![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thoughts on work/life balance
Nov. 18th, 2015 09:40 pmI will preface this by saying that these comments come from a position of incredible privilege, and that much of what I do that I will talk about here I am only able to do because of that privilege.
You hear a lot about work/life balance in academia -- when you're writing a PhD and it threatens to swallow your entire life, when you're a woman trying to figure out when/if to have kids during your academic career, after you've had kids, even if you don't have kids but have a full-time position where your duties are amorphous enough that it's easy for them to spill over into the evenings and weekends. If anything, having a kid has forced me to balance the two better than perhaps I had pre-Gwen: I don't do (much) work on the evenings or weekends because I simply can't. I'm either actively involved with Gwen or I'm too tired.
But there's a tenor underneath a lot of the conversations surrounding this that I have found increasingly problematic, and it's this unspoken feeling that a proper work/life balance involves a sharp division between the two. Don't let your work encroach on your life, don't your life encroach on your work. But over the years, I have grown less and less comfortable with this.
It used to be that I kept my onomastic research and my medieval re-enactment proclivities under wraps when hanging around with logicians. I didn't want them to think I wasn't "serious" about logic, or that I wasn't "serious" about academia/research in general. And then I gave the game away one year at the Leeds Medieval Congress, when both I and my future-PhD-committee-member were both in the audience of a session on medieval Scotland, where one of the talks was about names and it turned out during the Q&A that I knew more about medieval Scottish border names than the speaker did...
And that caused me to start thinking: Why do I try to keep my two lives separate? Is it healthy to do so? Is this the right way to balance things?
The conclusion that I've come to over the years is, NO. It is not healthy to pretend to one half of my life that the other half doesn't exist -- it isn't healthy in either direction. It isn't healthy for me to pretend to Gwen that I don't have work responsibilities; it is fine for me to abrogate them on weekends to spend time with her, but it is important for me to explain to her when she says "I don't want you to go" that it is important that I do, that part of my job is to travel and go to conferences and give talks and part of my job is to not be there to read her stories and sing her songs and cuddle her at night. It is important that she know that I will miss her tremendously, and that I am sad to leave her -- but that I am going to leave her anyway, and that I will come back for her. This is important for her.
It is important that when she is ill and cannot go to nursery and neither of her parents an escape their work responsibilities that we respond by bringing her with. It is important that I sit in research committee meetings with a feverish toddler asleep in my arms. It is important that I attend faculty meetings armed with stories and paper and markers, and that I read to her, quietly, while attending said meetings.
It is important that I run a tutorial in my office with toys scattered across the floor and her constantly climbing in and out of my lap to put "stickers" on my shirt. This is important not so much for her as it is for the students who will see me balancing my life and my work simultaneously, and see that it can be done.
It is important that I talk about my experiences raising a child in my classes, when relevant -- and when you talk about language and meaning and successful conversation, having a young child gives you plenty of fodder. It is important that I share duplicate copies of my books and tell my students I have them because I married one of my classmates, who had the same text books as me, and that's why I have two.
It is important that when I am invited to give a short course at another university, I say "I'd love to, but at that point I'll have a 4 month old baby, and, assuming I'll still be nursing, she's coming with so you need to provide childcare during the lectures." (And they did, except for one where the plans fell through and I brought her along and one of the organizers held her and entertained her in the back of the room, and I found just how impossible it is to lecture when you have a 4 month old child in the room because your attention is so very zeroed in on her. I could probably do it now, now that she's older, but it was the strangest experience.)
It is important that when I am invited to give a talk on relatively short notice, I say "It depends on whether I can leave the solo parenting to my husband for the weekend -- " (because we try to keep parity on this) " -- or better yet, invite both of us. For the topic you're interested in, we can both speak, so pay for both of us to come, we'll pay for Gwen, and you'll get two interesting, and relevant, and different talks."
[[Which is how it turns out that Joel, Gwen, and I are likely going to Bolzano for a few days in late December, just before we head to the US for Christmas. I've never been to Bolzano, and Joel has never been to Italy (despite the fact that I love Italy and have wanted to go there -- anywhere there -- with him for some years now!).]]
It's important that academic connections see pictures of me in funny clothes and a crown on FB. It is important that they see pictures of my child, and my growing happiness and delight in her. It is important they see pictures of my purple hair.
It is important that my non-academic friends see me post about my research, that I ask specialist questions of my academic friends with them in the audience. It is important that when I do something I find particularly interesting, I share it with everyone, not just the inner circle of academics.
It is important that I do the research that matters to me and that I don't pretend to half of my academic contacts that I'm not. It is important that I don't do the research that matters to me because sometimes it matters more that I spend all day away from the computer with my daughter.
It is important that I have hobbies and that people know that I have hobbies. It is important that there is a LIFE to be balanced with the work.
