Rockin’ That Mom Life

By ELIZABETH LONGABERGER

The Junior League of Cincinnati is filled with so many women who work, raise a family, care for others, give back to the community and much more. We are thrilled to highlight two of our many members who shared their family and career experiences from the past year.

Back in March 2020, when the world turned upside down from the coronavirus, active member Megan Stacey did not know what to expect. She, like all of us, had no idea that the resulting virtual world would become a state of normalcy for many months to come. Megan and her husband Drew have two children, Emory (7) and Ford (4) with baby number three on the way in 2021. Megan owns and operates her own Real Estate business, The Megan Stacey Group. She has a background in education and immediately applied her skills to her kids being homeschooled. She created daily schedules for the whole family to follow, including a fun activity to look forward to each week. She even had her kids hop in their toy Power Wheels car to “leave” and “come home” from school each day, helping everyone separate school and work times from the rest of daily life.

The real estate industry in Cincinnati never slowed down during the pandemic. Megan and her team have been working around the clock to keep their buyers and sellers happy. In the spring of 2020, her company noticed that a lot of families decided to make a move to the suburbs to give their families more room. They saw a rise in the search for home offices and spaces for homeschooling. They had to utilize “drive-thru” closings and continued to find homes for families who were moving across the country. They moved most of their appointments, whether it was to sell a home or search for a buyer, to Zoom and FaceTime. Some families never even saw the home they purchased. They had to rely on Megan to guide them.

Megan is an extrovert and thrives on interacting with people. Since starting her own business, she has never been able to take time off to enjoy her children, even from when they were first born. Despite the negative circumstances, she has been able to take a step back and realize how incredibly lucky she is to be able to spend this time with her family. She said the last year has been hard from a mental health perspective. She has instituted long walks, paddle tennis, listening to more business podcasts, and picking a new hobby in Needlepoint.

In the past year, all industries have had to change and evolve their way of conducting business, including the legal profession. As a Partner at Reminger Co., LPA, Carrie Starts, found that the legal profession was able to adapt very quickly. They instituted virtual meetings, depositions and court hearings. She was happy to see how “Judges have been amazingly cooperative and understanding and it has truly made a challenging time manageable for working mothers in the legal profession.” Carrie and her husband both work full time and have three young boys: Jace (6), Cole (4) and Cameron (1). Like so many other working mothers, Carrie has tried to find the balance between maintaining her career and homeschooling her children all in the same day. In March 2020, when schools went remote, Jace was in Kindergarten. She adapted her schedule at the time to be able to homeschool Jace in the mornings and then work the rest of the afternoon. She was able to stick to a schedule of dinner and family time in the evening before going back to work at night. She had to put in long hours outside of the normal workday to make up for time missed in the morning. She and her husband also had to rely on each other to share duties for homeschooling. Even though 2020 was a difficult year, Carrie has really embraced the extra time she has been able to spend with her boys including exploring all the parks across Cincinnati for hiking. She will really hold onto that aspect as things start to go back to normal.

In looking back at the year, Carrie is grateful that “In an otherwise adversarial profession, it felt like we were really supporting each other.” Carrie found that so many other people were in the same boat and had to put their family first. It felt like the entire legal profession took a step forward because of it.

Carrie and her family.