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Balancing parental and professional duties during COVID-19
For many, the burden of running one’s practice while suddenly also having to manage homeschooling will be weighing heavy.
Jerome Doraisamy
With schools shut around the country – or, at least, community uncertainty as to whether it is safe to send one’s children to school – many Australian parents have been homeschooling their children during the global coronavirus pandemic.
For lawyers working full-time, it is a “real problem”, says Resolution123 founder and principal Carly Stebbing.
“Work is typically a full-time job, childcare is certainly a full-time job, teaching is a professional career. The idea parents can manage all three is absurd, we aren’t trained to be teachers and we don’t have time to practice law and care for/teach our kids,” she explained.
“This is putting pressure on parents and relationships; something has to give.”
Lawyers trying to juggle their professional and parenting responsibilities should outsource what they can, Ms Stebbing suggested, and take up whatever childcare and school options they can that are safe and available.
“Consider taking accrued annual leave, to take the pressure off and allow you to concentrate on one job (parenting), consider requesting part-time work and sharing the load with your partner, consider split shifts with your partner – alternating caring responsibilities, if you have been stood down and are receiving the JobKeeper payment you can decline any request to return to work considering your carer’s responsibilities, if you have been with your employer for more than 12 months you can make a formal request for flexible work arrangements to facilitate the options above. Your employer can only reject a request on reasonable business grounds,” she outlined.
Working from home is possible in most circumstances, Ms Stebbing added, “so the BS excuses we have been given in the past for not accommodating this won’t stand up anymore”.
“But we cannot do both jobs at once, we can’t [be a] parent and lawyer at the same time. We need support, we need to plan to do one job or the other, we need affordable and accessible childcare,” she said.
Ultimately, professionals must be open and honest with their employers about such matters, Ms Stebbing advised, and “be realistic about how many hours you can effectively work each day and set budgets, KPIs and objectives accordingly”.
“Unfair and unreasonable pressure to achieve the same outcomes as expected pre-pandemic won’t stand up,” she said.
“Employees and employers need to work together to get through this. Those that do will have stronger relationships and more loyalty moving forward.”
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Jerome Doraisamy
Jerome Doraisamy is the editor of Lawyers Weekly and HR Leader. He has worked at Momentum Media as a journalist on Lawyers Weekly since February 2018, and has served as editor since March 2022. In June 2024, he also assumed the editorship of HR Leader. Jerome is also the author of The Wellness Doctrines book series, an admitted solicitor in NSW, and a board director of the Minds Count Foundation.
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