12.04.07
maybe raising kids IS more important…???
Stealing a quote from another blog that originally quoted this poster, I just felt the need to put something out there in response to a couple of things.
1) The use of the phrase “mommy track.” This bothers me. Since a train cannot be on two tracks at one time, the use of this phrase implies that being a mother is in some way not being something else. But isn’t that obvious? Whenever we choose one thing, we forgo choosing something else. But so often this phrase is about choosing motherhood over choosing career and that is simply not a choice that has to be made. Yes, you may have to settle for being a “good enough” mommy and a “good enough” scholar, but since when has being “good enough” been a bad thing?
2) Maybe raising kids is more important. The poster I alluded to above had this to say about the frustration of non-parent coworkers:
“On my end, as an academic *not* on the mommy track I grow more and more frustrated by my colleagues who are. When deadlines come, or work piles up, it’s my responsibility to stay late and do the work. They’ve got to leave and pick up the kids or go to a play or what have you. And it frustrates me because I can’t say, “Look, I need to go home and read a book on something non-academic, hang out with my boyfriend and play with my cats.” That’s not a valid excuse, while having children is.”
I’m sorry, but I think raising kids IS more important than reading a book for pleasure or hanging out with cats. If you want someone caring, compassionate, diligent, hard-working, ethical and just a decent human being to be running the country, businesses, schools, religious institutions, universities, etc. in the next 20 years then you should respect the amount of hard work that goes into raising children. The above quote seems to think that those who have kids are making an “excuse” to get out of doing work. Let me tell you, my weekdays are a vacation as compared to my weekends. Raising my children is MUCH harder than any other work I have ever done.
3) Putting the kids first. Jessica, in her post says
“While I’m only an n of 1, I don’t think that I have ever, in the last eight years, begged off of something because I was a mom. Quite the contrary, I was sure not to, so as not to perpetuate this stereotype.”
Again, only an n of 1, but I absolutely have begged off something because I’m a mom. When my son was in the hospital shortly after his first birthday, I couldn’t think about anything else but him so I requested to turn in a take-home final a week late. At my previous university, a group project team needed to meet during the day because I lived on the other side of the city and would have to bring my son with me if we met late. While I don’t want to perpetuate a stereotype, I don’t think the harm of the stereotype comes from the realities of everyday life with unpredictable children, but from the negative reactions of others who seem to forget that they would have wanted their moms by their side as they lay in the hospital.
I guess I say all this to say that I think raising kids is the MOST important thing out there, not just for me, but for society as well. Many, if not most, of our social ills reflect the inability, for many reasons reasons both personal and structural, of parents to put their kids first. So those who don’t have children should be applauding us who 1) do and 2) put them first for caring so much about the future generations.
Edit: I agree that the original poster did not say that having children was less important than any of the other reasons one might want to not do certain work. I also agree that my examples in #3 are not examples of pushing work on others due to needing to care for my children. But I do think there needs to be an acknowledgment that all the things one might want to do instead of doing work are not equal and shouldn’t be treated as such. I also think a fear of not perpetuating stereotypes should not prevent or shame us from doing those things that are important to us for our kids and families. When people feel pressured to do so, it just makes me sad 
Edit #2: abarian makes a good point in the comments that the comparison speaks to everyone deserving a life outside of work, whether you have kids or not. I absolutely agree. I hope that in my exuberance and passion in writing my post I did not appear to be saying otherwise.
Tangentially related: In a past life, I was an investment banker. We all desperately craved a life outside of work, and I didn’t get one until I changed careers. One reason I did was because I knew I wanted to have children and a successful career. Almost everyone woman who had a child before they turned 30 accepted a pay and promotion freeze (not a slow-down, but a lack of movement) in order to have things like working from home one day a week.
abarian said,
December 4, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Regarding point #2: I’m not certain that the point was that sitting at home and reading a book is more important than raising children. I think the point was that raising children is not the only reason on Earth that someone might have to beg off of extra work responsibilities.
gradmommy said,
December 4, 2007 at 2:52 pm
True, not as or more important. so why make the comparison? and i guess the point is to whom the criticism is being made – the parent or the employer that allows one “excuse” but not another?
abarian said,
December 4, 2007 at 9:45 pm
I think the comparison speaks to the larger issue of “having a life” outside your job, which I think we all deserve to have, kids or not.
olderwoman said,
December 4, 2007 at 10:27 pm
I agree with Angela, especially since I know some of what she is talking about. I’ve tried to write a response here about seven times, because it is very hard in writing to come across as being as sympathetic and empathic about the stress you are under as I really feel and at the same time let you see that anything that tells another person that their life is not important will feel hurtful to them.
