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  • Motherhood After Tenure: What makes a happy woman?

    By Aeron Haynie September 30, 2009 9:29 pm

    This week I’m teaching Frankenstein in a lower-level women’s literature course. Among the host of meaty issues, we discuss the ways that Mary Shelley’s novel critiques the male scientist’s obsessive and isolating pursuit of knowledge at the expense of family/romantic/community ties. At the novel’s end, Victor Frankenstein counsels the explorer, Captain Walton, to “seek happiness in tranquility, and avoid ambition.”

    I was musing on this as I read Liz Stockwell’s excellent post yesterday in which she discussed the contrast between the obsessiveness of an absent-minded researcher and the time management skills of a successful multi-tasker. As Liz accurately points out, this dichotomy is often gendered: the luxury of obsessing over one topic has traditionally been a male province, and usually required a supportive wife to manage the daily world/kids/household. As more women enter the workforce, there has not been a corresponding increase in househusbands.

    As I’ve mentioned before, I just came back to my tenured faculty position after a year-long sabbatical in which I had the luxury of focusing on my research -- although I also spent time with my four year old daughter and took on a larger share of household duties. While on sabbatical, I relished the luxury of being able to focus, almost exclusively, on one project. Now, as I teach four (large) classes, chair a search committee, and attend faculty meetings, I find myself constantly interrupted as soon as I get on a roll. Twice a week I sit down and try to pick up the book I’m writing, but that only works when I can get out of the house. As anyone who has tried to write knows, it takes some time to get reoriented to one’s topic after several days (or weeks) of thinking about other pressing subjects. Although my husband is now working part time, we are still transitioning as he begins to take on more responsibility for the myriad details of house and child. In order to concentrate on my book, I tell him, I need to free some space up from the details of dentist appointments, school lunches, and playdates.

    While I’m sure that folks can offer examples of time-management superstars who publish books, raise wonderful children, run marathons and cook gourmet meals, I would argue that distracted multi-tasking produces few masterpieces. In fact, recent studies have shown that multi-tasking is actually less efficient, since it takes most people time to shift gears. In any case, I cannot do it all.

    Interestingly, recent reports that women are less happy, find that happier women are often those who “strive for imbalance,” who tilt their lives toward experiences that satisfy/fulfill them. These women privilege the things that they enjoy, things that captivate/energize/enthrall them (be it playing with one’s child, or writing a book), rather than juggling a myriad of “shoulds” or covering all their bases.

    Disturbingly, the report states that women begin life happier than men, then become less content as they grow up and age. As a mother of a young daughter, this trend disturbs me. In what ways might my daughter feel pressured to stop pursuing her passions? When will she start to feel that she must cover all her bases, please everyone, juggle lots of balls, in order to feel successful?

    I can’t answer these questions. All I can do, I realize, is try to be an example of a woman who doesn’t settle for trying to have it all; instead I will strive to have what I desire most.

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Comments on Motherhood After Tenure: What makes a happy woman?

  • Frankenstein and ambition
  • Posted by Libby , Mama, PhD contributor on October 1, 2009 at 6:45am EDT

  • I always find that passage in Frankenstein so interesting, since Victor only comes to that wisdom after fulfilling his ambition and, if I'm remembering rightly, telling his own story. (At the beginning of the novel doesn't he urge the crew on?) It suggests to me that story-telling is an epistemology, a way of knowing, and that only by telling stories (as we're doing here, as Victor does on the ship) can we begin to shape our experiences into meanings that we can then act on.

  • Posted by Suzanne on October 1, 2009 at 10:45am EDT

  • I'm going to post that last part of your blog on my fridge with all my other 'important things to remember' as I'm continually torn between playing with my children and checking email, paying bills, reading an article for a meeting the next day, or getting the dishes done. I really know what the right choice is - my children of course - but constantly feel pulled towards the 'shoulds'. Often I have no time in the day for any of my desires, even the most simple ones. But perhaps it's no one's fault but my own. Thank you!

