If there’s one lesson that we learned from the Kavanaugh nomination, it’s that once a nominee for the Supreme Court has been announced, nothing is off-limits. They’re immediately enveloped in a crush of partisan media seeking to comb their private and public life for anything, anything to use against them.

So when Trump’s latest Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett stepped onto the front porch of her Indiana home with her family to leave for Washington DC, cameras captured the last moment of family serenity before the trial by fire that she’s about to endure.

Watch:

NEW: Judge Amy Coney Barrett and her large family left their Indiana home this afternoon dressed up for a special occasion. Our @GaryGrumbach on the scene for us. Announcement at 5pm at WH for Supreme Court nomination. pic.twitter.com/A4yVNo7jgE

— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) September 26, 2020

Barrett looks determined but already under pressure as their old lives fade away. Cameras in the street will be something the judge will have to get used to.

I feel for the family – remember what Brett Kavanaugh’s wife and daughters were subjected to?

I also feel an enormous admiration for Judge Barrett and her willingness to serve despite the toll it will take on her personal life. As evidenced by her nomination remarks, family is everything to her:

The president has asked me to become the ninth justice, and as it happens I am used to being in a group of nine — my family. Our family includes me; my husband, Jesse; Emma; Vivian; Tess; John Peter; Liam; Juliet; and Benjamin. Vivian and John Peter, as the president said, were born in Haiti, and they came to us five years apart, when they were very young. And the most revealing fact about Benjamin, our youngest, is that his brothers and sisters unreservedly identity him as their favorite sibling.

Our children obviously make our life very full. While I am a judge, I’m better known back home as a room parent, car pool driver and birthday party planner. When schools went remote last spring, I tried on another hat. Jesse and I became co-principals of the Barrett e-learning academy. And yes, the list of enrolled students was a very long one. Our children are my greatest joy, even though they deprive me of any reasonable amount of sleep.

Our prayers are with the Barett family.

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