parenting and imposter syndrome
Jul. 14th, 2014 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aryanhwyThose who've been in higher academia for any period of time will be familiar with imposter syndrome -- and those who've read my journal for awhile may remember that I wrote about it back in March (even though I'd forgotten about that post until the title showed up in my browser's memory as I started typing the current one!) -- and the constant nagging feeling that you'll be found out as a fraud and excluded from the community you've fought so hard to enter. I spent most of my first year of grad school waiting for someone to take me aside and kindly tell me, "I'm sorry, we made a mistake when we admitted you to the program" (which given the back-and-forth surrounding my acceptance to the program didn't seem all that far-fetched to me). Everyone -- not just the professors, but all the other grad students too -- were so much smarter than me, always had insightful things to say in class, or questions to ask in seminars, while I sat dumbly in the background. I couldn't even console myself with the thought that it was just because they were senior grad students and I was just starting out, because the other four people in my year could do it too -- I was the only one of the five who'd gone straight to grad school after undergrad, they were all 5-10 years older than me, confident, smart, so much smarter than me.
Of course they didn't kick me out of the program, and as the years went on, and we moved to Amsterdam, and I specialized and really began to delve into my subject, some of the worry went away. I distinctly remember, my 2nd or maybe 3rd year in Amsterdam, sitting in on a philosophy of math class Benedikt was teaching, simply because I enjoyed the material and wasn't so deep in the throes of dissertation writing that I couldn't spare 2 hours a week. I didn't bother to do the readings, but still found lots of things to comment on, and suddenly, one day, I realized I had become what I had always feared. I was the senior grad student sitting in the back of the room who knows so much and had the smart comments and questions. I realized the master's students probably felt towards me as I felt years before, and that crystal of recognition, that piece of perspective has helped me quite a bit in the struggle with imposter syndrome since then, because it made me see how irrational it is from an outside perspective.
Of course, it never goes away. Every paper acceptance I get, every time I receive an invitation to speak at a conference, I always wonder if they really just don't understand my research and if they did they'd realize it wasn't worth publishing, wasn't worth inviting me to talk about -- even when continually I manage to get published in some of the foremost venues in my field(s), it seems like a big charade, and someday someone will figure me out.
The pervasiveness of this worry in the face of strong evidence that I have that in fact I DO actually know my field, quite well, and that I DO have interesting insights to share was thrown up in my face early last week, and that was when I realized something really quite strange: When it comes to another area of life, an area where I actually have had far less training and practice, and where the consequences of actually being an imposter, a fraud, or a screw-up are far more lasting and potentially far more damaging, imposter syndrome has almost never reared its head: Parenting.
It stopped me dead in my tracks: Why on earth is it that I have basically never questioned my judgement regarding raising Gwen? That I don't sit and wait for people to discover that I'm incompetent and take her away? I know I'm raising her well, I have no doubts whatsoever that I am an extremely competent parent. I see small evidence of this daily, and as she gets older and interacts with more people, large evidence in the form of people who don't know her (many of the people that were friends of friends at the feast yesterday expressed surprised upon hearing her age, given how self-posssessed and articulate she is). It's not that the doubts arise and I can deal with them in a rational way, but that for the most part, they just don't arise at all. There are a few grand-scale matters that I have faced where the question of "what decision that we make will be the best for Gwen" has seemed incredibly daunting, and the weightiness of how my actions can shape the course of her life and happiness sits fully on me, but I am not worried that we won't be able to determine if not the best option, an option which will not be harmful to her.
I wondered what the difference was, and one natural point of difference is that I have known her day in and day out since she first arrived: I have daily experience with her and being her mother, and thus feel more qualified than pretty much anyone in the world when it comes to her (it's the ultimate Ph.D. project, except that instead of taking 4 years to create it takes 9 months, and instead of being free and clear once the defense/labor is done, your work has only just begun). No one can expose me as a fraud because no one else knows this particular subject matter better than I do.
