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  • Motherhood after Tenure: I love this job, but it is work

    By Aeron Haynie March 11, 2009 11:34 pm

    Last week I dropped by the departmental office to pick up my mail, take care of a few errands, and attend an (optional) all-day conference on teaching and assessing critical thinking. Our office’s administrative assistant, seeing me professionally dressed at 8am on my sabbatical, commented, “Watch out, people will think you’re actually working this semester.”

    I don’t know about you, but these kinds of comments drive me nuts, and I heard them before I was on sabbatical, usually during the summer when everyone seems to think teachers are “off.” To keep from ruminating on it later, I make it a practice to respond to such comments, correcting false assumptions with what I hope is good grace. “I am working this semester,” I responded to our staff member, “but it’s true that I ordinarily work in my pajamas.” I try to assert the value of my work, while also acknowledging that I am privileged to be working at home, not tied to rigid schedules and dress codes. And let me quickly assure you that I do feel lucky, lucky to have a job that’s meaningful to me, but not lucky because I’m getting paid for nothing.

    Tellingly, I heard similar comments when I was on “maternity leave” (technically, sick leave) with my infant daughter. I suppose if you’ve never taken care of children, staying home with a baby sounds kind of cushy. After all, they sleep all day, don’t they? Even my husband (usually a paragon of sensitivity) once remarked on the virtues of a friend’s husband because he chipped in with their three kids “after working hard all day.” Ironically, my husband would readily admit he’d be OUT OF HIS MIND if he had to take care of two boisterous boys and an infant all day. So I wonder if his comment and others like it, point to an assumption that women are naturally good at childcare and therefore it’s easy for them, or that unpaid work isn’t really work.

    I don’t bring up these examples to complain about being a mom or a professor: I love both of these roles. And in today’s economy, you can bet I’m grateful to have my job (and my house and my sanity and what’s left of my retirement). I’m mentioning these petty examples because they point to a larger issue: intellectual labor, teaching, and caring for children are devalued in our society, and the consequences are real, not just for us, but for the students and children we teach.

    The University of Wisconsin system faces 120 million in budget cuts this year, yet even in good economic times, we’ve had to fight for funding. And daycare workers, who care and teach our children, are abysmally underpaid.

    I’ve often thought a shadowing program or a one-week job switch would be an excellent way to foster mutual understanding. Members of the community would see that most academics work more than 40 hours a week, that we’re rarely “off the clock” and that most of us are dedicated public servants. And perhaps we would better appreciate the occasional resentment of those who work at jobs that are in no way fulfilling.

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Comments on Motherhood after Tenure: I love this job, but it is work

  • Amen!
  • Posted by Libby , Mama, PhD contributor on March 12, 2009 at 7:00am EDT

  • I'm with you, Aeron. I don't usually link the devaluation of intellectual work with that of child care, but when you put them together like that it makes sense. "Invisible" labor needs to be made visible. How can we (as a society) say that "children are our future" and then devalue the labor of helping to bring that future to pass?

  • Posted by Terra on March 12, 2009 at 9:00am EDT

  • Imagine being an educator of children! After being a stay at home mom for about ten years! The disconnect between the esteem in which I personally hold these roles and the way that, I presume, the rest of society sees them is disheartening.

  • Posted by Marie alice on March 12, 2009 at 10:15am EDT

  • I heartily agree with what you write regarding the respect given the roles of stay at home caregiver, educator, the invisible professions, moms, and many dads. I also see a culture of disrespect towards others "work" contributions across the board. We like to think we have it worse. Terra said it when she said "... the way that, I presume, the rest of society sees them is disheartening." There is also much criticism of mothers who work outside the home in non-care giving or educational roles. The presumption is they neglect their family for their own self-worth or lifestyle. We shouldn't presume anything. All our work is of value. We need to not be defensive about our choices. I don't think this is not only found in higher education but in other fields across society as well. It is an interesting development in our relation to work. How can we have a developed society if we haven't put the resources into preparing our children for that society?

  • It's true . . .
  • Posted by PT Teacher FT Mom on March 12, 2009 at 1:15pm EDT

  • . . . it seems that a lack of visibility in certain functions of one's job leads to the ease with which others make assumptions about what one does during that "invisible time." Well said, Aeron! I worked my way through graduate school as a server at various restaurants. It never ceased to amaze me how guests would sometimes asume that servers weren't busy, that we wern't working very hard, and that our job was a simple one that required little thought.

    I once heard a local conservative talk-show host backing a proposal that servers in our state get paid less than minimum wage because, after all, they're just raking in the big bucks (just think about all that tip money, he argued), and they really don't do anything but drop some food off at your table. Ironically, I also once heard this same talk show host arguing that teachers are overpaid. He snarkily said that he would love to get paid a full salary for the few short hours that we spend in the classroom and, in addition, have spring and winter breaks with summers off.

    Unfortunately, as we all know, this perception that we're not working goes beyond the scrutiny of our summer breaks and our sabbaticals. Just as people who don't teach sometimes don't realize that summer break and sabbatical are not synonomyous with vacation, so too they sometimes fail to recognize that teaching extends beyond the confines of our classrooms--every time we meet with a student in our offices or answer student emails to clarify an assignment or offer encouragement. More importantly, some fail to recognize that while teaching is part of our job, it's not the only part. Our jobs call us to be full-time students in our disciplines, continually gleaning the freshest and most relevant information and ideas that will best provide our students with what they require to succeed in meeting the objectives of our courses.

    Reading your blog post today, Aeron, made me realize that while my new career in teaching couldn't be more different than my old job of serving food in a restaurant, they each have an element of invisibility that sometimes leads others to assume that I'm not doing anything when they can't see me doing anything. I used to disappear behind the swinging kitchen doors to attend to various parts of my job, unseen by the guests who waited for me to serve them. Now I retreat to my home with my laptop and stacks of student essays, no longer teaching once my classes are over for the day but definitely--most definitely--still working.

  • What can we do?
  • Posted by Aeron on March 12, 2009 at 1:15pm EDT

  • Thanks for your comments.

    Libby, in response to your question, "What can we do?" I think we should insist that what we do (staying at home with kids, teaching, writing a book, etc.) is real labor, and that it benefits society, and that it should be "compensated." We should stop apologizing for being paid for doing what we love. Thomas Benton makes a similar point in this week's Chroncile http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/03/2009031301c.htm on the ethics of encouraging students to pursue PhDs in the humanities:

    "[when there is] skepticism about the fairness of the exchange of labor for opportunity, the rhetoric of "love" becomes all the more powerful: "We don't need to pay you fairly because you are doing it for love." (Such a bargain should particularly alarm women, who are now the majority of graduate students in the humanities and the overwhelming majority of adjuncts.)"

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