Long-Long Name

One of my most-read posts of all time is a rather ancient one, from 2006, on a non-academic topic: my husband's and my decision to hyphenate our daughter's last name. She has my last name and my husband's last name, with a hyphen in between. Our decision about name order was based on which order we thought sounded better.

In 2006, I wrote about how having a hyphenated child was a good decision for us. That was six (6) years ago, when our daughter was in elementary school and shorter than I am. What about now? Is our tall teenager happy with her rather unwieldy last name? Are we all still happy with our decision?

As it turns out, yes and yes, emphatically so.

The occasional inconvenience of dealing with a name that is "too long" has thus far been more than offset by our family's unanimous happiness with our name choice lo these many years ago. I think some parents worry that giving their kid a "different" last name (even if it has elements of each parent's name) will somehow make them all feel more apart -- less cohesive -- as a family, but in fact the result can be the opposite. Since my husband and I have different last names, our daughter's hyphenated name is our family name-glue.

She knows that if she ever doesn't like her hyphenated name, she can change it and we will not be upset. It's her name and she should have a name that she likes. For a while when she was very young, when asked her name, she would give her first name, middle name, first part of her last name, and then an animal name instead of the second part of her last name; her two favorites: "kitty cat" and "hippo". It was very cute, but she outgrew that phase about 12 years ago.

So far, she really does like her long-long name. In fact, she commonly also uses her middle name along with her first and last-last names, even though this makes it all even longer, just because she likes her entire name and how it sounds. And she likes the fact that her name directly connects her to her father and her mother. She has friends who share a last name with their father but not their mother (because the mom didn't change her name on marrying), including some friends who have their mother's last name (or some other family name) as a middle name, but she prefers her hyphenated name to those options.

Also, she is the only person on the entire planet with this name, and she likes being unique in that way (and appreciates how useful that can be, for online purposes that involve one's real name). She knows it may complicate her life later in ways that it doesn't now, but that's an issue for later.

I am most definitely not writing this update to say that hyphenating is the best thing to do for all families, but it has worked for us (so far).

Forgetting Me

'Tis the season to think about our ancestral homes and aging relatives. Not that I don't think about them at other times, but in the past few weeks I have been mailing packages and cards and such to various relatives who live in or near the place where I grew up, far from where I live now.

My similarly-aged colleagues and I are at the point where, when we meet at conferences or elsewhere and the topic turns to Life, Family etc., a common element of the conversation is the declining health (or, in some cases, the decease) of parents. In recent years, on more than one occasion, collaborative research and planned research visits have been postponed owing to a colleague's parental health crisis.

With time, I am sure more and more of us will be talking about and dealing with our own declining health, but for now, many of us are focused on our parents. Because most of us are academics who took whatever jobs were available, wherever those happened to be, most of us do not live geographically close to our ailing parents, adding another challenge to the situation.

As I am writing this (a few days before I will post it), it is my mother's birthday. She is physically very healthy, but, as I have mentioned in a few posts over the years, she has long been showing signs of some sort of dementia. I started noticing it quite a while ago, and, not surprisingly, the signs have gotten more obvious over the years.

Years ago, when it was clear to me that she was not going to mention her symptoms to her doctor, I talked to him. Instead of taking my concerns seriously, he was offended. He told me that (1) he is such an excellent physician that he would not miss signs of a problem, even if they were subtle, so who was I to tell him that she had a problem?, and (2) if I really cared about my mother, I would quit my job and move closer to her. This was a disturbing conversation, but my mother would not listen to a single word of criticism about her awesome physician.

Later, when the signs were impossible to ignore and I kept insisting that she talk to her doctor (the same doctor that I talked to), she finally did. He did some tests and prescribed Aricept.

She isn't going to get 'better', of course. And for now, she is enjoying life, despite having to stop doing some activities that previously were a major feature of her days. She can't process a lot of new information or complex ideas or concepts, and this also makes it difficult to have a conversation with her. For example, we can talk about liking or not liking a book or movie, but we can't discuss what about them we liked or disliked. To her, something is either "wonderful" or "dreadful", and there isn't really anything in between.

