Mama PhD

Academics are some of the best complainers I know. In my field of English, I explain our penchant for complaining by saying that we are, after all, critics — and we can always find something to criticize. But it may be an occupational hazard for all academics — we spend an awful lot of our time, after all, grading, reviewing, and measuring, and things are bound to fall short more often than not. So we complain.

I hail from a long line of disowners. My maternal grandfather's Irish Catholic family shunned my grandparents after their marriage, because my grandmother was a Southern Baptist heathen. My father's family, also Irish Catholic, demanded that my mother convert so that my parents could be married in a "proper" ceremony, with my father's brother, Father Kevin, officiating.

Thanks to my daughter and her friends, I have been exposed to the computer game “Angry Birds.” In it, some nasty pigs try to steal the eggs of a group of birds. These birds then fight back by flinging themselves (with our help) in an attempt to destroy the pigs, who sit laughing at the whole matter. I am most intrigued by the fact that much of what I learned in my first college physics class can be put to use to progress through the game.

Two weeks after the publication of an attack on professors for not working enough to justify our salaries, the AAUP Faculty Salary Survey proves that there is no such thing as “a faculty salary.”

Disney princesses got the boot from my seven-year-old last fall. It wasn’t long after she found she could read her giant pink Disney princess book all by herself that she declared it was stupid. “None of them wear pants,” she exclaimed. “Except Jasmine and Mulan. They’re OK.” Note to self: the princess phase only lasted a few years with no major repercussions, at least as far as I can tell. I’m glad I ignored every instinct to fight it and let her be. It was fun and no harm done (at least I hope not).

Last week I wrote about my day, as part of the larger #dayofhighered project of documenting what we academics do. When I left off, I still had about four hours of work to do, and I figured I’d be able to do it in the evening, after dinner.

In years past, I used to worry about what to "do" with Ben during his school breaks. This year, he had to remind me not to wake him up on Friday morning, because the start date of his spring break kept slipping my mind.

Since I have been traveling to film festivals and accompanying students on spring break trips, I have not seen my teenagers for almost three weeks — a situation that makes my eyes start to twitch after a while. I need to communicate to my kids (and to myself) a justification for this lengthy separation from them.