I don't know if there is any moral to draw here -- if I put as much work into my work as I do into Gwen, would I feel more comfortable in claiming the skills that I claim to have? Or is there an intrinsic difference between being an academic and being a parent such that imposter syndrome just doesn't arise for me regarding one even if it does the other? Or has it just not hit yet -- after all, it never bothered me while I was an undergrad, I was completely confident in my position of "one of the smartest, most talkative people in class". Maybe I just need to wait until I get to the "grad school" portion of being a parent. :)
Of course they didn't kick me out of the program, and as the years went on, and we moved to Amsterdam, and I specialized and really began to delve into my subject, some of the worry went away. I distinctly remember, my 2nd or maybe 3rd year in Amsterdam, sitting in on a philosophy of math class Benedikt was teaching, simply because I enjoyed the material and wasn't so deep in the throes of dissertation writing that I couldn't spare 2 hours a week. I didn't bother to do the readings, but still found lots of things to comment on, and suddenly, one day, I realized I had become what I had always feared. I was the senior grad student sitting in the back of the room who knows so much and had the smart comments and questions. I realized the master's students probably felt towards me as I felt years before, and that crystal of recognition, that piece of perspective has helped me quite a bit in the struggle with imposter syndrome since then, because it made me see how irrational it is from an outside perspective.
Of course, it never goes away. Every paper acceptance I get, every time I receive an invitation to speak at a conference, I always wonder if they really just don't understand my research and if they did they'd realize it wasn't worth publishing, wasn't worth inviting me to talk about -- even when continually I manage to get published in some of the foremost venues in my field(s), it seems like a big charade, and someday someone will figure me out.
The pervasiveness of this worry in the face of strong evidence that I have that in fact I DO actually know my field, quite well, and that I DO have interesting insights to share was thrown up in my face early last week, and that was when I realized something really quite strange: When it comes to another area of life, an area where I actually have had far less training and practice, and where the consequences of actually being an imposter, a fraud, or a screw-up are far more lasting and potentially far more damaging, imposter syndrome has almost never reared its head: Parenting.
It stopped me dead in my tracks: Why on earth is it that I have basically never questioned my judgement regarding raising Gwen? That I don't sit and wait for people to discover that I'm incompetent and take her away? I know I'm raising her well, I have no doubts whatsoever that I am an extremely competent parent. I see small evidence of this daily, and as she gets older and interacts with more people, large evidence in the form of people who don't know her (many of the people that were friends of friends at the feast yesterday expressed surprised upon hearing her age, given how self-posssessed and articulate she is). It's not that the doubts arise and I can deal with them in a rational way, but that for the most part, they just don't arise at all. There are a few grand-scale matters that I have faced where the question of "what decision that we make will be the best for Gwen" has seemed incredibly daunting, and the weightiness of how my actions can shape the course of her life and happiness sits fully on me, but I am not worried that we won't be able to determine if not the best option, an option which will not be harmful to her.
I wondered what the difference was, and one natural point of difference is that I have known her day in and day out since she first arrived: I have daily experience with her and being her mother, and thus feel more qualified than pretty much anyone in the world when it comes to her (it's the ultimate Ph.D. project, except that instead of taking 4 years to create it takes 9 months, and instead of being free and clear once the defense/labor is done, your work has only just begun). No one can expose me as a fraud because no one else knows this particular subject matter better than I do.
I don't know if there is any moral to draw here -- if I put as much work into my work as I do into Gwen, would I feel more comfortable in claiming the skills that I claim to have? Or is there an intrinsic difference between being an academic and being a parent such that imposter syndrome just doesn't arise for me regarding one even if it does the other? Or has it just not hit yet -- after all, it never bothered me while I was an undergrad, I was completely confident in my position of "one of the smartest, most talkative people in class". Maybe I just need to wait until I get to the "grad school" portion of being a parent. :)
