Comments on: the real deal

By: Andrea

Andrea — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:32:57 +0000

oh exactly! I am so tired! I put the blogging on hold too. Great letter.

By: twinmommy

twinmommy — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:35:02 +0000

I’m so glad for the honesty. I definitely feel the same way. By the way, if you need any Elmo videos, we have tons. I had to throw that in.

By: Articulate Dad

Articulate Dad — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 04:44:03 +0000

Thanks for being honest. It is always good for us to remember.

By: anomie

anomie — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:35:26 +0000

Because of my ridiculous commute, I spend three days a week away from my family. I feel like I’m missing most of my daughter’s kindergarten. But, I got to go with her on her last field trip. And I’ll get to stay home with her all summer.

It IS hard.

And Jillian watches television. We limit it to the Disney Channel, but she watches.

By: olderwoman

olderwoman — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:29:51 +0000

Hmm, I left a comment, I thought, but it did not show up. Well anyway I’ll just repeat it. Your post reminded me of my own past, when I felt I was managing to maximize my guilt by making exactly the right choices to feel bad about motherhood and feel bad about work. Stress and worry about children lasts a long time, but the physical labor of parenting does get easier within a few years. For most of us, anyway — I have some friends who have a handicapped child for whom the work does not decline.

By: gradmommy

gradmommy — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:43:58 +0000

Yes! It’s one of the reasons I am being drawn to ethnographic work – there is just so much a data set cannot tell you. My life was the impetus for the motherhood study I’m doing, and not only do I think I have something worthwhile to contribute intellectually, but the impact it’s had on my personal life is pretty great too. Sociology is “us” – that’s so cool!

Thanks too for providing an awesome template to make a gradmommy version. It practically wrote itself.

By: shakha

shakha — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:14:44 +0000

This is wonderful! As I was writing this I thought to myself, “You know, Shamus, it’s pretty nice that you CAN take days off!” I think sociologists in particular have a tendency to abstract themselves from the processes they study – as if WE are not part of the same world we study. It’s nice to be reminded, “You know all that work we do on care work, on families, on gender relations, on parenting, on [insert whatever you study here]… well… that’s not just ‘them’ out there; it’s also us.”