that. And at the same time, to your point, it's spikier, right? All of the sudden, I have a teenager that is like completely melting down and I have to figure out how to get them to school and get to work or whatever, or an even bigger need, right?
[00:27:29] And two of my kids are neurodiverse and have a bunch of health questions, and so there's just all of this other stuff I'm coordinating. Um, I will say, you know, one is with a little bit of age and seniority, my husband, who is in big law, is actually more able to help in ways that I don't think he felt like he could 15, 20 years ago as a junior associate, and because I think times have kind of changed a little bit, right?
[00:27:56] He was definitely in one of those cases where he had parental leave that he could have taken and was basically told, "Yeah, y- it's there, but you can't actually take more than a few days," right? Whereas I think that's a very different mindset in his firm now. But I think the other part of it is, A, like trying to find community help.
[00:28:15] I can't-- I mean, carpool literally saves my life on a regular basis with two working parents. And I think the other thing is it's figuring out what's important to us as a family and to me. I think in those very early years, you're in survival mode literally, right? Like you-- to the end of the day and everybody is alive and you've done your job.
[00:28:33] Like that is you know, especially in those very early days. And then you, you kinda, I think you're told like, "Oh-" You'll get, you'll get your kid through the daycare years and to public school and it'll be easier. And it's like, again, yes and no, 'cause the logistics are now harder, and so you have to figure out, am I gonna h- get help?
[00:28:54] Am I gonna, you know, get a driver? Like, that's essentially what my parents did. We had a babysitter until I was 16 because that person drove us to all of our lessons 'cause both my parents worked full-time. She was really just a driver in those little later years, but that was how they hired support. Great.
[00:29:09] Or am I gonna figure out a different solution? But it, it's kind of like it's always a moving target. So what works for me and my family and my kids right now in this season, and none of that means I have to declare myself un- un- unambitious. It just means I'm kind of taking stock at each of these moments and, and deciding what works for me here.
[00:29:29] And I think that's another place where, again, organizations really are missing out on ways that they could support, because I see a lot of organizations that maybe have very good leave policies for America and give you even, you know, four to six months, but then the support is gone after that. What I find is that's actually when people need more ongoing support around this identity and around these questions of how is this gonna work for me and my family right now, and how do I negotiate boundaries with this partner that feels like I'm not allowed to have any, and how do I negotiate the invisible labor at home with my spouse, and how do I address these bigger picture questions that haven't gone away now that I have a little bit of cognitive bandwidth to actually address them, and maybe my career is at a point where I'm wanting to push or it's skyrocketing or I'm up for partner or whatever it is
[00:30:22] Megan Senese: That comes up quite a bit, that the majority of our client base, they are up for partner when they have pretty young, young children, or they want to have children.
[00:30:32] It's, like, all kind of at the same time, depending on what, what their path is. Something you said earlier about the expectations for... So, like, I, uh, my questions are all gonna be mother-related 'cause I'm like, I just wanna know about, about the expectations of parents or, and mothers particularly in the last 10 years has increased.
[00:30:51] Do you have, like, examples of what you feel like the expectations are that have changed that you, that you've either seen anecdotally or that you've seen through your research?
[00:31:00] Dr. Anne Welsh: Yeah. I mean, I, so just one, like, even a little bit prior example. So my sister is 10 years older than me, so her kids are now in their 20s.
[00:31:09] So she had her kids in the very late '90s, early 2000s, and I had my kids about 10 years later. And even watching the difference between what she was expected to do as a parent versus what I felt like I was expected to do was, like, night and day, right? Like, she was sent home with a bazillion formula samples and was kind of like, "Whatever you wanna do, Mom, A-okay."
[00:31:30] She n- you know, she nursed for the time that she was home, and then she was a teacher. She was like, "I don't really wanna deal with pumping, so I'm just gonna switch to formula feeding." And everybody was like, "Hooray, you're doing a wonderful job as a working mom." I was told in the hospital that, like, "You, we won't give you samples.
