next »

[britmom]

I'm mostly venting here, but I'm also interested in knowing whether my experience is shared by others. Any suggestions on how to respond/deal with this would also be very welcome. (Just for context: I'm a women, I have 2 children, I'm in the UK, I've been in my post for 7 years and I work in the Humanities.)

Go back to 1996 - I'm 20 years old and I'm talking to my academic advisor about wanting to go into academia. The very first thing he says: 'Of course, you have to know that it's impossible to have children and do this job. If you're going to do this, you have to be ready to give up that side of your life.' I know that he thought he was being supportive in saying this.

Fast forward over the next 16 years...I've had this piece of advice/discussion with so many academics, including colleagues, that I've lost count. They say such things as "I haven't got a clue how you can manage to do this job and have children. I couldn't do it if I had to stop at 5.30pm/not work at weekends/take vactions." (This has been fairly evenly split between men and women.) They all say that they are supportive of women having children and working in academia, but then express the opinion that our jobs are so all-comsuming that they couldn't manage to do them with children. (When I've had this conversation with 2 female colleagues, they both pointed out that they decided not to have children because they had long concluded that children + academia can't work.)

I find it really hard to respond to these attitudes. I think it's meant to be a compliment, but  there's the implication that, because they couldn't do their jobs properly with children, neither can you.

I know some people face terrible hostility when they have children; I don't want to sound unappreciative of the somewhat more positive culture in which I work. However, I've seen this attitude feed through in to decisions made about individual's careers. Roles that could assist such women in progressing in their career are not given to them because "we thought that it would be too difficult for you, given the demands of your family." I know of 3 instances where this has happened in my department in the last few years. (And there's only 3 women with children here.) There are a few men with children in the department, and this does not seem to have affected them in this way.

I'm in the UK; perhaps this is a product of the fact that women who have children are (supposedly) better protected by employment/equal rights legislation. I feel that such legislation has produced a 'softer' attitude towards female academics having children, but that the culture of believing that having a family = loss of ambition continues to exert a strong hold over those who don't have children. It's just that it's mutated in to the kind of 'supportive' approach that actually makes it harder to challenge.

Right, I'll get off my soap box now.

[britmom]

Just to add that I tried to edit this and tidy it up, but it wouldn't save the changes. Apologies for the not-so-great writing; I hope it still makes sense.

[obprof]

I've seen the same thing (directed at others, not at me). I think it's because some people can't fully see a person as having more than one identity. Someone is either a mother OR an academic. And if you try to do both, you couldn't possibly be any good at either.

I know of two people who had children and didn't tell anyone -- people just assumed they were on research leave (instead of maternity leave).

Things in academia might be better than in the corporate world, but not by much.

[macaroon]

My response is:

"Let me tell you my secret.  Here's my secret - for breakfast, instead of one cereal bowl, I line up three.  Then shake shake shake!"  pantomime dumping cereal into three bowls  "Then pour pour pour!"  pantomime putting milk in the bowls. "And I have to make two trips to the table instead of one, but that's not such a big deal.  And then we have to get our coats on.  So, instead of putting on MY coat, I throw the other two coats on the ground....  For dinner, well, we just make twice as much food.  That's the secret.  Twice as much food."

Everytime someone does this to me, I start with the INANE household tips.  I've got tons.  Ask me about how we get our teeth brushed!  "I line up the toothbrushes and Squirt Squirt Squirt!"  "I have all of our vitamins in line in the cabinet.  So I just open the cabinet and put EVERYONE'S vitamins onto a saucer.  Then I dole them out at the table.  That's how I keep track of vitamins."   Also, "Laundry is easy because the kids have their own hamper.  So we put the clothes in the KIDS hamper."

[theritas]

Just a note of support; I don't actually know how ANYONE with children gets ANYTHING done at all, ever.  I'm barely able to get myself out the door and where I need to be each day.  Hopefully the people expressing this are just sharing their wonder in light of similar limitations.  Maybe you could comment about something they do that you don't manage to fit in... "Yeah, well, as long as I don't have to maintain a garden like yours, I think I've got it covered." or something like that.

[johnr]

My response is:

"Let me tell you my secret.  Here's my secret - for breakfast, instead of one cereal bowl, I line up three.  Then shake shake shake!"  pantomime dumping cereal into three bowls  "Then pour pour pour!"  pantomime putting milk in the bowls. "And I have to make two trips to the table instead of one, but that's not such a big deal.  And then we have to get our coats on.  So, instead of putting on MY coat, I throw the other two coats on the ground....  For dinner, well, we just make twice as much food.  That's the secret.  Twice as much food."

