Comments on Motherhood After Tenure: Location, Location, Location

• After Tenure: Location, Location
• Posted by PhDMom on July 24, 2008 at 9:30am EDT

• I think sometimes of how my life would be now had we remained in the small town, large NC university where I had tenure and recent promotion to associate professorship. We left because after ten years of staying where my job was, my husband wanted his life and his terminal degree to matter.

  In the twenty years since that move, I've realized that what I left was small town life and my own career path--everything I'd worked for since I began college on two scholarships, loans, and $75 in savings.

  In the new urban location, I watched as one wife of a newly minted PhD realized that they might have to live in Arkansas or Louisians. They didn't--because he gave up searching and returned to his old job (with a promotion) in her hometown.

  "Bloom where you are planted" means being tough, like the plants that emerge from the cracks in the sidewalk.

• home has intangible value but also high costs
• Posted by phree , dr. on July 24, 2008 at 5:35pm EDT

• Thanks for this entry. It couldn't be more timely and from the length of this post you can tell it hit a nerve.So here's our story:

  My husband and I were part of the great Western PA diaspora. When steel and all manufacturing ended here during the late 1970s everyone who graduated from high school/college had to leave to find a job. I left for Boston, DH to Washington, D.C. At present, there are two generations who regularly migrate home @ Christmas when class reunions and Steeler parties are held with old friends.

  My husband and I returned to Western PA at different times to care for ailing parents, and I to finish two undergrad majors and attend graduate school.

  By the time I earned the Ph.D. we were married. His care responsibilities ended and mine had yet to begin. At present I help 3 elderly adults, cool parents and a grandparent from the Great Depression generation. Though I am honored to help them, my career has suffered greatly by trying to remain near family and meet care committments. As part of the sandwich generation, I also have a young son who is 2.

  Other academics who used to be good friends did not respect my choice to stay. They believe I am somehow less serious about my career and research because I, as an only child with a Kantian dilemma, have made the choice to stay within 2 hours of family. Thus, I am currently on an unpaid sabbatical to resurrect my career.

  My husband is 50+ and I 40+; all of our business contacts are here. The cost of living is low and our childcare support network includes family and friends that we trust implicitly. Yet, I could kick myself for staying near family and possibly sacrificing an interesting intellectual career. Though it is the ethical thing to do, it is the hardest choice I have ever had to make.

  I am willing to take short term post-doc fellowships as I can spend 6-12 months away. However, there is an implicit prejudice against women who mother and serve as caregivers in our culture and it plays out i academia too. Before I became a mom, I heard many women (85% of female Ph.Ds do not have kids) say horrid things about colleagues who mothered. Bottom line: this is our home, but the costs of staying were quite high!

  By the way, in an ironic twist, Richard Florida also fled Pittsburgh for the more temperate climate in Florida.

• Posted by Aeron on July 24, 2008 at 7:20pm EDT

• Phree,

  I empathize your decision to care for your relatives. Based on the short time I was the primary caretaker (I was single then) for my dying father, I have some understanding of the toll--emotionally, physically, socially, and also in terms of one's career --that this kind of unpaid work takes.

  In my case, I think I've gotten more support for being a mother than I did for being a caretaker (even though both should be covered under FMLA--but that only applies to full-time workers!).

  My heart goes out to you.

  Aeron

  This is why I think the issues raised in this forum are not just about mothers, but really affect us all: how does (or does not) the academy support us as whole people?

• thanks for your note
• Posted by phree on July 27, 2008 at 1:05pm EDT

• Aeron:
  Thanks for your kind words here and in other posts. I am a full-time faculty member at one of the schools where I teach and thus, I could, and probably will at some point, have to take advantage of FMLA.
  However, my main point in the above post is that we women too often have to choose between a career and meeting family commitments. The professional cost is high and sometimes the choice is irretrievable in terms of career loss because our own colleagues (many women included) have either explicit or implicit biases against women who are caregivers or mothers. Specifically, I cannot tell colleagues about the elder caregiving because it diminishes professional stature and access to opportunities. Other professional friends who hire and fire tell me that they regularly mommy-track women who share my level of family commitment (the older parent, young child mix). I have heard horror stories about Ph.D. candidates who were pregnant losing committee members for a perceived lack of seriousness concerning their careers.

  Oddly, I have not seen a parallel with male colleagues though I am sure it does happen when a male colleague has to take advantage of FMLA. Humbly, I think this is the issue we should investigate if we want to retain good colleagues and exemplify the egalitarian values we academics seem to advocate for everyone else.

• Women Administrators
• Posted by Carol L. Palermo on July 28, 2008 at 11:35am EDT

• As a young teacher/department head with a Master's degree at age 23, in a very large South Jersey School District; I was given the opportunity to be promoted and supervise my fellow peers and staff, over 20 years my senior! I held that position for 10 years before moving on to a 12 month administrative position.

  Many of those women administrators, that I met through the years. were ambivalent of their respective missions to "help other women." Their lack of humanity and compassion, to those of us that were mothers, taking care of everyone, even if one published from time to time, became a challenge for these, "so called" leaders in
  educational administration. I was very active in a national group for Social Studies educators, even taking my family to their respective conventions. I wanted to maintain
  that the role of motherhood which is the most important role,a woman can attain; but I also, was the main support of my family.

  Jealously is widely apparent, I HAD to rise above this, accept my place in the scheme of academia, and continue to excel.

  My children completed university, two of them, with advanced degrees, and yet, they have not married! They own their own homes and struggle like, I did, having multiple
  jobs.

  I am happy to say that the "new emerging women administrators" seem to have grown in the areas of respect and compassion. We need to support each other, for the future of our society. However, when women are blatent and illegally forcing other women over the age of 50, to leave their school districts, or by transferring them to violent schools. They must be FIRED. In New Jersey we have over 600 Superintendents, and a few are women) one Superintendent
  has violated ALL these laws and has a judge, in her pocket and bullies her Board of Education! Several staff membersof that district are SUING. Boards of Education are ELECTED in many districts, and they must ANSWER to the public.

  It is noteworthy to state that many women administrators, do not demonstrate these aforementioned attributes. We struggle to balance our families and careers.

  I am a blessed and positive person, but ignorance and jealousy, has no place in any level of education. We need to struggle together and assist each other, for the betterment of society.