[00:31:47] Form," you know, it was like, "Formula might be killing your child," right? Like, I mean, they said hor- horrible, very scarring things that made me feel like such a failure if I didn't breastfeed only and pump to get to a year. And then I went back to work, and I could not keep up with my supply, and it gutted me, and I just felt so horribly guilty.
[00:32:07] And so this is just, like, one thing, but I think we're seeing that across the board. And again, to this kind of bifurcation of American society, I think we're seeing a s- resurgence of the daycare's bad for kids stuff, and, and you have to, you know, be this perfectly, now there's all the, like, you have to be perfectly emotionally regulated all the time, or your kid's gonna be in therapy for the rest of your life.
[00:32:28] I mean, I already assumed my children would be at the therapist, but right? There's just so much pressure.
[00:32:33] Megan Senese: Yeah
[00:32:34] Dr. Anne Welsh: And then you layer social media on top of that. Mm. And even if we cognitively are intelligent enough to know that I'm scrolling Instagram, this is a very curated snapshot of a million different people, our brains process it all as this is all one person who has the clean house, and the bento box lunch boxes, and breastfed until their children were exactly, I don't know what the perfect number is, 1.3 year.
[00:33:02] If it's too long, it's bad, too. Yeah. And, you know, and she, her body went back to pre-baby in- instantly, and she's amazingly dressed, and her children are amazingly dressed, and that's what I'm supposed to do, and if I'm not doing that, I'm failing. And again, cognitively we know that, but emotionally, that's still hitting- Mm-hmm
[00:33:19] behind the scenes.
[00:33:20] Jennifer Ramsey: Mm.
[00:33:21] Dr. Anne Welsh: Then you layer on COVID on top of all of this, that, you know, a lot of people who have kids right now had kids during COVID or were dealing with that, and that's really changed everything as well. Yeah. It's all of these factors that have kinda layered on to make it s- the, the pressure is so much worse than it used to be.
[00:33:40] Megan Senese: Yeah. I mean, my mom tells me this all the time. She's like, "It was not like this." And my mom has five. There's five of us, all girls, and she's like, "I didn't... Like, it's way harder for you than it was for me." And I mean, the running joke with me and my mom friends is, like, we have apologized to our children for our behavior more times in their 10 years of life than my parents have ever apologized to, for their behavior in my entire life.
[00:34:04] Like, right? Because we're all like, "I'm trying to be good inside. I'm trying to be emotionally regulated. Mommy needs a break," and da, da, da, da, da, da, da. You know, all the thi- all of the, all of it. It's, it's a lot. It's a lot, and then you, it translates over into... Then that's just before you even get to work.
[00:34:19] Dr. Anne Welsh: Right, and that's- Yeah ... so that's the other side, right, is that it's great that we can work from home, and that has eroded any sense of boundaries with work. Um, like, my, so my, my father-in-law is also an attorney, and you know, I remember when I first was dating my husband, like, he'd come home with his, like, brief- like, the briefs in the briefcase.
[00:34:37] That's how he would work. But, like, he, even he as a partner could, like, put that away, whereas now, like, our phones are an appendage. And so it could be 2:00 in the morning and you can get a message from a partner, and then maybe they're expecting a response even though it's 2:00 in the morning. And, like, that's also crazy.
[00:34:54] Flexibility has to also include some degree of boundaries, um, otherwise it's gonna make us all crazy.
[00:35:00] Megan Senese: You have to be firm in your, in your boundaries, and I think that's the thing that I, I'm, I'm very firm with boundaries, and I think that is sometimes a, is a beautiful thing and, and also sometimes a terrible thing.
[00:35:11] But w- you know, the formula was, uh... I got, I got that too, where I was like, "Yeah, I don't really... It doesn't really matter what you say to me. You're not gonna change my mind, and I don't, I don't, I don't really care." In this, again, our new life, I am blessed and privileged that I work less per hour, per day, right?
