I just got back from a fancy schmantzy conference for educational researchers in New Orleans. I submit proposals every year and hope to get one in-even though I know I’m out of my league. Whenever I’m lucky enough to get to go, I experience an odd mix of optimistic motivation-“I think I can, I think I can” (publish, that is)-along with a pretty heavy dose of loserliness-“How can I possibly compete with these big shot academic types?”
I got married at 19 (wowza!), finished my BA, got a full-time teaching job, and had two kids while working on my MA at night. I then got a job teaching at a university, had my third (and last!) baby, and started working on my Ph.D. when he was 3 months old. I have tried to have my cake and eat it, too, and in many ways, I have. But I have still had to sacrifice things in both camps-career and home/family. Most of the time I think I do a pretty good juggling act, but sometimes (like when I go to this conference), I feel a tad regretful and even jealous-emotions I’m unaccustomed to experiencing because I usually feel pretty good about my station in life.
Last year at this same conference, I had a very interesting experience. As I sat in a paper session where four women from big name schools presented their research, the loserliness emerged. These women were SMART (I’m talking Ph.D.s from Harvard, Columbia, etc.) Their arguments (both written and oral) were sophisticated. While I sat there taking notes, I couldn’t help thinking, “Wow, I just can’t compete with these people.” They have so much more money, more resources, more TIME (they teach 1/2 the courses I do each semester), they have grad students who do their grunt work (I’ll never have that), and they have an automatic in at many academic journals just by virtue of their school name or their dissertation adviser. These women don’t have kids, either, so they can work long hours if necessary. And to top it all off, they were pretty! One of them-a tall, tan, blonde Kiwi-was sporting a pencil skirt with high heels. She looked like a model.
After that session, I went back to my hotel room to feel sorry for myself for a few hours before going to a dinner meeting. Imagine my surprise when I ended up sitting by the same women whose presentations I had been intimidated by just a few hours earlier. One of them mentioned how nice it was to have a chance to talk to other women their same age (32-37 years) since they often interact with older people with whom they can’t relate. I volunteered that even though we were the same age, I might not be able to relate because I was married with three kids! These middle-aged, single women immediately started exclaiming about how lucky I was, asking how I did it, clamoring to see pictures of my kids, telling me how lucky I was to have a husband and children, explaining how lonely they were, how they can’t meet anybody, all they do is work, they always thought they’d have 3-4 kids and now they’re trying to come to terms with not having any because of their age . . .
I joked that if I emailed them my CV and they saw my paltry list of publications, they’d feel better about their life choices. One of the women looked at me very seriously and said: “Don’t joke about that. Publications don’t matter. But children? Family? That matters. When I’m old, no one will care how many articles I published.”
I left that dinner feeling happy about my choices. (Caveat: I’m not saying that I did the “right” thing-just sharing this experience that reminded me to feel good about my choices.) So when the sense of loserliness came back this weekend, I remembered that odd dinner last year and told myself:
“I’ll never be a Harvard grad. I’ll likely never get an A+ publication. And I’ll never look like that beautiful blonde Kiwi in the pencil skirt. But I made my choices and I’m good with them.”
Thank you for this post. I have that sense of “loserliness” come over me all the time, particularly when I think about the career choices that are facing me. Putting my husband and children in front of my own goals has undoubtedly narrowed my choices and sometimes I feel resentful and discouraged. I was just discussing this with some dear friends, other Mormon women who face similar dilemmas. We were talking about the importance of accepting that “it is what it is” and moving forward with a knoweldge of who we are now. Yesterday, I was reading a great article from Jezebel about sacrifice, writer Anna North says,:
In this spirit, I’m going to try to renounce regret and live the life I have.
Heather,
Reading about your getting your Ph.D. with 3 kids would give me a case of loserliness if I hadn’t already made peace with my own choices in life.
How lucky you are to have learned the value of making your own choices and being happy with the consequences at a relatively young age!