As a rule, almost any one-time accommodation for a child-related problem will receive a positive reaction from most people unless they are real jerks. The examples you gave in your post are the kinds of things that are perfectly reasonable to ask of other people and almost everyone thinks this is just fine. It’s like meeting where there are no stairs for someone in a wheelchair.
But if over and over you repeatedly expect that someone else will take up the slack for you in a job or take the undesirable option so you don’t have to, that person will become resentful, and with justice. I’m not saying you have done this, I’m saying this is the kind of thing Angela is complaining about. The more you ask someone to help you out, the more you owe them at least gratitude and whenever possible reciprocity — doing something for them. Not on a payment-like basis, but in the open-ended exchange of favors that constitutes a social relation. If there is one undesirable option you just can’t do because of child care schedules, then you look for ways to pick up some other undesirable job you can do, or some other way to acknowledge the other person’s desires.
For another thing, always remember that some women really want children and can not have them, that the women who don’t want children have taken a lot of grief for that, and that you cannot always tell who is who from how they talk. That’s why talking about motherhood being more important can be so hurtful to other women.
If you have not already done so, my advice is to talk to your advisor about the ways to focus and pace your grad school efforts to keep what you need to do going without being overburdened with too much right now. With the two babies, the worst is going to be the next year or two.
Finally, all the sane people stress the importance of making time to relax. I did not do this and it was a mistake. You end up working better if you build in some way to be away from work and babies for at least a little while every week. (And of course your spouse would need that too.)
gradmommy said,
December 4, 2007 at 11:13 pm
I regret that my original post was taken to be hurtful, as that was definitely not my intention. For that, I am sorry. I recognize that I am incredibly lucky in many ways, one being having two amazing children. When my kids are stressing me out, I always think about how lucky I am to have been able to give birth. So, if I offended anyone with my words, I am truly very sorry.
I was only trying to express my own frustration when I hear people who do not have kids say that wanting to go home and read a book is comparable to needing to pick up children. I used to not have children and also work and I don’t remember begrudging people who had family responsibilities. I understood because one day I could imagine myself in their position and wouldn’t want anyone to begrudge me.
That being said, I believe a lot in your original post about choices and consequences. I struggle daily with feelings of being an incompetent mother (comparing myself to the SAHMs that surround me) and an incompetent student/scholar (comparing myself to my cohort where no one is married or has any kids.) Because I believe so much that my having kids is a consequence I must take total responsibility for, I don’t ask for help unless it’s absolutely necessary and I make sure that the work I do is up to par with the standards of my department. I also strive to spend real quality time with my kids every day. What ends up happening is that between the roles of mommy and student I end up losing the role of ME.
So ironically, we are all struggling to maintain balance between the roles placed upon us (which we chose) and the ability to just be ME, doing whatever ME wants to do, not has to do. But I feel like those of us who are parents are expected to supplant ME with parent and nobody cares that ME is not around anymore because I made the choice to be a parent in addition to my other roles.
So, maybe I don’t mean to say that motherhood is more important (which I know is what I did actually say), but that while non-parents can be WORKERS and a multitude of other roles (readers, cat-entertainers, etc) that express their ME role, parents are expected to lose ME and replace it with mommy or daddy. I guess my point is that mommy/daddy is so different from reader/cat-entertainer that they should not be compared equally as “having a life outside of work.”