[00:35:28] I, I work essentially, like, 9:00 to 4:00. And but I work on the weekends, and the kids come home and they see me, so they think I work more. Mommy works all the time, because they physically will come down into the office and see me working. They see me on the working on the weekends. They'll see me-
[00:35:45] Jennifer Ramsey: On your
[00:35:46] Megan Senese: phone
[00:35:46] you know, when I'm on my phone at soccer practice. You weren't watching me for the hour and a half practice that I go to four times a week. You were on your phone. You were working. And so I'm like, "Yes, but I'm here," right? Like, you got here. Um, and so that part, you know, shows up, shows up in, shows up in different ways.
[00:36:03] And I just wanted to make a note of that. There's really no question there.
[00:36:05] Dr. Anne Welsh: But I do s- I think what you're getting at is the, it's, like, the choice, right? Yeah. And so I know that I, as an entrepreneur now, am working harder than I think I ever have- Mm. Mm-hmm ... maybe since, like, grad school, um, particularly in this season, but I'm choosing to do it, and I- there's an awareness of that autonomy on repeat.
[00:36:25] And again, parent or not parent, autonomy at work increases our sense of wellbeing, period.
[00:36:30] Jennifer Ramsey: Yes.
[00:36:31] Dr. Anne Welsh: And I think that's one of the problems in big law a lot is there is zero autonomy.
[00:36:37] Jennifer Ramsey: Autonomy, right. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I could work all the time now, just because I love, I love being our own boss. And it doesn't, you know, whe- but whether I have children or not, I'm like, this is...
[00:36:48] It's actually like it's become my, my child.
[00:36:50] Megan Senese: Right? It is our baby.
[00:36:51] Jennifer Ramsey: You know? Yeah. This is our baby. We, we birthed this thing. Yeah. So- 100%.
[00:36:55] Megan Senese: Sh- and she, she's, she cr- is she cranky sometimes? And she...
[00:37:00] Jennifer Ramsey: Yeah, she could be a little, you know what?
[00:37:03] Megan Senese: But that's the thing. That, that's, that's being a parent, where I'm like, it is equally shitty as it is amazing.
[00:37:07] Yeah. That is parenthood. What, what is one thing that you want people to, to walk away with e- today, either today's conversation or perusing through your book? What's one thing, Mom, Dad, non- non-parent lawyer, non-lawyer, what do you want them to know?
[00:37:24] Dr. Anne Welsh: You know, it's funny. I, uh, I get to, got to the conclusion, and I kinda asked myself that question.
[00:37:29] And as I wrote the conclusion as the, of the book as just a letter to the reader, and I realized at the heart of the whole thing is the idea that I wanted to remind people that they matter, right? So often we try to remove ourselves from our own lives and feel like that's the thing that's gonna make it easier.
[00:37:49] If I just don't have any needs or wants or desires, and I take care of everybody else, and I follow all the rules, I will be happy. And more often than not, you get the thing and you're still not happy. You make partner and you're like, "Is that all?" And that's when they start asking the question, and it's because we forgot that we matter, right?
[00:38:08] And so yes, your kids matter, yes, your job matters, but you matter, too. And asking, pausing to ask yourself, "What do I want and what makes me happy? What brings me joy on a small, micro level or on a big, giant level?" is so incredibly important. You might not be able to get it instantly or right away, but then you can start back to the five-minute steps.
[00:38:32] You can start taking those micro steps to get it. But you can't do that if you don't name it, and so we first have to just ask ourself that question. A lot of times it's a whisper, right? It might be a little sentence that bubbles up when you're walking your dog, but you can start then to be curious and kind of exercise that muscle again until you can name it
[00:38:53] Jennifer Ramsey: Oh, I love that.
[00:38:55] I just got the chills. I always, when, when I teach yoga, I always, when we start in child's pose, which is centering and grounding and coming into a state of presence, it's like, what is your body whispering to you right now? Because that, it's, it's a time when you can actually listen. And, and speaking of what makes us joyful and happy, I have to ask you, because Peloton makes me so happy, I have to ask you about the forward by none other than my favorite Peloton instructor, Robin Arzon, who is just...
