This year I'm facing the job market in the midst of motherhood. I have a 2-year-old throwing peas (along with spectacular tantrums) at my feet and a new baby due in October, the same month that the Modern Language Association's job list comes out. Whichever one arrives first may have a lot to say about my career plans.
Having left a tenure-track job in English at a big university in Kansas, I am now living in Pennsylvania where my husband, Tom, also an academic, is starting a new job (my dream job, actually) at a small liberal-arts college. I have been told that adjunct work abounds in the Philadelphia area, and may even be possible at Tom's college, where we live on campus. How convenient, but is it what I want? Can I even afford that question?
I had gotten my last job concurrently with my spouse -- dual tenure-track lines right out of graduate school. We were lucky -- very lucky. We loved our department, our colleagues, the cost of living in Kansas, the quirky town meetings on cable television. We needed to get "home," however.
All of our family lived on the East Coast, and since the birth of our first child, we felt very far away, indeed. We also wanted another child (I hadn't taken any time off with my son and was apparently too exhausted to think straight). We decided to move on one job -- Tom's -- while I looked forward to a labor of a different kind. That would give me a year, or at least the fall, to settle into a new location, raise a toddler and an infant, and look for a "remunerative job" that is both "stimulating and challenging" (to quote Margaret Atwood). I could also construct an intricate window garden, attend art classes, volunteer at local service agencies, and read all those books I never had time to read while I was working. Also, I am thinking about becoming a Quaker, though I'm not sure what kind of time commitment that would require.
So here I am, seven months pregnant, having traded my prairie home for a second-floor rental on a campus I don't work for. On one side of my apartment, I admire the pastoral setting of the college, its duck pond and rolling greens. On the other side, I hear the roar of traffic from a busy commercial strip. I am currently sans baby-sitter trying to unpack books that I wonder if I should have moved in the first place. I rifle through files of coursework and teaching materials trying to decide if they should be placed prominently in my study or stored in the garage. My son "helps" by piling them in the bathtub.
Meanwhile, I put my new address on my CV. It occurs to me, should I have a résumé, too? Should I be thinking outside the box (or college gates, in my case)?
Having spent the last four years researching, publishing, teaching, gaining experience in my field, I'm not in a terrible position for "the job," another tenure-track line. I am not oblivious to the odds, however. I am now limiting my search by region; my "book" is still in progress; my area, 20th-century American literature, is saturated with accomplished Ph.D.'s.
There's also the lure of money. The Philadelphia area, where we now live, is dense with money. Having grown up middle class in Connecticut, I am slow to envy the rich. But everything costs more here ... and there's so much more to buy.
In Kansas, we craved organic whole foods, creative wooden toys, a really good bookstore. Now that we're surrounded by gourmet and specialty stores, we can no longer afford to shop in them. (I'm pretty sure Dante mentioned this torture.)
I decide to make a résumé for a nonacademic (i.e. better-paying) job, too. This will thrust me into competition with thousands who have lost work in a bad economy, and for what kind of position, I am not even sure. Still, I am inspired by the rush and noise of the street -- there must be important things going on out there. Perhaps I can be a part of them?
Before graduate school I was an editor for the general-trade division of a large publisher in New York City. Editing had its rewards, although money certainly wasn't one of them. Still, I imagine ways I could merge the skills I gained working with authors and agents with those I acquired teaching and writing. Philadelphia, I'm discovering, loves the arts and so do I. There are foundations and institutes, museums and media corporations, nonprofit and for-profit groups.
My research and interests in English often include visual mediums. I've taught film courses and studied art and photography as it relates to various cultural topics. I fantasize about bringing these interests together somehow. There is also a proliferation of high-powered private secondary schools in the area. I'm a bit reluctant to teach at the high-school level, since I have virtually no experience, but I wonder what I might offer these schools, as a teacher, scholar, editor, or perhaps even administrator.
I realize I am at a crossroads as I shift my attention back to the bucolic, academic side of my apartment. Will this side take me back, and do I want to go?
My years as a graduate student and then as an assistant professor -- 11 in all -- have been positive and productive. An academic schedule, although demanding and imperfect, can at least be flexible for working mothers. But what does that mean for the "big picture"? Not just for me and my young children, but for the world? What is my contribution?
Facing the birth of another child has made me metaphysical, moody, clichéd. But perhaps this is an opportunity. The right combination of hormones and inspiration, I decide, and I could be doing just about anything in the year 2003.
