IN HONOR OF MOTHER’S DAY
ON BEING AN OUTSIDER
C elebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who often held festivals in honor of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele. As traditions have shifted toward more modern celebrations surrounding this holiday, family members will often try to find meaningful ways to show their mothers love and appreciation. To that end, what better way to demonstrate my appreciation of my own mom than by featuring her here in the newsletter? My mom was a pioneer in her time, serving as one of the very first nursing professors in the country. Nowadays, nursing is treated as a serious profession and generally given the respect it deserves. However, this was not the case in the 1960s when my mom tried to become a nursing professor. There simply were no doctoral-level nursing programs at the time. So, my mom did the next best thing and received a double Ph.D. in other areas (political science and social psychiatry). As a result, she also founded the graduate nursing program at UCLA, giving future students with similar dreams the option to achieve them with much more ease. I believe contemporary beliefs about women’s roles in the workforce stem partly from pioneers like my mother. Whenever I’m asked to describe her, I say she was either cutting-edge or an outsider among outsiders. Regardless of which description is more accurate, I think I ended up inheriting both character traits.
younger years. I grew up in the town of Winona, Minnesota, and I was an avid bagpipe player. Of course, since Winona was so small (with a population of 25,000), I was the only bagpiper in the area. But that wasn’t enough for me. I needed to honor my step-dad’s Irish heritage by wearing a kilt, and since the saffron color has deep roots in Irish tradition, I walked around all summer wearing an orange one (instead of the tartan-plaid pattern most people think of bagpipers wearing). Ever since my early bagpiping days, I’ve continued to push the envelope. One of my most recent examples of doing so occurred when I decided to experiment with the idea of making my law firm completely virtual. I got rid of all my office furniture, all my desktop computers, and our huge, granite, conference- room table. I decided to embrace the advantages of technology and undertake all client meetings and interactions electronically. In the end, I only had two clients who loved the change, while everyone else preferred that I revert back to in-person meetings so they could talk to me face to face. Ironically, I had to move back into my original office and buy new conference tables and furniture to fill it. While I will always follow in my mom’s footsteps to be both cutting-edge and an outsider, with this particular technological venture, I learned a great lesson: While technological innovations are helpful, many people desire a human connection. As your lawyer, I’m happy to fulfill that role.
I’ve always considered myself to be an outsider, too, and the best example I can think of to corroborate that belief comes from my
–Paul Deloughery, Esq.
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