[00:39:26] She's, she is... I think we told you this, Anne, when you, when you joined us at the beginning. I, I... We give her credit for the, the start of our business because it was one fateful Peloton ride that I took with her when she's like, "Why not you? Why not now? You are the CEO of your own life." And I, I was like, "Oh my God.
[00:39:45] Yes, I'm quitting my job."
[00:39:48] Megan Senese: And then Jen's like, "Wanna come?"
[00:39:50] Jennifer Ramsey: Yeah, like, "Join, join me, won't you?" So, so can you just tell... Can you just, like, let us fan girl over that and tell us how that amazingness came to be for you?
[00:40:00] Dr. Anne Welsh: Yeah. It was, um, one of those things where I look back and I'm still like, wow, that was crazy that she said yes.
[00:40:06] It was funny, I was talking to my husband about trying to ask someone to write the forward and brainstorming people, and he... We've had a Peloton, um, for years. Got one during COVID. He has, like, totally fallen in love with the biking. He does, like, crazy, like, 200 mile races. I am more on the strength side of things.
[00:40:24] Um, but he was like, "You..." Jokingly said, "Oh, you should ask Robin." I was like, "She'd be amazing." And then I was talking to my own, my writing coach, and she was like, "Why don't you email her? Like, what's the worst that can happen?" Right?
[00:40:38] Jennifer Ramsey: Right. Right.
[00:40:39] Dr. Anne Welsh: So I did. I em- I was like, okay, well she doesn't have a public email address, but I emailed her, like, COO press person and was like, "Hey, writing a book.
[00:40:49] I think Robin would be great for the forward. Let me know." Um, and, you know, basically just asked coldly, and I heard nothing for two weeks and I was like, okay, she, she just ignored it. And then I hear back, "Hey, Robin's actually interested in this. What do you... Like, let, let me know how the details work." And so we went back and forth a little bit, and she didn't have the time to write it, so we traded voicemails essentially back and forth.
[00:41:13] So I still have, like, Robin's voice in my phone, which is just like the coolest thing. Oh my God. Uh, she essentially dictated it to me, and then I wrote what she said, um, and then sent it to her so she could read it and approve it and, um Yeah. So that's my... And now I ride with, like literally only ride with her on Sundays as like my grounding as I've been working on this book to remind me of like her and like what you can do- Yes
[00:41:38] and kind of the power, um, and, and also that she said yes, right? That like crazy good things can happen if you, you reach on that.
[00:41:45] Megan Senese: That's BD right there. Big shot, like taking a big risk, and what's the worst that happen? They don't answer you, and so you're back to where you started. Whatever, right? Or the best thing that could happen is if they say yes.
[00:41:57] Jennifer Ramsey: Yeah.
[00:41:58] Dr. Anne Welsh: My, my dream is that she'll like take me up on the offer of doing an ambitious mother ride, but- ... she has, she has not said yes to that. I've asked a few times. So, you know, I'll just try to manifest it by putting it out here. Oh,
[00:42:10] Jennifer Ramsey: for sure. Manifest it.
[00:42:11] Megan Senese: We're putting it out there. This was amazing. Thank, thank you for, for coming back and, and, and sharing with us- Thank you
[00:42:18] and being in our circle and being in our orbit and, and putting out such just like an inspirational book that people, that... and a practical, sounds like. We haven't, I haven't read it yet. Um, but we're excited to, to help be part of, you know, communicating about the book and sharing about the book.
[00:42:34] Jennifer Ramsey: We're your wing women.
[00:42:35] Dr. Anne Welsh: Well, and thank, thank you for having me on in the very early days and bringing me back. Um, it's just such a delight to sit and chat with you guys for an hour. Like I said, this is the part of marketing that I could do all day.
[00:42:50] Megan Senese: This episode is brought to you by Lateral Hub. Lateral Hub is the premier job board for top, large, midsize, and boutique law firms. Over seventy-five firms use their flat-fee membership to promote job openings for laterals and judicial clerks as a transparent, targeted, affordable alternative to headhunters or LinkedIn.No hassle, no placement fees. If you are hiring in 2026, don't recruit like it's the Stone Age. Lateral hiring, welcome to modern times