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[drspouse]

Currently, mrspouse is one of those extra-mature students (like a fine wine), and has a fair bit of free time, especially when it's conference season - and I've always been a fan of taking holidays where I am already for a conference.

But I'm noticing that apart from spouses in the same field, not many tag along.  What do other forumites do? Arrange a later arrival for the spouse (practical for a distant destination where you'll tack on a week's vacation, not for a couple of days' break not too far away where your spouse just happens to be free anyway)? Take them along but ignore them the whole time? Take them to dinners, even where they will be the only civilian spouse?

Where is Miss Manners when you need her?

[peppergal]

I have several colleagues whose non-academic or academic-but-different-field spouses tag along to conferences.  I've never found it weird when they tag along to dinners and receptions.  I don't know what the spouses do while we're all attending sessions, but I suspect they go do touristy stuff or shop or something.

[lotsoquestions]

I have two kids in high school and this is the first year I've been planning my conference schedule and the kids have said, "Now that is a college I'd be interested in attending.  Can I come along and -- walk around the campus, attend a class, etc. etc. etc.?"  Going to a conference in New England this fall and thinking of taking my fairly independent 16 year old along so that she can visit the university in the town where the conference is.  But I'm wondering the same thing -- How would you feel as colleagues if I brought my 16 year old along to a dinner?  Would you feel like I was inflicting her on you?
I'm a woman academic if that changes the equation (male academic brings a teen along and everyone thinks it's charming, female academic does the same thing and everyone thinks of her as mom?)

[drspouse]

I'm female and I'm not quite sure what people think of mrspouse tagging along, and whether they'd think differently if he was my wife rather than my husband.  Is it stereotyped and sad to drag along the little woman who has nothing better to do, or is it more normal for a wife to have nothing to do than a husband?

In my field there are at least 50% female academics, if not higher, and as I've discovered in the past, female academics tend to have academic, or otherwise professional, employed male partners (of course, so do a fair proportion of male academics, but they are more likely to have partners who do not work or who have non-professional jobs). So perhaps that's why not so many of them bring partners to conferences.

[peppergal]

Just to clarify, the tagalong spouses I have seen (and on some occasions had dinner with) at conferences have been both male and female.  Among my colleagues the gender of the tagalong spouse (or for that matter the gender of the conference attendee) doesn't seem to matter in these situtations.  Your field may be different.

[sine_nomine]

My working non-academic spouse sometimes takes a few days off and tags along to conferences in really cool locations,  does the tourist thing while I'm in the conference, and never wants to participate in social events associated with the conference; basically, we sleep together.

[concordancia]

My partner tags along. For a regional conference, he sat in the lobby playing with his computer for several hours while I did the conference thing. For an international conference, he went out and checked out the town and was the perfect tour guide for my day off.

[monita]

I've brought my spouse to one conference, which was in a town he'd always wanted to visit.  It was lovely having him there, but I ended up skipping out on much more of the conference than I'd planned.  It turned out to be a "vacation with a bit of conference" instead of a "conference with a bit of vacation", so we probably would not do it again.

[mended_drum]

If it makes anyone feel better, I once brought my mother to a conference.  Another, much more prestigious colleague, brought his father, and while we did our conference thing, they enjoyed the beach, the pool, the shopping, and the hotel bar. 

As long as you feel free to present, listen to papers, and network without your guest feeling abandoned, I don't see a problem.

[frogfactory]

I might be in a position to bring my partner to an international conference next year.  I'm certain this won't be a problem with the conference itself, but how does this generally work when it comes to claiming expenses?  For example, we'd have a double room rather than me sharing with another student or having a single.  Do you just claim what a single would have cost?  Half the cost of the double?  How does this usually work?  Obviously I'll check with my department when the time comes, but I'm just asking now to know what to expect.

[_touchedbyanoodle_]

This is something that is going to be specific to everyone's social situations, I think. My institution encourages people to bring their spouses along to conferences and will let them ride the college shuttle to the airport without batting an eye. The spouses busy themselves with touristy things during the day, sometimes forming groups among themselves. And, yes, they go out to dinners with us. It would be weird if a colleague left a spouse behind during the evening.

Frogfactory, if there were any difference in cost to accommodate a partner, my college would only reimburse the cost for what it would have cost for the faculty member to attend solo.

[macaroon]

I might be in a position to bring my partner to an international conference next year.  I'm certain this won't be a problem with the conference itself, but how does this generally work when it comes to claiming expenses?  For example, we'd have a double room rather than me sharing with another student or having a single.  Do you just claim what a single would have cost?  Half the cost of the double?  How does this usually work?  Obviously I'll check with my department when the time comes, but I'm just asking now to know what to expect.

Froggy - ask someone (another student or a postdoc) for advice on how that worked before going to your admins.  I once tried to split the cost of a hotel room with my pocket when I took my family to a conference.  Afterwards, they also tried to make me split the cost of parking my car and split my mileage.  I would have had to transport myself even if I didn't bring the fam (and the drive was less than airfare), so I didn't think that was fair.  After that, I learned that it wasn't worth opening that can of worms. 

[glowdart]

n=1: I regularly see colleagues who have brought their spouses and kids along to our big conferences.  It doesn't bother anyone, so far as I can tell, and it's kind of fun to see the kids grow up over the years. 

[drspouse]

If it makes anyone feel better, I once brought my mother to a conference.  Another, much more prestigious colleague, brought his father, and while we did our conference thing, they enjoyed the beach, the pool, the shopping, and the hotel bar. 

Was there a scandalous sequel to this story? If so, we deserve to be told!

I think my hesitation is really around the mealtimes.  When I was younger and knew very few people on the conference circuit, I was grateful to have someone to eat meals with (but at that time was single, of course), usually ones supervisor would try and introduce one to people but not always, or they were busy.

Now I dislike eating meals alone much less, and I have more colleagues that I know that I can eat meals with, and who either want to bring a large group of their colleagues, or want to talk shop, or both, but then I wonder about tagging mrspouse along to these meals - or about leaving him on his own. And he doesn't like being the only spouse at a large work dinner.

The last conference I was at had a very large group of PhD and postdoc/new faculty who all wanted to eat together in a very large, unwieldy, group, and then sit up drinking for hours. So us middle-aged ladies ran away from them and had dinner without telling them where we were going (mrspouse stayed home that time).

I think I'm going to need to practice that again - only this time running away with mrspouse.

[concordancia]

That's not fair. I am not longer young, new faculty and I never enjoyed large, unwieldy groups, but neither am I middle aged :(