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[zuzu_]

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/10/2008102401c.htm

Wow. And I was worried about taking my infant to a conference in Denver.

[britmom]

I can see how this works with small babies, but surely it couldn't be done with toddlers? My daughter manages to get herself in enough scrapes as it is, without adding poisonous plants and bears.

[bigdaddyprof]

One of these helps:

http://www.kelty.com/kelty/kids.php?type=11&cat=&id=337&image=446

They used to make one that converted into a stroller, but the center of gravity was too high, IMO, and would have resulted in topples. I used to haul my kids around in one of these all the time till they weren't toddlers anymore. Plus, it's a good workout.

[britmom]

Maybe it's my daughter, but she just wouldn't tolerate being strapped into anything for any length of time. She needs to be free to run around and try to kill herself in as many ways as possible.

[macaroon]

My field work is more limited, but I've done it with toddlers.

I give them some equipment and some lame job to do.  "Dirt scooper", "Mud poker", "Water pourer", and "Hose holder" go over extremely well, and free up the scientists do their work.

What's tougher, I'm told from colleagues of mine who do more field work, is dealing with older school aged children.  They can't miss too much school.

[inthelab]

Didn't Berute Galdikas, the anthropologist who studied orangutans, have her children while in the field?  In Borneo, I think it was.

[lotsoquestions]

I read the article and was struck by the notion that both of these women must have some alternate source of funds other than their graduate stipends.  Taking two additional people along to watch your baby while you work, and having your husband take extended leave from his own job in order to watch his child doesn't really seem like a very workable suggested strategy for the vast majority of people whose don't have husbands with flexible jobs with lots of leave or money to buy plane tickets for two additional people to accompany them on their field research.
And what about single mothers?

Also, I had the sentiment that while it was lovely for both authors that they had such supportive families that grandma was willing to go along, provide childcare, etc. etc. etc.  I don't know how much that helps the rest of us.  For every success story like this, I'm sure there are dozens of others about women who lost their graduate field work subsidies when they weren't able to find anyone to watch their child while they went off to Borneo to do graduate work, etc.

While these plucky women certainly were able to come up with a lot of resources within their own families to help them work this all out, where does this leave people who are, for exmaple, from working class families where grandma has to work to pay her own mortgage and can't just take off to watch her grandchild?  While i'm sure there's much to admire about these women, I can just picture some department chair somewhere printing out this article to hand out to female graduate students who ask to delay their fellowships for a semester and brandishing it while saying to them "This author managed to work it all out.  Why can't you?" 

[hyfinia]

While these plucky women certainly were able to come up with a lot of resources within their own families to help them work this all out, where does this leave people who are, for exmaple, from working class families where grandma has to work to pay her own mortgage and can't just take off to watch her grandchild?  While i'm sure there's much to admire about these women, I can just picture some department chair somewhere printing out this article to hand out to female graduate students who ask to delay their fellowships for a semester and brandishing it while saying to them "This author managed to work it all out.  Why can't you?" 

I had similar questions.  I usually take my son everywhere I go in a back carrier but as he gets older he is getting more resistant since he wants to run around instead of being on mommy's back all the time. 

I definitely applaud those women for being able to work it out.  But not all mothers are as fortunately to have these support systems.

[terpsichore]

I read the article and was struck by the notion that both of these women must have some alternate source of funds other than their graduate stipends. 

The author who went to the Yukon describes herself as an Assistant Professor, not a graduate student.

Also, I had the sentiment that while it was lovely for both authors that they had such supportive families that grandma was willing to go along, provide childcare, etc. etc. etc.  I don't know how much that helps the rest of us.  For every success story like this, I'm sure there are dozens of others about women who lost their graduate field work subsidies when they weren't able to find anyone to watch their child while they went off to Borneo to do graduate work, etc.

While these plucky women certainly were able to come up with a lot of resources within their own families to help them work this all out, where does this leave people who are, for exmaple, from working class families where grandma has to work to pay her own mortgage and can't just take off to watch her grandchild?  While i'm sure there's much to admire about these women, I can just picture some department chair somewhere printing out this article to hand out to female graduate students who ask to delay their fellowships for a semester and brandishing it while saying to them "This author managed to work it all out.  Why can't you?" 