She can no longer keep track of new details of my life -- career milestones, travels, even my health. She asks the same questions over and over, tells the same stories over and over. She remembers little incidents from years ago and forgets major recent events. For now, this is all still in the realm of manageable, and just requires a lot of patience by those around her.

One of the strangest aspects (for me) is that she seems to be forgetting some aspects of who I am. That is, she still clearly remembers major facts that have not changed recently -- my name, where I live etc. -- but she seems to remember me as a different kind of person than I think I am.

To explain with an example: I have always loved to travel and I have always loved having adventures. My brother does not like either. He has to do some travel for work, but mostly he stays home, and that is what he prefers. This is not something we each developed as adults; these are traits that have been apparent since we were children. And yet, my mother 'remembers' that my brother is the adventurous one and I am not. When I tell her about some place I have been or something I have done, she gasps and says "But that's not like you! It's your brother who does things like that." Well, no, actually he doesn't. I do. There is no way to convince her of this. And then she forgets it all anyway and doesn't even remember that I went anywhere or did anything in particular, until the next time, when she is surprised again. It doesn't help to send her photographs or detailed descriptions; new information that she can't absorb just goes away.

That is a benign example. It doesn't really matter if she thinks my brother is adventurous and I am not, but other examples cut a bit closer to the heart in terms of who we are and who we have been to our mother. This, too, will never get 'better'. 

What is she remembering and what is she forgetting? Is she making things up out of nothing? Are her memories rooted in the way she thinks people should be? How she wishes we were? Or is it all random, dependent on physical and chemical changes in her brain, not anything related to her real thoughts and memories? In most examples of her 'remembering' things as they aren't, I don't fare too well in terms of her perceptions of my personality, interests, and past actions. Where does that come from?

This year, as I selected gifts for her for her birthday and Christmas, I thought constantly about the state of her mind, as there are some gifts, including some books, that she would no longer enjoy. We used to exchange joke gifts, but now these just confuse her. She actually can't keep track anymore of who gives her what gift (this has been the case for the last few years), so I select things with the general hope that she will like them, even if she won't know who gave them to her a few minutes after she receives them.

Sorry if this post is a bit of a downer at a time when most academic types are decompressing and hoping to have a relaxing week or two with family and friends. I plan to enjoy the next few weeks as well, but I would like to extend a wish for peace, patience, and support to those facing similar issues with parents, relatives, or friends.

Don't Try This At Home

For various reasons, the school my daughter attends this year was unable to organize things so that she could be in the math class that followed from the math class she had last year. In fact, the class she was put in this term is working on math that she did 3 years ago.

Fortunately, the teacher of that class does not make her (re)do that "old" math with the rest of the class. During class, my daughter sits by herself and works on her own.

So what does she do in math class? She does math problems that I assign her, based on the math that I teach her in the evenings at home, using an online textbook. That is the temporary solution we worked out with her school: I will teach her math at home.

Why me? Why not her dad?

Because this is what dad-as-evening-math-tutor would be like, we feared:

In contrast, this is what mom-as-evening-math-tutor is like, in theory:

 (though perhaps a bit more alert, most evenings).

So, I am the designated parental math tutor, and here is what I have learned so far:

- The things I hate about grading still apply. Grading doesn't become more fun just because you are teaching your own beloved child. That is, just because I am teaching my daughter, who is the light of my life and a truly wonderful human being, doesn't make it any less annoying when she turns in a messy page of homework covered with incomplete erasures and crossed out things and a mystifying sequence of answers in no particular order (and no helpful labels).

- For me, Science is easier to teach than Math. In Science, I know how to explain things. In math, some things can be explained by examples -- perhaps many examples of different sorts -- but some things just are. That is showing my limitations as a math teacher, something I also encounter when I teach a quantitative Science course: I explain why I am doing the math in terms of the Science, but I don't typically explain the math itself. I just do it.

