That attitude reflects the tension that often exists between working mothers seeking more flexibility and their colleagues, male and female, who have embraced the model of what sociologists call the “ideal worker”: someone willing to drop everything at a moment’s notice and get to work without being encumbered by family responsibilities.
‘Our model is liberating’
Bryce Arrowood, one of Momentum’s clients, wasn’t thinking of recruiting working mothers when he envisioned his D.C. law practice, Clearspire. He wanted to create an evolved workplace for everyone.
Arrowood and his partner, Mark Cohen, spent two years and $5 million to develop a cutting-edge, Web-enabled, Facebook-like environment. Lawyers work mostly out of Clearspire-provisioned home offices, though they can book one of the handful of rooms at the firm’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue to work or meet with clients. On a recent day, Arrowood was one of three people working in the elegant and spare office. The rest of the nearly 20 employees were working at home.
Clearspire does not do face time or billable hours. Lawyers set their own hours, and they leave landing new clients primarily to the firm’s business staff.
“Our model is liberating, and all kinds of people, not just working mothers, can take advantage of it,” said Arrowood, a father of three who does so himself, along with his wife, Lee, who also works at Clearspire .
For Catherine Guttman-McCabe, 42, a Harvard-trained education lawyer, Clearspire has been revolutionary. She works full-time, fairly regular hours, she said. But, working from her Arlington home, she can take a break when her girls get home from school for a little quality time, “so I’m not just nagging at the end of the day: ‘Is your homework done?’ ‘Have you brushed your teeth?’ ”
On a recent afternoon shortly before 4, the professionally dressed and coiffed Guttman-McCabe made her way up to the corner to meet her daughters at the school-bus stop.
“Mommy!” 8-year-old Abigail shouted as she threw her arms around Guttman-McCabe. As they made their way home, the girls bubbled about their day and, once they were settled in the kitchen, Guttman-McCabe fixed them a snack.
The girls prepared to do their homework and read for the afternoon and Guttman-McCabe to return to her office. Abigail hugged her again. “I was waiting the whole day for it to be the end of the day,” she said, “because I knew that’s when I would see you at the bus stop.”
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