So what do you suggest? Should they not have gone into the field? Not written about it in the CHE? Should CHE decline to publish their stories because their circumstances are not universal?

[bigdaddyprof]

While these plucky women certainly were able...where does this leave people who... 

And following this complaint to it's hyperbolated conclusion, what about all the cancer these two women didn't cure? What about all the hungry people in the world they didn't bother to feed? What about all the homeless they didn't build houses for while they were out "DataLoggin' With Baby 1-2-3" (TM)?

I agree. CHE articles should only be about panacaea (panaceas, panacaeai-i-i-i).

Oooooor...First Person Columns are just that: individual stories about how people meet individual challenges at work. Or looking for work. Or whatever.

"Plucky" might get a rock hammer embedded in one's skull, depending on how loud one says it, and in what company. And depending on how much the "pluck-ees" have been drinking. And how crabby they are when they come back from the field.

[lotsoquestions]

Here, let me try again -
I think that, like it or not, when a woman or group of women puts an article out there on 'how I managed to make it all work', many other women of all ages will likely read that article looking for generalizable advice.  Maybe not entirely fair to the writers, but it's a pretty typical pattern.  To some degree, that's probably why they publish articles like this.

In a recent novel called 'the ten year nap,' the novelist Meg Wolitzer has a kind of throw-away line she gives to her main character where the woman talks about opening a newspaper like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal and reading yet another profile of a high-powered woman who 'does it all' and in the novel, Wolitzer writes about the character 'wishing there was some kind of key at the bottom of the page' where it would be spelled out more specifically what unusual and nonreplicable advantages the superwoman had that made her success possible.  I worked in a corporation once where there was an unusually successful woman at the upper echelons who was frequently asked to speak to groups of lower-tier women about how she had managed to do it all.  In her case, her secret weapon was a sister who wasn't particularly ambitious who had moved into their home and was more or less filling in as the mother.  If kids got sick at school, it was the sister who picked them up, helped them with their homework, ran the girl scout troop, etc.  Interesting yes -- useful to other women as advice, not really.  Madeline Albright's secret weapon was the fact that her husband was independently wealthy and therefore she had a lot more assistance and childcare help while writing her dissertation than others do.

In the same novel, Wolitzer describes another character who appears to be a very successful director of a museum -- and in the final analysis it turns out that the woman earns a small salary there, the husband gives a large contribution to the museum every year that essentially pays the salary, and by the time you add in childcare, etc.  the woman's family is actually losing money in order for her to appear successful. 

Perhaps that's why I was alert to the fact that for these authors, there was both a combination of unusual, nonreplicable circumstances -- and, some unusual financial calculations.  Actually, I feel a bit bad for the authors -- if taking a fellowship costs the woman candidate twice as much as it costs the male candidate, so that essentially she's paying money rather than being paid to do her research.  I also wonder if it's a feasible, longterm strategy.  Our family is going through some similar calculations right now as we try to figure out how we might handle the logistics if I do some research abroad this summer -- most of the options appear to end up costing more than the fellowship pays (extended summercamp for kids, flying in family members, etc.)  I'm not sure I can 'afford' to take the fellowship, and so I'm surprised when others just assume it's the cost of doing business.  That's all I'm saying . .

[inthelab]

Here, let me try again -
I think that, like it or not, when a woman or group of women puts an article out there on 'how I managed to make it all work', many other women of all ages will likely read that article looking for generalizable advice.  Maybe not entirely fair to the writers, but it's a pretty typical pattern.  To some degree, that's probably why they publish articles like this.