- There are a lot more (imaginary) people in (this) Math textbook than in (my) Science textbooks and I don't like some of them. Most chapters of the math textbook we are using describe an impressive array of enterprising teenagers figuring things out involving math. That's nice -- I like the textbook quite a lot, actually -- but I wonder how much the involvement of people -- even imaginary ones -- affects math-learning. That is, are we each influenced by whether we relate to the imaginary people and their imaginary problems? For example, I am not so interested in Josh's questions about the operation of his remote-controlled car or Delores' attempt to figure out which phone plan to get, but I am intrigued by some of the scientific and sociological datasets and the various things we can learn by analyzing them. And, although I do appreciate the real-world examples, sometimes I get tired of all these perky teens and just want to play with the equations.

- When you teach math at home, in the evening, to your child, you can have ice cream during class. 

Anyway, despite my shortcomings as a math tutor, we seem to be doing OK with our math-with-mom-at-home arrangement. Even so, once the schedule is fixed so that she can join the right math class at school again, I will happily hand her (and the grading) over to a real math teacher.

One is Enough

Not long ago, a reader requested discussion of the topic of having "only" one child. Apparently, this a a topic of raging discussion in the reader's research group. I was curious about this, and in particular, wondered what is so controversial about the topic.

You might think that I'd have some expertise on the subject, as I have one -- and only one -- child, but if the controversy is related to having one child when you really want to have more than one, then I have no insight into this question. I didn't want more than one child, so I didn't have more than one child. One feels just right for our family; it wasn't a sacrifice or a compromise or a disappointment. We are happy as a family of three.

Also, my daughter has many friends who are "only" children in their families, so being an only child does not seem like a strange situation to her or to us.

The people to ask about one vs. more than one are people like GMP and Prof-Like Substance.

I know there is a common perception that only children are spoiled and/or lonely, but from what I've seen, children with siblings are not obviously better adjusted than siblingless children. This conclusion is based on subjective, anecdotal observations (a.k.a., my life as a parent of one). There are probably awesomely flawless and compelling studies that show that children without siblings are more likely to be axe murderers or politicians or something, but that is not yet apparent in the kids I know who are my daughter's age and younger. I guess we'll see how things turn out later.

Of course we can't read too much into one random query from a reader of a blog, but does a raging debate about one-child vs. more-children indicate that discussions among female scientists in academia have (mostly) moved on from wondering whether they can have even one child (or a career as an FSP) to whether they can have more than one child (and a career as an FSP)? I hope so.

21st Century Non-Sexist

As I was reading various essays and editorials about Motherhood and Moms last weekend, I was reminded of a conversation I had earlier this year at a meeting.

At a meeting, as happens from time to time, I met someone I had not previously met before. In fact, we had never heard of each other, as we are in quite different fields and employment sectors. In any case, we were chatting about Science Things, and then (somewhat randomly, I thought) this man, who looked to be in his mid/late-30s said:

Fortunately I get paid enough in my job so that my wife doesn't have to work. It is so much better for kids when one parent is home all the time taking care of the house and the kids and the shopping.

So I said:

It's great that that works well for you and your family, but I don't agree with it as a general statement for all kids and all parents. For other families, like mine, everyone is happier with both parents working.

He said:

What I said isn't sexist because it doesn't matter whether it is the mom or the dad who stays home. It just happens to be the mom in our case.

I said, ignoring his bizarre defensive reply that implied I had accused him of sexism, when I had not:

That's fine, but my point is that you can't extend your preference to every family, just like I can't say that it is best for all families, including the kids, if both parents work, even though that is what is best for my family.

He went on to explain how much nicer it is for him to return home to a clean house with dinner ready and to have a relaxing evening instead of coming home to a wife who was stressed out and exhausted from her day of work, back when she had a job outside the home.

