Can motherhood be an asset in academia?

I recently went on the job market. One job was an open position in "sociology or a related field." Another was a joint position in American Culture and Women's Studies (hello dream job!). My academic interests are specialized enough that I had to jump when I saw these opportunities.

I wonder if I will be penalized because I strayed from the orthodox path leading straight from graduate school into a full-time tenure-track position. I had one baby during my PhD and was pregnant with my second when I graduated. I began teaching part-time soon after my third was born, and I have continued to teach while I had my fourth. And let's not forget I've been lactating for over 9 years straight!

I have continued to publish, research, and attend conferences since I graduated, but those activities took place on top of raising four children full-time and teaching part-time. Without a full-time job to support research and publishing, I haven't been able to keep up the same pace as my tenure-track peers.

I'd like to think that my immersion in motherhood, breastfeeding, and maternity care activism would make me an attractive candidate, rather than disqualify me, since those activities are directly related to my academic specialties. But I can't be sure.

In Germany, though, the Technische Universität (TU) of Berlin has created post-doctoral fellowships that specifically favor mothers. Look at this excerpt from the fellowship reviewer guidelines:

All reviewers are asked to consider the individual living and working conditions of an applicant. Female researchers with diverse career paths and with non-academic knowledge and qualifications are expressly invited to apply for an IPODI Fellowship and we assume that a diverse personal, professional or scientific background may open up new perspectives and innovative approaches in research. Family-related career "breaks" as well as intersectoral mobility are therefore perceived as additional qualifications and should be considered positively within the selection process.

To read more about this program, visit Dr. Kristen Ghodsee's article "A fellowship program that favors mothers?"

Have you been penalized by--or helped by--your experience as a mother or parent? Does your workplace welcome women who have taken non-traditional career paths?

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Supergirl, by Eric Freeze

Eric recently had his second book accepted by University of Nebraska Press! It's a collection of non-fiction essays titled Hemingway On a Bike. Here's one of the essays from the collection, a piece called "Supergirl." It was originally published with Barrelhouse.

When I was five and six, I begged my mother for two things: spinach and vitamins.  Both were because of cartoons.  The first was Popeye, the high gravelly-voiced sailor who would get anvils in his biceps when he’d down a can of the green stuff.  The spinach would always come near the end of an episode when Olive Oil or one of Popeye’s other friends were bound up by Bluto or trapped in a sinking boat.  A rush of adrenaline always accompanied my watching these scenes: Popeye with the speed of a fighter jet.  Popeye with legs of iron.  Popeye with a spinning roundhouse that could send you to the moon.  I was in awe of his invincibility and I hoped that spinach would unlock the same physical traits in me.  I would beg my mother to make it and she’d occasionally oblige me even though nobody else in the family would eat it.  She always boiled the leaves in water until they had the consistency of ectoplasm or slime.  I doused the watered-down vegetable with butter and salt and slid the slimy stuff down my esophagus until I could feel a little warmth in my forearms.  Then I’d go into our basement and punch our bean bag chair until my knuckles were dry and cracked.

And an excerpt from the middle of the essay:

To show how society constructs notions of gendered identity, I once bought a Superhero Starter Kit for a class I was teaching.  I wanted students to look at the book as an artifact, to analyze assumptions that it made about gender.  There is a blond boy on the front with wrist bands, a shiny red cape, and lightning bolt stickers affixed to his t-shirt.  The caption reads, “Saving the World Made Simple.”  All of the pictures in the book are of boys.  Boys leaping, hanging, falling (it happens), landing, hiding, running, swinging, spinning.  Boys spread-eagled on chairs, boys scrunching their faces, putting up their toddler dukes.  In one picture, a boy flexes his biceps into a mirror and mimics a look of strain and anger as he flexes.  Other photos have boys with hands on hips, boys reaching for the sky, boys pointing up, fingers raised in number ones.  These boys are masked, tough, superheroes with missions and powers and secret identities.  There is a solitary picture of a girl.  Like the boys, she is mostly smiles but her action is less dramatic.  She wears a pink polka-dot shirt and flips her hair.

