Being a working mother

I don't post much here. Partly because I have been self-conscious about broadcasting my thoughts on work, especially if they aren't positive. But this one is really important and has been begging for me to write it. So, even though there is already a lot of talk on the science blogosphere about these issues, I am going to add my two cents. Probably because it will help me to think things through as I write it.

I have been musing a lot about these issues for a while, since I now have a 10 month old son and have been back at work for about 2 months. When Sheryl Sandberg's TED talk and Anne Marie Slaughter's article in The Atlantic came out, I largely ignored them. I was sick of hearing about problems associated with working mothers. The TED talk came out as I was about to start a new job as a tenure track professor at a liberal arts college and my husband and I were finishing up a Fulbright Fellowship. He had left his job to follow me on the Fulbright and then to my new job. Clearly I had figured things out. We wanted to have kids, but certainly these arguments about moms in the business are not related to me.

By the time the article in The Atlantic came out, I had a 2 month old son and was on maternity leave. My school gives us a full semester of paid leave and my son was born just at the beginning of the summer holiday (on the day after my husband graduated with his masters degree). I had no interest in getting involved in this debate. It definitely didn't involve me - I'm not in government. I mean, Slaughter left her job at the State Department to "fail" back to her job as a tenured faculty member (and former dean) at Princeton. I'm at a liberal arts college and get a semester of paid maternity leave. No problem.

However, when my dad forwarded me both the talk and the article last fall, I decided I'd better see what people were talking about. I didn't see the big debate that most people saw. I saw two women grasping at explanations for the same thing - why are women under-represented at the top of organizations. They are going about things in different ways and addressing different types of women. I'll be honest, the call to arms by Sandberg isn't my style. I'm not in business, remember. And I'm a geologist, so I sure as heck won't be going into government anytime soon. Some points that Slaughter makes really struck home - I decided that I am super lucky to be in academia where many of those issues don't exist. It's the ultimate fairly flexible job with a schedule that works with school schedules. As long as my labs are scheduled on days with after school programs at the elementary school, I should be fine.

I spent my maternity leave traveling with my baby (some for work - I took him to a conference where I had to pay out of pocket $7/hour for group child care and to a meeting with a collaborator). I met with a lab technician (hired on a supplement from NSF to allow parents on family leave to keep research moving forward on grants) weekly, if not more often. I supervised student research projects (3 research students, including 1 honors student). I had a summer research student I met with weekly. I gave a talk via video conference and nursed my son in the middle of it. I gave a talk at a conference and had two students present posters. My son got extremely overtired on that trip and I hardly ate anything because of his intolerance to food I eat passing through into breast milk. Later in the fall I had to leave a meeting where I was observing the tenure discussion for a colleague because I had to take my son home and put him to bed. I got home that afternoon and realized that I had made my first of many decisions to put my child's health above my career. Knowing what a tenure discussion looks like would have been REALLY helpful for my career. I had to turn down the opportunity to serve on an NSF panel because I had a baby and didn't think I could commit to it. I turned down an invited talk at a big international conference because I was too pregnant to fly.

The day I went back to work I came home to nurse my son around lunch time and got to put him down for his nap. I read him a book called "When Mama Comes Home Tonight" about working mothers (in a 1930s era sort of way, with shawls and old fashioned dresses). I started to cry. What was I doing to my son?

We've sort of worked things into a schedule. We decided that instead of sending him to daycare, with less flexible hours, we would have an au pair. It costs more but we decided in home care was worth it to us (not to mention that he will learn Chinese from infancy). Every morning I am thrilled not to be packing him up for day care as I leave for work while he is still half (or totally) naked and eating breakfast. He smiles at me as I wave goodbye. He comes in to see me and nurse after my morning class. That way I minimize pumping and get to see him midday. I work at home when I can. He loves to crawl up the stairs to find me in my office. I generally work from 7-5 three days a week and 7-2:45 two days a week (so our au pair can go to a class). I always put him to bed, even though this means that I miss late afternoon and evening events on campus regularly. I keep making sacrifices to my career for my son and happily so.