I am sure it is nicer for him, and I hope his wife is truly happy with this as well. From what I've seen and what I've read, the key factor in whether mom-staying-at-home is a good choice for a family that can financially manage that arrangement is whether the woman really wants to do this or whether she feels she should do it or has no choice.

In any case, I did not ask this man how much he contributed to housework and childcare even when his wife also had a "real" job and was exhausted and stressed out all the time, as I really didn't want to delve into the details of his life; I just wanted to refute his generalizations.

But he wasn't done with his generalizations. He went on to state that places with lots of stay-at-home parents (typically the mom, but again, it doesn't have to be the mom) have better schools than places with lots of two-job families because the parents are more involved in the schools and it's great when the moms (or dads) can stop by and read stories and be lunch monitors or whatever. Schools that don't have lots of moms (or dads) involved can be pretty bad.

I said that many working parents participate in their kid's school activities, and the schools and kids benefit from interacting with moms and dads representing a wide range of career and life experiences.

Mostly, I think that this man was doing what so many people do -- trying to justify or feel good about his own personal decisions by trying to convince others that this is the best way to be. Why not just be happy with your choices? Perhaps he has issues, and these issues came to his mind when he found himself in conversation with a Female Scientist.

Even so, if he and his wife made this choice together, if both are happy with their decision and the kids are happy and mom-at-home really is the best thing for their family, that's great. But don't tell me that kids are harmed by working moms (and dads) and local schools are bad if lots of moms (and dads) work. That is a very unscientific conclusion, in addition to being quite bizarre to inject into a conversation with a Female Scientist at a meeting.

Dropping the h-Bomb

Perhaps it was inevitable. Throughout our daughter's childhood, the teenage years loomed ever larger. We heard the stories, we knew what might happen. And then we got there and.. it was fine. In fact, everything has been great. Until a few days ago.

A few nights ago, during dinner, our daughter wanted to know the h-index of each of her parents.

What to do? She has asked us some difficult questions in the past, like when she wondered which parent is more famous (short answer: neither), but this question was somehow more.. personal.

We told her. My husband's h-index is higher than mine.

Will this affect how she views us? Should we have told her?

Is revealing our h-index a gateway to future nerdy questions? Will she now wonder how much grant money we each bring in? Will she start begging for chemical safety training, and then demand the keys to the lab?

I guess we will just have to keep doing what we've been doing: wing it. Despite a shocking lack of preparation for being parents in the first place, we will try to navigate the eddies and shoals of the teen years. Perhaps it is even time for us to start talking to our daughter about the importance of having an updated CV, but I'm not sure I'm ready to have that conversation yet.

Where the Clocks Never Stop

In the recent NY Times article on "Keeping Women in Science on a Tenure Track", already noted elsewhere in the blogosphere, part of a report (released last fall) by Berkeley researchers is summarized as follows:

"It recommends .. “stopping the clock” on tenure for women scientists who give birth, perhaps by giving an extra year before making tenure decisions, in effect giving them extra time to do research and publish."

Well, I guess we could discuss whether stopping the tenure clock gives women "extra" time or effectively gives them the same time as those who have not given birth or adopted a child during their tenure-track years, and I could also mention that clock-stoppage, where it exists, is also an option for men, but what I want to know is:

What North American universities do not yet have this policy?

Can anyone name names? Can we make a list? I think there should be a list, easily accessible by an internet search, of universities that do not provide for tenure clock-stoppage for the birth or adoption of a child. Does such a list exist? If not, let's start one here.

Are there many universities that don't allow tenure clock stoppage for birth/adoption of a child (or any other reason)? If it's only a few places, perhaps reports wouldn't keep calling for this as step to take to improve the disturbing statistics of the rates at which mother/professors receive tenure relative to father/professors.

I hope it is not a very long list, but even if it is, I'd like to take a stab at compiling at least some information; i.e., names of institutions that do not allow tenure-clock-stoppage. Even better would be a link to a list, if such a list already exists, but either way, it would be useful to get an idea about institutions (especially universities) that do not have such a policy.