I shouldn’t have made that a judgment of better/worse or more important/less important. That is indicative of a serious lack of judgment on my part along with some true feelings of anger, frustration, and sleep-deprivation all while trying to maintain a sense of peace. Again, I’m sorry.
olderwoman said,
December 5, 2007 at 7:03 am
Hey, Gradmommy, I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad, and that’s why it was so hard to write. I was trying to explain why someone could say something that seems to be dismissive of your stresses and how not remembering other people’s stresses can lead to unnecessary misunderstandings and hard feelings. I know exactly where you are coming from with feeling guilt on all sides. When I was in your shoes, I often felt that by trying to balance work and home, I was maximizing my guilt by feeling like I was compromising both. We compare our mothering to the SAHMs and we compare our work to the single people. It is normal to feel this way because of all the hopes and dreams we have for ourselves, but it is worth trying to talk back to it. We need to keep our expectations for ourselves realistic without just giving up and not accomplishing our goals. A sense of humor helps. Spirituality helps. Friends help. Accepting the need for sleep and trying to figure out how to get it helps. It is very hard when you are in the middle of it to remember that children do get older pretty quickly, that this is a relatively temporary phase of life.
demographist said,
December 5, 2007 at 9:12 am
Gradmommy and olderwoman:
I can not tell you how therapeutic it is reading about your experiences. I have a preschooler and a baby, and I am on the job market, with hopes of a tenure-track career. I worry every single day about whether I can “have it all.” I do not have any friends who are in my position; they are either still childless or have given up on an academic career. I often become jealous and resentful of my childless friends who can go out at night, travel to exotic locales, even work on their research, although I know that in some cases they would prefer to have kids. On the other hand, I also envy my friends with kids who have chosen the much easier lifestyle, and I wonder whether I would be better off choosing a less stressful career. Olderwoman speaks of choices, but what to do when you are on the verge of a choice and just can’t foresee the consequences? Will I get tenure? Will I be able to spend enough time with my children? I suppose these are just life uncertainties which we (younger women) will constantly have to struggle with. Olderwoman, thank you again for sharing the reflections on your life; your experience and advice are helping me put my life into perspective.
abarian said,
December 5, 2007 at 11:38 am
I agree; hearing everyone’s perspective is really helpful for me. I especially appreciate how a group of academic women are able to be honest about their own situations and feelings.
Thanks, olderwoman, for clarifying my views. I also didn’t mean to offend, gradmommy. This discussion is really important; the honesty and thought going into it makes it one of the more worthwhile discussions I’ve read on the Internet in some time!
Africanwoman said,
December 5, 2007 at 1:02 pm
I find all of the comments posted on this blog to be very insightful. Even while browing through very quickly at work, I managed to pick up a number of things that I can relate to.
The “Family” experience vs the “Single” Experience: All of us have been single and without children at one point or another and much enjoyed the freedoms that came with dictating your own schedule as you saw fit. The limitations of these freedoms are introduced after a family unit is created. Interestingly, family to many of us, means different things.
While in Buffalo, NY on a business trip, some colleagues and I were having dinner and I took the time to show off a picture of my daughter whom I was missing terribly but had left in the safe and loving care of my husband. Choosing to steal my oooh aaah moment as colleagues snatched my cell phone to take a look at the image of my daughter, another colleague decided to show a picture of their cat, also captured on the screen of his cell phone. I could not measure the comparison, but soon realized that for him, his wife and cat were his family. There are obviously far stretched responsibilities between raising a child and a cat, but at that moment, I felt that this individual may have a similar adoration that I have for my child for his cat.
In any case that illustration was meant to address the manner in which people view family or life outside the office.
Choices and Consequences: I conceived my daughter while I was a Junior in College, my Mother was miles away from me, and I was working 40 hours a week in addition to going to school on a 12 credit load. Though I am not yet in pursuit of a Graduate Degree, I can certianly concure with those of you that are overwhelmed by the experience of managing your school work load/social and family life. Almost everything has to be calculated, from maintaing a healthy family relation ship i.e. putting your kids first, making love,studying, squeezing in time for a get together, it can get pretty stressful. It is good to have a forum or platform such as this, where graduate mothers can share ideas/common experiences/give guidance and support. The key is to find inspiration, find motivation on a daily basis and keep your eye on the prize, even when it’s really hard to do so, all you can do is try. That is my philosophy, now I have to get back to work.
Peace