Since I have been back at work and Sheryl Sandberg's book, Lean In, has come out, I have been thinking more about the articles again. Especially since some science blogs had things about it (Grumpy Rumblings of the (formerly!) Untenured has a Link Aggregator (and a good post on feminist language) and Academic Jungle has a book review) and our college has been having some bias events recently (racism, sexism, homophobia, you know, nice things like that) that have prompted soul searching discussions around campus about diversity. For us in the natural sciences, this has included minorities and women in science. So things spiral and I got inside my head and have been thinking a lot.

The big revelation that I had a few days ago is that if I hadn't leaned in and applied for academic positions, I probably would have left the workforce to stay at home and raise my son. I love my job. It is the only reason that I am here trying to be a working mom today. I love my job. But when I was a senior graduate student and considering getting married to someone with a stable job in the town we lived in, I thought about not trying for a tenure track job and instead just work in consulting and teach some community college classes. On a whim I decided that if I was going to try academia, I needed to try now, but I could always leave. I set a limit of 3-4 application cycles and applied for tenure track jobs and post docs. I got a job and here I am. I got here with no model of working mothers. There were a few working mom grad students in my department when I was in grad school, but one of them left academia and the other I knew graduated when I was just in my third year. So not much in the way of really showing me how it is done.

So even though I didn't think that Lean In would speak to me, it is the reason that I am writing this post write now as the assistant professor mother of a lovely baby boy who is cared for by a fantastic au pair. There are a lot of things I have to work out (like navigating my month of field work this summer), but I can truly say that if I hadn't leaned in and applied for (and then taken) the tenure track job, I would have left academia. I'm not sure how that translates to anyone else, but it is definitely where I fall down on the issues.

NY times blog

Some of you mentioned that you didn't know that the scientist at work thing was ongoing. There are now 8 posts from me with one more comic early next week. Http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com.

I just got back from a circumambulation of the local holy mountain and leave for Chengdu today. I will post something about the kora soon. And probably something about being back here in Jiuzhaigou.

Dr. JZG

Sent from my iPhone

The NY Times

Starting today for about 3 weeks I will have 2-3 posts a week on the NY Times Scientist at Work Blog (http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com). They are about a week behind, so it will likely continue after I return.

Dr JZG, writing from JZG

Sent from my iPhone

Fulbright student newsletter

An article I wrote about my experience as a Fulbrighter living and working in Jiuzhaigou National Park was just published in the Fulbright Student Newsletter. Check it out!

I leave for Hong Kong on Monday and am not really ready to go. It's all coming up a bit quickly. I'm in the midst of writing a proposal for NSF and haven't been thinking enough at all about what we'll do in the field. I am also busy packing the house as we are moving house while I am gone.

I've also finalized that I will be bloging for the NY Times Scientist at Work Blog from 13 July to 16 August. I will post 2 to 3 times per week and will put links here when they come up. Definitely check it out and see what we're up to. I may also post here, but to be honest, it depends on how I am feeling and how much time I have. 

-- Dr. JZG

VoA

Ok. I just did the VoA interview on China's drought and thank goodness they are editing it! It will be aired sometime in the next week or so. I'll send you a link when I have it.

Public science

Somehow things all happen at once. I took a workshop this week on writing OpEds to get more women's voices in the public debate in America (fabulous workshop, I highly recommend it... it's run by The OpEd Project (http://theopedproject.org). They have public workshops and you should definitely attend... if you're a woman). Then I wrote an OpEd (not published yet) on China's erosion management in light of current flooding. Today my agreement with the NY Times finally came through to blog for them at their Scientist at Work Blog while I'm in China this summer (scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com). More details when that actually happens, but tentatively it will be 2-3 posts/week for 3 of the weeks that I'm in the field. Then Voice of America contacted me to be interviewed for the show tonight. So I'll be on VOA tonight talking about the drought in China. Exciting! I'll post a link as soon as I get one. It's the Chinese/English program.

I have mixed feelings about being a scientist in the public eye, but I think that if I can encourage young women to continue with science, it can't be a bad thing.

-- Dr. JZG

Sign ups

My students are doing final posters for both classes. They will present them in a joint final poster session on Thursday. One class has to sign up to print their posters. The other has to sign up to stand by them. The posters are all due at exactly the same time and everyone has to be there for the entire session (thus, standing by your poster later has no time advantage). In both cases they are rushing to sign up for the latest possible spot. Fascinating. Even the ones who have to present work from both classes (and who I assumed would want a 30 min break between needing to stand by posters) are signing up for the later spot.