How many kids?

[alison]

You're absolutely right! I didn't think about your point about the hostile environment until you put it into words.

There are some tenured female professors in their 50s and 60s in my department who give this poor professor (the one I mentioned in my previous post) one or more of the following: glares, 2) the "You look so tired; how are you ever going to manage this?" 3) awkwardly ignore the fact that she's pregnant, 4) talk about her behind her back, warning us grad students that she's being (and I quote) "reckless" with her career.

As if she doesn't have enough stress already!

I did a paper on women, motherhood and academia in college and that pretty much sums up the pov of many of the profs I interviewed. The ones who did make a go of it had husbands who were also profs so they could take turns with the kids, or one of the parents wouldn't do much research. And this was in the late 80's/ early 90's when professors were actually teaching their courses and not focusing so much on research.

[Sheherezade]

Funny the turn this thread took. I left academia after post-doc looking ahead to this and realizing it wasn't going to work out - me on tenure track, one or two babies and a husband in residency/fellowship. I'm glad I did, but I miss it.

My advisor left when she didn't get tenure. Two little kids and a professionally driven husband as well.

I wonder if we should send these posts to Harvard's president? He's always interested in why women don't make it up the ranks in science. Obviously, we are too smart.....and care about our families.

[DCJenn]

Well, Angie- they just didn't have the heart to tell you:

Its because you can't do math.

Jenn

[We actually have a program at our university, an NSF-funded initiative called Academic Careers for Women in Engineering and Science. Another of our female chemistry professors is a major part of the leadership of this program. It involves mentoring women as they begin their careers, and helping them to rise above the gender bias in the sciences.

Angie - that's CWRU if it fits your PhD or interests at all. Maybe you could find some way to involve yourself (if you want to).

[Gwendolyn]

I had DS the first week of classes my second year of doctoral program and I struggled. That first semester, I brought him to all of my classes and hired a student to watch him in the back of the room while I taught. Students were fine with it and I had no problems that semester. The following semester, I hired a student to watch him in my office while I was in class or take him to the play area on campus. I was able to do this because DS was a very mellow baby and rarely fussed unless it was a solvable problem...diaper, hungry, tired.

The following year another woman in my program, who had two babies in the three years, had a week where daycare fell through and she brought the two youngest in. She wasn't teaching or taking class (last year) she just needed to hold office hours and take care of various things. Additionally, an admin assistant had recently had a baby and brought her in to show off. The following week a memo from the dean circulated through the department explicitly stating that children were not to be in the building.

I was in a theatre for youth program made up of almost entirely women 25-35. There has been a baby in that department almost every year...even in the arts, a program in children studies, those of us with children were made to feel incompetent simply because we had children.

Both of the women who were tenure track professors who had young children 5, 4, 18 mo. Said that as hard as it seemed as a graduated student, professorship was infinitely more difficult to manage.

As I am applying for tenure track positions (I sat down at the computer to work on my CV) and thinking about another baby, I have been thinking alot about that first year.

[Gwendolyn]

I just want to add that all of us who had a baby in the program (4) finished in 3-3.5 years. So...

[alison]

Wow! 3-3.5 years is so quick! I did my MA in 2, but this PhD will definitely require some archival work abroad. I'm in year 2.5 of the PhD, done with my coursework, and hoping to be done with the diss in another year. We'll see... So I guess it'll be 3.5 to 4 years for the PhD for me. I have a slave-driver of a diss adviser who has me on a tight leash so this shouldn't drag on for too much longer.

I'm in awe that women manage to make it in the ivory tower. And all this with a baby or babIES! It would be rather easy to "fit" a baby into my schedule right now (and I mean RIGHT NOW) while I'm in grad school--my schedule is so flexible right now and I pretty much only have to be on campus for a couple of hours, 2x/week. I'm guessing from what you have said that this is the most flexibility I'll ever have! Dh wants me to be done with my degree before babies, because he thinks I might fall into the forever ABD trap that a few other women have fallen into in my dept.

I'm not teaching this year because of a fellowship, but when I do, it's pretty much 1 hr/day, 4x/week. As corny as it sounds, too bad the gestation period is so long, because I could swing it right now to have a newborn, not in 9 months, and surely not while I'm in the archives!

I love these experiences that you have had (or are reporting). It's so encouraging!

[poky]

I know I'm jumping into this thread late, but wanted to put my hat in the ring:

No kids, no plans for any, and both of us are completely happy with that (got essure two years ago, in fact, to make sure!).

-Sandy

I know this is kind of a bitchy response - and isn't intended to be - but I'm just intrigued as to why a person who has no kids, no plans for kids, and is perfectly fine with that status (which, of course, I'm fine with) would be reading the parenting forum???

[Auspicious]

Because they still like kids and enjoy hearing others' adventures? I skim the dog threads even though it would take a severe bump on the head to get me to own a dog.

[poky]

Nah, didn't seem bitchy, just curious. Sorry, as you can see, I wrote that post pretty late at night. (I'm battling insomnia, and am at the most sleep-deprived part of the plan right now).

I actually didn't even realize this thread was in the "parenting" forum (though that does makes sense, duh); I did a search on "childfree" and "childless" to see if there was anyone else out there who didn't want kids, and when I saw this thread, thought I'd at least say hi, so the person(people?) who are still trying to decide would know that there are other people out there without kids or plans to have them, and "zero" is a valid number, too.

And Julie's right, too. I do enjoy other people's kids; I babysat a *lot* in HS and part of college and loved it, but just never ever wanted my own.

excellent explaination, and thanks for not taking offense. sometimes it's hard to write those kind of questions w/o sounding judgemental.

i hope you get your insomnia under control soon ....

[poky]

excellent explaination, and thanks for not taking offense. sometimes it's hard to write those kind of questions w/o sounding judgemental.

You're welcome. I've got no problem with "well, why are you here, then?", and I promise I'll try my best not to be a troll. I know it can be a touchy subject; a lot of parents (and even wannabe-parents) seem to get *really* offended by the very idea of someone choosing not to have kids. Wish I knew why.

i hope you get your insomnia under control soon ...

Ugh. Thanks; so do I. For the past year or so, I've been unable to sleep more than about 6 hours in a row, so getting a full night's sleep takes way longer than it should. I'm using a "SleepKey" device that I got on sale at amazon a few weeks ago, and the way it works is after it gets a feel for your sleep patterns, it tells you to stay up late to try to force your sleep to be compressed into one solid block. I'm on my third day of having to stay up till after 1am and get up at 7. Last night was the first night I slept the whole 5.5 hours straight through; I'm told that after a few more nights like that, it will let me go to bed a little earlier, but for now I'm pretty much a zombie.

[PrincessFiona]

The irony of this post now is overpowering!