Babies on the Brain

I'm reading this great book about babies and academics called Do Babies Matter?.  If you are an academic woman, work at an institution with any sort of women at all who might have families, or advise people with families or others who want to balance babies and academic life, you should check it out.  There was also this article in The Chronicle of Higher Education today, if you want to read that.

Nope, I'm not pregnant, and never will be again, if I can help it.  But I think a lot about my experience of being on the tenure track with two little girls (1 and 3 when I started), and about how this influences my advising graduate students now, and how it shapes my thinking about feminism and family.  I'm also co-writing a book about how to maintain your humanity when you become an academic (my co-author is a former colleague of mine, who happens to be both a scientist and a dude who raised some kids himself when he was coming up through the ranks).  So this stuff is just on my mind.

This is before my second daughter was born, and before the tenure track.  In later pictures I am more desperate and hollow-eyed, but I like this one because it shows how that time was just a zombied movement between the computer monitor and the baby, monitor and the baby, monitor and the baby.

[Misunderstandings about tenure abound, so....  When you're on the "tenure track" that basically means you have about six years to publish a whole bunch of work in academic journals or in books, maybe get some big grants from the federal government, maybe make sure some graduate students you advise graduate, and maintain somewhat decent teaching evaluations.  Essentially, you work your ass off with no guarantees of reward.  Because, in your sixth year, a bunch of people--and I mean dozens of people--evaluate your work.  If they agree your work is deserving, you get tenure, which usually means a pay increase and that you get to stay on at the university until you choose to leave or really, really step in some bad doodoo and are forced out.  If you don't get tenure, you either have to start all over at another university (which is rare) or you have to build a whole different career.  You might have gone to graduate school for ten years to get your degree, have $100,000 in student loans, have put your whole life into your work, etc., but if you don't get tenure, you're out.  The weight of that potential failure is excruciating for many of us.  And yet we are the "lucky" ones because at least we got tenure-track jobs and can make a living wage.  Most academics do not even get a shot at these jobs now.]

The honest truth is that my life was a mess for those first few years of my career.  I had been what's called "contingent" faculty when my kids were born--I was either working as an adjunct or a "lecturer" which means you're mostly paid to teach, rather than do research, and you're often paid very little, overworked, and may or may not have benefits (I luckily did).

My older daughter was also a sick little kid until she was about six years old, and my husband worked full-time as an engineer.  On top of that, my department was going through a majorly traumatic leadership transition and I was riddled with insecurities about my ability to publish academic work--my dissertation was a sad whale of a meandering circus and I had never really learned how to write a journal article.

And I was surrounded by young male engineers all day.  I could write a book about that alone.

Jeez, we look pretty happy here, too.  But on the inside I'm sure I was screaming for help and desperately seeking out Oreos to numb the pain and boredom of raising young children while simultaneously panicking about not getting my work done.

My marriage suffered, for sure.  There were some times where we almost didn't make it.  My health suffered.  I remember going to one conference with the Swine Flu and just thinking to myself:  if I die on this airplane at least I won't have to get up to a podium and present a paper because I feel soooo shitty.  I probably got that whole plane full of people sick, too.  I'm sorry people on the plane.  And I was sick all the time, and overweight, and exhausted.  Also, I ran around campus like my ass was on fire, barely pausing to say hello to people because I was busy.  Ugh.  I feel so sorry for that me, now, and for all of the lovely people who had to deal with me.

I did it, though.  I survived days where me and the kids were so sick we couldn't get out of bed and I had days full of meetings and classes and no family around to help us out and Eric having to go to work anyway, while I cried, feverish and vomity, into the couch while trying to nurse the baby and clean up the toddler's vomit.  I worked Christmas Eves.  I survived helpful but controlling mentors and horrible workplace policies that required me to return to work just weeks after having my second daughter.  I learned how to publish academic papers and present at conferences and put up with condescending, overworked b-holes who held my future in their hands.

Also:  We spent tens of thousands of dollars on childcare.  And that is no exaggeration.

I learned some important lessons, too:  no conference travel, ever, on one of my kids' birthdays.  No working holidays.  Eventually:  no work on weekends, either.  If someone's bullying me about anything, I walk away.  I only do projects with fantastic people who are funny and brilliant and make me love my job and be a better scholar.  Sometimes I work too much if there's a project I feel passionate about.  Other times my family takes precedence.  Mostly my family takes precedence.  I exercise.  I take time for other projects, like this blog.  I try not to scurry anymore.

But above all, I work to make sure life is better for those coming after me.  I created an advising group for women at my former university, because that place was mostly run by men who might have been well intentioned but who practiced bone-headed sexism and insensitivity almost everyday and then wondered why more women weren't succeeding in science and engineering.  I'll probably do that again at this new university, too.

I try not to be bone-headed and insensitive myself.  Sometimes I fail.

When I advise students now I get to know them as well as I can so that I can work with them to figure out how to balance their personal goals with their professional goals.  This doesn't always involve babies or children but it sometimes does and it's part of my job to understand that.  I also try to model this for them by not being a condescending, overworked b-hole myself.

And lately I [radically, I think] refuse to put busy-ness above the things that make life beautiful.  This means that occasionally emails go unanswered for a bit, or I miss a deadline by a few days.  It means I work from home more than I used to because I'm happier and more productive there, and that translates into me being happier and more productive when I am in the office.  I do not vote for public officials who don't take women, and women's rights seriously.  Or gay rights.  Or worker's rights.

I speak up.  I admit when I mess up (which is often) and try to do better.  I always try to do better.

And then I go take a nap.