Feb 11 2022
Episode 6 - Pandemic Parenting
At the start of the pandemic, especially during the quarantine phase, we all saw the constant posts on social media about all of the free time people had for new hobbies, exercising, cleaning, and random projects. But those individuals trying to juggle being an all of a sudden 24/7 parent and young professional with a career often felt like they were drowning in an environment of constant kids and work.
Fast forward two years or so and things may be normalizing for many people, but young professionals with children are still having to live in their ongoing covid-induced purgatory of career stress, parenting and childcare.
The pandemic has drastically changed the way the legal world works, but it’s also radically altered the way young attorneys with children make their way through balancing their careers and family life. Constant childcare closures, adapting to evolving health and safety parameters, family health concerns, court closures, virtual court appearances, and the never-ending string of surprises that having a young child entail, have all combined to make it a challenging time to be a young legal professional and parent.
The pandemic offers a crossroads opportunity: Firms can take what they’ve learned from the COVID-19 work experience and adjust practices to accommodate working mothers, or they can revert to the status quo that continues to threaten retention rates and their bottom lines.
In this episode of Show Cause, our guest is Sarah Stuart, an associate at the Memphis firm of Burch, Porter and Johnson, and the mother of an 18-month-old little girl.
She’s a 2016 Memphis Law graduate, and prior to joining Burch Porter in August of 2018, she served as a law clerk to both the Honorable Bernice B. Donald and the Honorable Sheri Lipman. She and her husband Reed found out they were pregnant at the very beginning of the pandemic and with the majority of their family residing out-of-town, have since braved the world of pandemic parenting as best they could, with a bit of luck, help, and stretching the limits of patience.
Take a listen and learn more about what it’s like to be a parent and young attorney in these trying times. And what lessons can be learned from it going forward.