Everytime someone does this to me, I start with the INANE household tips.  I've got tons.  Ask me about how we get our teeth brushed!  "I line up the toothbrushes and Squirt Squirt Squirt!"  "I have all of our vitamins in line in the cabinet.  So I just open the cabinet and put EVERYONE'S vitamins onto a saucer.  Then I dole them out at the table.  That's how I keep track of vitamins."   Also, "Laundry is easy because the kids have their own hamper.  So we put the clothes in the KIDS hamper."

Did I miss something?

[zeus99]

Several of my colleagues with children will not teach or attend meetings before 9 a.m., after 3 p.m., or at night.   So, I think part of the issue is that some (NOT all) parents are given a pass (on teaching night classes for example) while some (NOT all) who are childfree are expected to be work 24/7 as if they don't have non-child related responsibilities or interests outside of work.  Friends in the corporate world tell me that bringing kids to work (this happens a lot where I work), selecting hours you want to work, etc. are generally frowned upon. Maybe the broader discussion should be regarding lack of acknowledgement that most people have lives outside of work. I would suggest that more flexibility for everyone would be desirable and potentially result in higher productivity. Google is a great example of this--they have very high expectations of employees but provide high levels of support for employees as well.

[macaroon]

My response is:

"Let me tell you my secret.  Here's my secret - for breakfast, instead of one cereal bowl, I line up three.  Then shake shake shake!"  pantomime dumping cereal into three bowls  "Then pour pour pour!"  pantomime putting milk in the bowls. "And I have to make two trips to the table instead of one, but that's not such a big deal.  And then we have to get our coats on.  So, instead of putting on MY coat, I throw the other two coats on the ground....  For dinner, well, we just make twice as much food.  That's the secret.  Twice as much food."

Everytime someone does this to me, I start with the INANE household tips.  I've got tons.  Ask me about how we get our teeth brushed!  "I line up the toothbrushes and Squirt Squirt Squirt!"  "I have all of our vitamins in line in the cabinet.  So I just open the cabinet and put EVERYONE'S vitamins onto a saucer.  Then I dole them out at the table.  That's how I keep track of vitamins."   Also, "Laundry is easy because the kids have their own hamper.  So we put the clothes in the KIDS hamper."

Did I miss something?

Not sure what you mean by missing something - my response to the "How you get it all done?!?!"  is to pretend it was NOT a rhetorical question and prattle on with Macaroon's Glaringly Obvious Household Tips, while keeping a straight face.  Here's another one "We put all our shoes in the same place.  So when it's time to put on shoes, all the shoes are right there!  And that's how I do it!"

[larryc]

Macaroon is awesome.

[britmom]

Several of my colleagues with children will not teach or attend meetings before 9 a.m., after 3 p.m., or at night.   So, I think part of the issue is that some (NOT all) parents are given a pass (on teaching night classes for example) while some (NOT all) who are childfree are expected to be work 24/7 as if they don't have non-child related responsibilities or interests outside of work.  Friends in the corporate world tell me that bringing kids to work (this happens a lot where I work), selecting hours you want to work, etc. are generally frowned upon.

This definitely doesn't happen where I work. The only stipulation that I put on working hours is that I have to know when I'll be expected to work late. (I can't just hang around beyond 5pm without notice.) The same is true of my mother-colleagues. We don't get a choice as to when we teach, other than selecting our own 'research day.'

Nobody is ever expected in work before 9am. (Many of my colleagues grumble if they have to be in before 9.30.  I don't care as the kids are in childcare from 7.45am.)

I can think of a few colleagues who have expressed the opinions in my OP, but often roll in to work at 10am having spent a few hours listening to the radio and pottering around. Meanwhile, I've already logged 2 hours of work.

I would never bring my children in to work, nor would anyone I work with. I've never heard of anyone doing that in a UK University. It's just not done here. It might work when they're much older, but certainly not at the moment.

My response is:

"Let me tell you my secret.  Here's my secret - for breakfast, instead of one cereal bowl, I line up three.  Then shake shake shake!"  pantomime dumping cereal into three bowls  "Then pour pour pour!"  pantomime putting milk in the bowls. "And I have to make two trips to the table instead of one, but that's not such a big deal.  And then we have to get our coats on.  So, instead of putting on MY coat, I throw the other two coats on the ground....  For dinner, well, we just make twice as much food.  That's the secret.  Twice as much food."