When I take the book home, my four-year-old daughter asks, “What’s that?”  Before I can explain, the book is out of its wrapper and she’s trying to remove the red super cape.  Soon it’s velcroed around her neck and she’s running through the house yelling “Wooooo!”  She jumps off our couch, takes stairs two at a time.  In the hall mirror, she poses, shows me her muscles, “almost as big as yours!” and screws up her face in a look of fearsome exertion.  I’m not surprised that the cape has this effect, that she so readily transforms herself into a brawny pre-schooler.  As new parents who are conscious of the impact of gendered advertising, we’ve done our best to steer her from passive female characters, submissive princesses and fairies who long to be led or saved.  But the way she takes to the cape makes me wonder if we’ve over-compensated.  Have we demonized these female representations so much that she misses out on some of the positive attributes of empathy, understanding, and caring?  Of our three children, she’s the most assertive, the most willing to take risks.  And besides an occasional narcissistic comparison to their hair, she hasn’t shown any interest in princesses.  I want to videotape her reaction and send it to the publishing company, evidence that they’re reaching the wrong demographic.  Girls can be super too.

Read the rest here. 

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Neither/nor, or how getting a job improved my life

Since I began teaching freshman composition this fall, I no longer fit into any tidy label. I'm a stay-at-home mother (mostly). I'm a working mother (partly). I'm neither fully one nor the other. And you know what--I love it!

I feel so lucky to be able to spend the bulk of my days raising my little children. I also love teaching and keeping current with my academic endeavors. Teaching one class per semester has created the perfect balance for me. Three mornings a week, I slip away to teach my 8 am class. Immediately after class, I exercise at the college gym. Eric meets me on campus at 10 am with all three children. He goes to his office; I go to the locker room with the kids and shower. (Our university athletic facility has a free laundry service, so I never have to tote exercise clothes back and forth from home. Amazing.) Then we're off for our morning activities.

You know what the best part about teaching is for me? 3 days a week I don't have to get the kids up, dressed, fed, brushed, or out the door. It's positively brilliant. Getting my children ready in the mornings is one of my least favorite things, and working lets me skip out of that responsibility. It's a win-win situation for both Eric and me. I get a break from the kids, while he gets more time with them 3 days a week. We're both really happy with our situation.

I''d also argue that this job has improve my marriage. Since Eric and I finished graduate school, our interests and activities have drifted farther apart. My world was increasingly dominated by babies, breastfeeding, toddlers, and preschoolers. My being involved in academia again--albeit as a teacher rather than a student--has given us more common ground. I like being able to ask Eric about what teaching strategy he'd suggest or which books he likes best for a given course. We can discuss grading strategies, groan over grammar errors, and celebrate when we see excellent writing or have a lively class discussion.

I like being in the nebulous area between a stay-at-home mother and a working mother. I recognize how fortunate I am: I get to do something I love and get paid well for it, without sacrificing time with my children. It's a dream situation for me right now.

I have had to give up some things: most evenings, internet time and blogging have been replaced by grading papers and prepping for class. It's a trade-off I'm happy to make, though.

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New job

It's been a whirlwind past few weeks. I applied to teach a section of freshman composition, got accepted, and have been in new faculty orientation this week. Eric has been super helpful: taking the kids every morning while I'm in meetings and bringing Inga every few hours to nurse. I'm really excited to teach again. The position is just one course, so it should be doable as long as I cut back on other things.

Like blogging, for one. I simply cannot keep up my usual pace of posting daily. I've decided to post twice weekly (more often if time permits).

Classes start in two weeks. I'm browsing through piles of textbooks and working on my syllabus. I'm going to use Peggy Vincent's memoir Baby Catcher for the a segment of the class--I've used it before in freshman writing/rhetoric courses, with great success. I'll be teaching MWF at 8 am. The plan is to wake up at 7 am, nurse Inga, go to class, exercise at the college athletic facility, and return home by 10 am. I'll have some office hours on campus and some at home during naptime.

Can't wait to be Professor Freeze in a few weeks!

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Under pressure

I contacted one of my advisers about deadlines for finishing the dissertation and graduating. If I want to graduate this spring semester, I have to have the dissertation finished a month before my defense date. Which means I have to have it done by early April! So the pressure is on to get the last two chapters written so my dissertation adviser can read them and give me feedback. Then I will do a round of revisions and send each revised chapter to my four other committee members. Once they read each chapter and give me comments/suggestions, I will do yet another round of revisions (hopefully fairly minor at this point) and have the finished product done about 4 months from now.