In a recent novel called 'the ten year nap,' the novelist Meg Wolitzer has a kind of throw-away line she gives to her main character where the woman talks about opening a newspaper like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal and reading yet another profile of a high-powered woman who 'does it all' and in the novel, Wolitzer writes about the character 'wishing there was some kind of key at the bottom of the page' where it would be spelled out more specifically what unusual and nonreplicable advantages the superwoman had that made her success possible.  I worked in a corporation once where there was an unusually successful woman at the upper echelons who was frequently asked to speak to groups of lower-tier women about how she had managed to do it all.  In her case, her secret weapon was a sister who wasn't particularly ambitious who had moved into their home and was more or less filling in as the mother.  If kids got sick at school, it was the sister who picked them up, helped them with their homework, ran the girl scout troop, etc.  Interesting yes -- useful to other women as advice, not really.  Madeline Albright's secret weapon was the fact that her husband was independently wealthy and therefore she had a lot more assistance and childcare help while writing her dissertation than others do.

In the same novel, Wolitzer describes another character who appears to be a very successful director of a museum -- and in the final analysis it turns out that the woman earns a small salary there, the husband gives a large contribution to the museum every year that essentially pays the salary, and by the time you add in childcare, etc.  the woman's family is actually losing money in order for her to appear successful. 

Perhaps that's why I was alert to the fact that for these authors, there was both a combination of unusual, nonreplicable circumstances -- and, some unusual financial calculations.  Actually, I feel a bit bad for the authors -- if taking a fellowship costs the woman candidate twice as much as it costs the male candidate, so that essentially she's paying money rather than being paid to do her research.  I also wonder if it's a feasible, longterm strategy.  Our family is going through some similar calculations right now as we try to figure out how we might handle the logistics if I do some research abroad this summer -- most of the options appear to end up costing more than the fellowship pays (extended summercamp for kids, flying in family members, etc.)  I'm not sure I can 'afford' to take the fellowship, and so I'm surprised when others just assume it's the cost of doing business.  That's all I'm saying . .

Thank you for the dose of reality.  I used to get so upset reading about those women in the Times or whatever until I spotted the little bit about the family member functioning as unpaid help, the wealth that allowed Mary Poppins to work for her, etc. 

[renji]

This is, by far, my favorite of the "Catalyst" columns. In the past, I have felt the articles tended to be too whiny and too negative.

This isn't an in-your-face article. It is a piece about successfully balancing parenting and research.

Even under the best circumstances, research is difficult. Throw in primary care responsibilities for a kid or two and research becomes even more difficult.

I enjoyed this article because it demonstrated the difficulties of balancing parenting and research. BUT, it also showed some solutions.

Of course, these solutions do not work for everyone.

However, I have found that the only way I can be a single parent and be even moderately successful at research is to get some help.

Recently, I have started to pay for my mother or my father fly up and watch my kids while I am away for work.

It isn't an ideal situation. They have jobs and busy lives of their own.

I hope every administrator in the U.S. reads this article. I hope they also see that, with a little help, parenting and research are not mutually exclusive.

After all, what would be wrong with NSF/NIH grants (or universities) providing a few extra dollars to help the researcher pay for (or bring along) childcare? If the research is worth funding, the funding should ensure that the researcher has all the support needed to complete the work.

[inthelab]

After all, what would be wrong with NSF/NIH grants (or universities) providing a few extra dollars to help the researcher pay for (or bring along) childcare? If the research is worth funding, the funding should ensure that the researcher has all the support needed to complete the work.

I'm LOL at that.  Sorry, Renji.  Read the terms of what grants cover.  They are not even supposed to cover the entire cost of your research!

[terpsichore]

Here, let me try again -

In a recent novel called 'the ten year nap,' the novelist Meg Wolitzer has a kind of throw-away line she gives to her main character where the woman talks about opening a newspaper like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal and reading yet another profile of a high-powered woman who 'does it all' and in the novel, Wolitzer writes about the character 'wishing there was some kind of key at the bottom of the page' where it would be spelled out more specifically what unusual and nonreplicable advantages the superwoman had that made her success possible. 

Thanks for clarifying. I do understand what you are saying. But  sometimes it seems that articles by or about successful women get a series of responses that dismisses their success as a result of special advantages that aren't available to all. Successful men often (though not always) have special advantages, too: money, or a legacy admission to a good college, or a wife who takes primary responsibility for the children.  It almost never comes up when a man writes an article for CHE, except when he opens the door by talking about being a father or something similar. We take his advantages for granted.