  • provocative column!
  • Posted by Caitilyn , Professor, Plant Pathology at University f Wisconsin-Madison on October 1, 2009 at 5:00pm EDT

  • Aeron-

    Very nice assembly of ideas. This is the first I've heard of the striving for imbalance concept, but I must say that I've always read the phrase 'work-life balance' as a euphemism for "Can I please have a little air down here?" It's not so much that women want to do everything, it's that they want it recognized that they are EXPECTED to do everything, and it's usually not @#$%ing possible!

    Caiti

  • Posted by LS on October 2, 2009 at 9:30am EDT

  • The sad part of it is after years of doing what one is expected to do and doing it all with mediocre success, it becomes difficult to even recognise what it is that one really wants to do and excel in.

  • Posted by ML on October 3, 2009 at 5:00pm EDT

  • It's funny how nervous reading this made me. Most of my pre-tenure life included being a mother but my husband did the lion's share of everything and did not work full time. Now I want to be an involved mother, lead an ordinary domestic life with a husband who works full time and still excel at my work. How will I do this?

    The way I got tenure with a child was by focusing obsessively on my research. I was sometimes an absentee mother and our domestic life was an absolute mess. We lived out of the microwave for years. My husband ostensibly worked part time but his job was demanding and he got in a lot of trouble by not putting 1000% at his workplace. We also jeopardized our finances considerably by taking this route.

    In a couple of weeks, he'll be starting a full time job at a demanding workplace. I'm not sure if our finances will recover even with this (we live in one of the most expensive areas in the country) but it is the only thing possible. I'm especially unsure how I will get the research done I want to do if he is unable to pick up the slack as he used to.

    Women writers of the past often had domestic help. Men had wives. What do we do now? There are unbelievably some men willing to (maybe even happy to) do a traditional wife thing. My husband certainly was. But it isn't financially feasible for most of us.

    I'm happy to do triage and live in a messy house. I'm less willing to be an absent mother. What I tell myself is that I will have periods of singular focus and try to balance out the other way. I suspect, to get a book done, I will have to be absent many weekends during certain periods. What else is possible? Unfortunately, I also don't have the money to afford a year long sabbatical at half pay. (This is my university's policy. Only semesters are at full pay.)

    I think for all but those few cushy academic jobs, there are a lot of corners that must be cut and a lot of hard choices for professors with children and genuine balance might be out of the question for many of us. Engels was right about the need for domestic labor. Shifting around the gender roles is certainly nice but someone has to do that labor. It's very difficult for all working parents, not just professors. But I think the need to write does pose a particular dilemma because writing is something that requires sustained and intense focus for long periods and this is a challenge even for faculty without children. Children can't be happy when one of their parents is spending every weekend in the library.

  • Response
  • Posted by Aeron on October 6, 2009 at 10:30am EDT

  • Thanks for all of your thoughtful comments! (nice to see you here, Caiti).

    "ML" I feel for you. One of the ways that we are able to manage our lives is by living in an affordable area. (Of course this has its costs too; one can fall into the trap of thinking "life is elsewhere"). Nonetheless, my husband giving up his full-time job is scarey. And he's still learning to pick up the slack at home, so it's not a perfect solution yet.

    When you ask if children can be happy with one parent always at the library, I wonder if you mean, can children be happy if their mother is away? Traditionally, fathers have prioritized their careers without a lot of guilt. As long as one parent is able to spend focused time with the children, my sense is that they will be fine. And writing a book doesn't last forever; it just feels like it will!

  • Thank you
  • Posted by charlotte gordon , Asst Professor English at Endicott College on October 13, 2009 at 10:00pm EDT

  • I was so happy to read this discussion of imbalance. I felt less alone as I read your words. I do not like to cut corners anywhere and I suspect this  is true of many of us. But I think this is the secret answer. Sometimes it is important to finish writing that chapter and let the meeting go, or don't prepare (gasp) for class. At least this is what I tell myself. But it is hard not to try to do everything perfectly. Another gendered ambition. 

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