Everytime someone does this to me, I start with the INANE household tips.  I've got tons.  Ask me about how we get our teeth brushed!  "I line up the toothbrushes and Squirt Squirt Squirt!"  "I have all of our vitamins in line in the cabinet.  So I just open the cabinet and put EVERYONE'S vitamins onto a saucer.  Then I dole them out at the table.  That's how I keep track of vitamins."   Also, "Laundry is easy because the kids have their own hamper.  So we put the clothes in the KIDS hamper."

I love this.

[notaprof]

I am not a prof, as you all know, but my husband got his PhD when we had three small children, I was working full time, he was working almost full time and he was one of only 2 in his cohort who finished within five years. He shared much of the childcare, although not as much of the housework, he had the more flexible schedule so he usually stayed home when the kids were sick, he did the required work time at the nursery school where our kids went etc.  To this day, I think he deserves a gold plated diploma for what he, what all of us, accomplished.   The other person who finished with him, had an invalid spouse who was frequently hospitalized and required time consuming care.  The others, mostly single males, mostly not working, took longer to finish.   The single guys on his program always seemed to be swamped with their studies and complained about the "life things" interfering with their studies.  They thought my husband had it easy because he had a wife to share the work of living - shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry - and they had to do it all by themselves.  

There is a story about a guy complaining to God that the cross he had to bear was too much, he couldn't manage it.  So God took him to the cross warehouse and told him he could pick out another cross, any cross in the warehouse.  After walking through rooms and rooms of large and heavy looking crosses, he spots a small cross over in the corner and he tells God, "That one looks like something I can handle. I'll take that one."  And God says, "Why that's the cross you brought here."

No matter how hard I think my life is, when I compare it to my friend who is holding down an emotionally draining and full time job, caring for two active teenagers, dealing with three dogs (one that needed daily shots) and has an invalid husband for whom she is a full time caregiver.  I am in awe of her and I realize that my life is not that hard.

You do what you have to do.  If you don't have to do as much, you do less and you complain about all you have to do.  If you have more to do, you do more and maybe you don't have the time to complain.  It's pretty well known fact, if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.  If I want something done, I am going to ask Macaroon to do it (x three).

[macaroon]

Macaroon is awesome.

Yeah, well, the brutal truth at my house is that the kids go up to the bedroom after breakfast, then 20 minutes later I hear some yelling like "MOOOOOOM! She keeps farting on my LEGOS!", and I go up to investigate.  One of the kids is nude and the other one has changed into - not her school clothes - but a power rangers costume and the costume is on backwards.  Nobody has brushed their teeth, and one of them has hand lotion in her hair.  

[snowbound]

"Well, I think having kids actually forces me to organize my time more efficiently.  Hey, perhaps without that, I wouldn't have gotten those articles out last semester [responding to the implication that you can't be as productive as questioner because you have a family].  ANd what about male-colleague-with-kids--he's been writing up a storm these last few years.  Has he told you his secret? [Questioner didn't ask male colleague, of course, because fatherhood (unlike motherhood) doesn't raise questions about a scholar's seriousness]"

[johnr]

My response is:

"Let me tell you my secret.  Here's my secret - for breakfast, instead of one cereal bowl, I line up three.  Then shake shake shake!"  pantomime dumping cereal into three bowls  "Then pour pour pour!"  pantomime putting milk in the bowls. "And I have to make two trips to the table instead of one, but that's not such a big deal.  And then we have to get our coats on.  So, instead of putting on MY coat, I throw the other two coats on the ground....  For dinner, well, we just make twice as much food.  That's the secret.  Twice as much food."

Everytime someone does this to me, I start with the INANE household tips.  I've got tons.  Ask me about how we get our teeth brushed!  "I line up the toothbrushes and Squirt Squirt Squirt!"  "I have all of our vitamins in line in the cabinet.  So I just open the cabinet and put EVERYONE'S vitamins onto a saucer.  Then I dole them out at the table.  That's how I keep track of vitamins."   Also, "Laundry is easy because the kids have their own hamper.  So we put the clothes in the KIDS hamper."

I understand now.  The quotes threw me.  I thought you were responding, in the second paragraph, to the first, quoted paragraph.  In other words, that you were venting, in the second paragraph, about some people, quoted in the first paragraph, who insisted on giving you inane household tips.

It's early here on the west coast.

[marigolds]

Macaroon is awesome.

Yeah, well, the brutal truth at my house is that the kids go up to the bedroom after breakfast, then 20 minutes later I hear some yelling like "MOOOOOOM! She keeps farting on my LEGOS!", and I go up to investigate.  One of the kids is nude and the other one has changed into - not her school clothes - but a power rangers costume and the costume is on backwards.  Nobody has brushed their teeth, and one of them has hand lotion in her hair.  

This is how it is with my house, but I only have one. 

So it's even weirder.