All of this is important, because I think that "work/life balance" is in fact the wrong way to describe it, because it implies that your work is not a part of your life and that your life is not a part of your work, and if that is true, then you will never be able to balance the two.
You hear a lot about work/life balance in academia -- when you're writing a PhD and it threatens to swallow your entire life, when you're a woman trying to figure out when/if to have kids during your academic career, after you've had kids, even if you don't have kids but have a full-time position where your duties are amorphous enough that it's easy for them to spill over into the evenings and weekends. If anything, having a kid has forced me to balance the two better than perhaps I had pre-Gwen: I don't do (much) work on the evenings or weekends because I simply can't. I'm either actively involved with Gwen or I'm too tired.
But there's a tenor underneath a lot of the conversations surrounding this that I have found increasingly problematic, and it's this unspoken feeling that a proper work/life balance involves a sharp division between the two. Don't let your work encroach on your life, don't your life encroach on your work. But over the years, I have grown less and less comfortable with this.
It used to be that I kept my onomastic research and my medieval re-enactment proclivities under wraps when hanging around with logicians. I didn't want them to think I wasn't "serious" about logic, or that I wasn't "serious" about academia/research in general. And then I gave the game away one year at the Leeds Medieval Congress, when both I and my future-PhD-committee-member were both in the audience of a session on medieval Scotland, where one of the talks was about names and it turned out during the Q&A that I knew more about medieval Scottish border names than the speaker did...
And that caused me to start thinking: Why do I try to keep my two lives separate? Is it healthy to do so? Is this the right way to balance things?
The conclusion that I've come to over the years is, NO. It is not healthy to pretend to one half of my life that the other half doesn't exist -- it isn't healthy in either direction. It isn't healthy for me to pretend to Gwen that I don't have work responsibilities; it is fine for me to abrogate them on weekends to spend time with her, but it is important for me to explain to her when she says "I don't want you to go" that it is important that I do, that part of my job is to travel and go to conferences and give talks and part of my job is to not be there to read her stories and sing her songs and cuddle her at night. It is important that she know that I will miss her tremendously, and that I am sad to leave her -- but that I am going to leave her anyway, and that I will come back for her. This is important for her.
It is important that when she is ill and cannot go to nursery and neither of her parents an escape their work responsibilities that we respond by bringing her with. It is important that I sit in research committee meetings with a feverish toddler asleep in my arms. It is important that I attend faculty meetings armed with stories and paper and markers, and that I read to her, quietly, while attending said meetings.
It is important that I run a tutorial in my office with toys scattered across the floor and her constantly climbing in and out of my lap to put "stickers" on my shirt. This is important not so much for her as it is for the students who will see me balancing my life and my work simultaneously, and see that it can be done.
It is important that I talk about my experiences raising a child in my classes, when relevant -- and when you talk about language and meaning and successful conversation, having a young child gives you plenty of fodder. It is important that I share duplicate copies of my books and tell my students I have them because I married one of my classmates, who had the same text books as me, and that's why I have two.
It is important that when I am invited to give a short course at another university, I say "I'd love to, but at that point I'll have a 4 month old baby, and, assuming I'll still be nursing, she's coming with so you need to provide childcare during the lectures." (And they did, except for one where the plans fell through and I brought her along and one of the organizers held her and entertained her in the back of the room, and I found just how impossible it is to lecture when you have a 4 month old child in the room because your attention is so very zeroed in on her. I could probably do it now, now that she's older, but it was the strangest experience.)
It is important that when I am invited to give a talk on relatively short notice, I say "It depends on whether I can leave the solo parenting to my husband for the weekend -- " (because we try to keep parity on this) " -- or better yet, invite both of us. For the topic you're interested in, we can both speak, so pay for both of us to come, we'll pay for Gwen, and you'll get two interesting, and relevant, and different talks."
[[Which is how it turns out that Joel, Gwen, and I are likely going to Bolzano for a few days in late December, just before we head to the US for Christmas. I've never been to Bolzano, and Joel has never been to Italy (despite the fact that I love Italy and have wanted to go there -- anywhere there -- with him for some years now!).]]
It's important that academic connections see pictures of me in funny clothes and a crown on FB. It is important that they see pictures of my child, and my growing happiness and delight in her. It is important they see pictures of my purple hair.
It is important that my non-academic friends see me post about my research, that I ask specialist questions of my academic friends with them in the audience. It is important that when I do something I find particularly interesting, I share it with everyone, not just the inner circle of academics.
It is important that I do the research that matters to me and that I don't pretend to half of my academic contacts that I'm not. It is important that I don't do the research that matters to me because sometimes it matters more that I spend all day away from the computer with my daughter.
It is important that I have hobbies and that people know that I have hobbies. It is important that there is a LIFE to be balanced with the work.
All of this is important, because I think that "work/life balance" is in fact the wrong way to describe it, because it implies that your work is not a part of your life and that your life is not a part of your work, and if that is true, then you will never be able to balance the two.
