Can any of us be Clare Huxtable?

When I was a little girl, I always imagined that my life would turn out like Clare Huxtable's on The Cosby Show. I'd be a successful lawyer, with a great husband, five (well, maybe 2 or 3) kids, a nice home and a deliriously happy life. Well, I'm a lawyer, and from what I can tell, having the husband, kids, home and life on top of that is a lot harder than it looks. How can an associate fit it all in? Eleven to twelve hour days spent commuting and working leave little time for meals, let alone being there for Cliff or little Rudy. Sure, most lawyers try to fit it all in. They have stay-at-home spouses, or better still, for those multi-career driven couples, a round-the-clock nanny. You can hire just about everyone -- from the nanny, to the housekeeper, to the personal shopper, to the gardener (who, if you're anything like Gabrielle on Desperate Housewives, can also perform other more interesting tasks). To me, this begs the question, if you hire out all the non-career aspects of your life, is the life actually yours anymore?

I grew up in an era where women talked of shattering the glass ceiling of corporate America and having it all. My peers and I believed it was possible and, in fact, inevitable for us. Then, once we hit our mid-twenties, one by one we started to question the inevitability of having it all. I know one very successful female associate who has chosen not to date or pursue marriage and family for the foreseeable future, because she needs to fully focus on creating her niche at the firm. I know several former associates who have "put their time in," and quit their firms to start a family or pursue a less stressful vocation. Mainly though, most of my associate cohorts are somewhere in limbo -- holding out as long as they can in the hopes that they will actually be the ones to have it all, or at least until they can decide whether to work or to live. The problem is that the damn limbo pole keeps getting lower, and I, for one, have never had a good sense of balance.