Some goals to get me from point A to point B:

• Finish chapter #5 by this weekend
• Write chapter #6 in December (chapter about the interplay of midwifery and UC)
  
• Write chapter #7 in January (conclusion: looking at existing birth paradigms, suggesting new conceptual models that include UC)
  
• Start sending out revised chapters to committee members in January& early February (this depends on how quickly I get comments back from my adviser)
• Receive comments from all committee members on all chapters by early-mid March
• Do final revisions last few weeks of March

Can I do it? We'll see...I really don't want to delay this any longer, since I am now paying tuition (over $800/semester for a zero-credit continuous enrollment) for the privilege of writing my dissertation.

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Class Presentation

I gave a presentation for my husband's freshman writing class about the unassisted childbirth movement. Zari came with me, of course, so I suppose you could say it was her first day of college!

The class is doing a project that involves reflexivity: getting to know a group that has different values and assumptions and examining your own preconceived notions and trying to see things through the group's viewpoint. The whole class is working on a presentation about unassisted birth. As part of it, several of his students came to the screening of The Business of Being Born to have a better idea about childbirth in contemporary America. They stayed for the whole discussion too!

All of this college must have worn Zari out. I nursed her during the Q&A after my presentation because she was really cranky. She conked out and didn't wake up for almost 3 1/2 hours!

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Chapter 4 is written!

16,265 words later (not including footnotes), I have finished a draft of my fourth dissertation chapter about "Safety, Risk, & Responsibility." Whew.

Next chapter will be about the interplay between UC and midwifery:

• how UCers view midwifery
• how midwives view UC
  
• UCers' experiences with midwives
• the effect of UC ideas on midwifery practice
  

and more!

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The best dissertation aid ever...

...pickles!

I haven't started Zari on solids yet (unless you count all the bits of lint and dirt she picks up off the floor). Today, though, I wanted to see what she'd do if I gave her some food. So I pulled out a refrigerator pickle--sliced cucumbers marinated in water, vinegar, sugar, salt & pepper--and she went crazy over it. When it first made contact with her tongue, she pulled a face. But then she kept at it for about 10 minutes! Now the cucumber slice is a soggy mess, but it kept her busy for several minutes while I typed.

I understand why parents carry around little baggies of Cheerios. Can anyone say distraction technique?

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In the news

About a month ago I was interviewed for this article about unassisted birth that just came out today: "Baby's Day Out." I was interested to see how the article turned out, since so many media reports of unassisted births present it in a sensationalist fashion, often stressing the dangerous or extreme nature of giving birth without a paid professional. There's usually the obligatory quotes from unsupportive midwives and obstetricians (birth can be very dangerous, complications arise frequently and suddenly with catastrophic results). Often the media focuses on things going wrong with an unassisted birth. Scandal sells, right?

Overall, this article took an in-depth look at unassisted birthing. I was disappointed that the author chose to profile a hospital transfer story as the primary narrative, focused on several scary experiences, and included the all-too-familiar disapproving comments from midwives and OBs. On the other hand he delved into many interesting issues that many other articles have not addressed.

I got a kick out of my "quotes." I am pretty sure those were not the exact words I used, but hey, it still sounds good, right?

Articles like this fuel my desire to get my dissertation written and published. I want people to be able to understand unassisted birth, even if they do not ultimately agree with it for their own births. Because even a very thorough reporter who has done many hours of research can misrepresent things. I wonder how much editorial control he had over his article--did the choice to emphasize the sensational and the scary elements come from him, or from higher up? Hmmm...

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Please participate

I am closing my research surveys for my dissertation at the end of May. Please participate if you have not already filled one or more out!

The surveys cover a variety of topics: home birth, unassisted birth, what kinds of birth-related literature you read, how you define intuition, etc.

Click here to visit my dissertation project and surveys.

I am also looking for UCers to interview over the phone, including those of you currently planning an unassisted birth. Email me at homebirth.study @ gmail.com if you are interested, and we can talk about confidentiality, informed consent procedures, etc.

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