Aw, shucks, Course Correction. ;)
Like I said in the post, I’m mostly happy with my choices, but occasionally that sense of regret creeps up and I have to beat it back. ;)
Really nice post, Heather. It makes me re-evaluate my own life choices and cherish some of the ones that sometimes get me down. I really loved this part:
I joked that if I emailed them my CV and they saw my paltry list of publications, they’d feel better about their life choices. One of the women looked at me very seriously and said: “Don’t joke about that. Publications don’t matter. But children? Family? That matters. When I’m old, no one will care how many articles I published.”
Thanks for this story. I am right in the middle of finishing up my schooling while trying to raise my small children, so it is good to hear someone has made it to the other side. I think the other thing that tends to get ignored is that mothers bring such a interesting perspective to academia. Not that every one appreciates this all the time, but I think it can be very powerful. I took a couple of years off after my first was born and I am amazed how my (school) work can reflect all that I have gained as a person through motherhood. Now if I could just get the mother- brain fog to go away…
Good for you. I agree that there’s much we can add. Sure, some people discount it, but we can’t worry about people like that, right?
Mother-brain-fog . . . good luck getting that to go away! My sisters and I used to call it “placenta brain” because it seemed to hit the worst when you were pregnant. But now that our kids are older, it seems to have settled in, so it seems like a more permanent condition!
Fortunately for me, I work in education, so much of what happens with my kids is related to my work and vice versa. It feels like a pretty smooth transition from teaching (pre-service teachers) to home. Now the writing part, not so much . . .
Completely off-topic compliment:
I just found your blog a couple of months ago, and I have since spent considerable time in your archives. And can I just say . . . I love you, Heather. I totally have a crush on your brain and your humour and your sassiness and your self-proclaimed flaws.
Thanks for your writing. You contribute positively to my life.
Well, shoot, Menner. What can I say to that–thanks?? I’m glad you’ve found something valuable or laugh-worthy. I have had fun here sharing my sassiness and self-proclaimed flaws. And there are so many, I fear I will never run out of new material!!
Come back!
I just got back from an academic conference, too, and I thought about your post a lot running up to it… because I feel many of the same insecurities and struggles in relation to my own work/life balance. Although when I began my Undergrad course I was single, Helen and I married in my first year, had our first child in my second year, and our second child in my Masters year. Then during the second term of my PhD, we decided that we’d start sharing the at-home care of the kids, so I began looking after the girls for 3 days a week, which I’ve continued to this point.
I’ll admit, it’s been hard. I’m at a great institution, which was very competitive to get into, and having only half as much time in the week to do my work has been a struggle. Yet I love my time with the girls, and I don’t regret our choice, ever, actually. Sometimes I wish I was just better at reading while looking after them/doing housework. :)
I think I’m saved by the growing feeling that I will always want this kind of balance – even at the sacrifice of the kind of singular success that it might deny. Academics who have no kids and live on their own in a dark little flat are ten-a-penny where I’m from… I feel like I’ve got something unusual in my skills and experience, and I intend to find a niche in the market for that. :)
I aspire to make it to where you are, Heather: thanks for this post.
That’s great, Andy. I didn’t know that you and Helen had an arrangement like that. I love that you said you wish you were better at reading while taking care of them. That’s great.
I shouldn’t act like the only thing keeping me from being a big shot academic is my family. I’m pretty sure I’m just not smart enough, either–and that’s okay. Not everyone can be a ten-a-penny academic, right? ;)
I have not been in academia for some time (ok 6 years and I totally miss it) but I think everyone with the capacity to love more than one thing feels a touch of regret at having to emphasize. I was a great science and English student who chose art and design as a career, and I regret it at least weekly.
I must admit, however, that I have deep feeling sometimes, when I am working, that is very satisfying. Kind of like the feeling I get when I watch my kids sleeping. Does that happen do anyone else?
This is a fabulous post–thanks. Heather, you remind me that our expectations and “standards” are brutal task masters, unrelenting in their demands. This is my new goal, to find satisfaction in my choices, not how I think my life should have unfolded.