Bludgeoned by Meetings (But Not Today)

On this Thanksgiving Day, I am just thankful that I don't have a meeting today. Otherwise, 'tis the season for time-sucking, soul-destroying meetings (and then more meetings) for me.

If it sounds like I am feeling sorry for myself, that is because I am. Or, more accurately, I was. Tonight I was reading some (= many) files at home on the couch, even though, without even trying, I can think of 127 things I would rather be doing, but then one cat came over to help, then another, and then another. Who knew that cats are so fascinated by committee work? Somehow, file-reading became less of a chore. Also, I wasn't able to get up off the couch, and that helped me stay on task.

I am also thankful that my in-laws are far far away, and that, although they managed to wreak their usual quota of holiday trauma, angst, discord, and despair from afar, that was hours ago, and the cats and I have decided to let go of our unconstructive thoughts about in-laws.

Of course there are many other things for which I am thankful, and if I did not have a cat on my elbow right now, I would list these things, but instead

What It Takes To Lead

A group of parents from my daughter's school needed to work out a carpool schedule for some upcoming events involving our kids' travel to certain Activities. I had been traveling and hadn't been paying much attention, but once I got home and tuned back in to domestic life, I realized that no one, including my spouse, had done anything about organizing the driving.

So I sent out an e-mail to everyone, summarizing what needed to be done when, and, just to get the process started, I proposed a preliminary driving schedule, noting that we could change this as needed if anyone had a time conflict with the schedule. I figured it would be easier to make adjustments to an existing schedule than to start from scratch.

Soon after I sent my e-mail, one of the dads ("Joe") sent an e-mail to everyone, acknowledging that it helped a lot that I had started organizing the carpool, and seconding my proposed schedule.

One of the moms then e-mailed everyone:

Dear Joe and others,

Joe, thank you for your leadership. It helps us all so much that you took the initiative to finalize the carpool schedule. blah blah blah

Katie (Hannah's mom)

Yeah, that was awesome leadership that Joe showed in agreeing with my plan. OK, I know that there are many benign explanations for Katie's awe of Joe's organizational skills and I am really not that fussed about the situation, but I can't help musing about the general questions that situations like this raise: e.g., Why did Katie think that Joe showed leadership, but I apparently did not show any such trait?

We will never really know, of course, but I think it is in the realm of possible -- and even very likely -- that this is related to the phenomenon in which fathers get major bonus points for being involved in school activities, whereas moms are expected to be involved. If so, then Katie's mother saw my e-mail as routine, but Joe's as special because -- even in 2010 -- it is more rare for dads to be involved.

And perhaps she was trying to praise Joe for being involved because then he would feel so wonderful that he would start attending the monthly parent meetings at the school and then he'd volunteer to help run the silent auction and coach the ultimate Frisbee team. And perhaps Katie knows that I am a lost cause re. all of those things and that the most anyone can expect from me is to be a driver in a carpool.

Again, who knows and, in this one trivial case, who cares? But it is not so trivial at a more cosmic level if women are not perceived as leaders even when there is evidence to the contrary. According to the logic of the scenario described above, a man is a leader when he agrees with a woman who took some initiative.

Actually, on second thought, I don't have a problem with that.

Jargonauts

My daughter is involved in a particular extra-curricular activity that has an incredible number of special terms, abbreviations, acronyms, and other words and phrases that are incomprehensible to the uninitiated. Just like Science! I have learned some of the terms, but there always seem to be more that I don't know. And no, this extra-curricular activity has nothing to do with athletics of any sort, so my ignorance is not related to my lack of interest in sports.

I will never learn all of this new activity-specific language, and that's fine. This is my daughter's activity, and it would actually be quite weird if I started hurling around the relevant acronyms in conversation.

When we were en route to visiting some relatives this summer, I said to my daughter "You know, you're going to get asked about Activity, and you should try as much as possible to avoid jargon and describe it using words that they will understand."

She was silent for a few moments, thinking about this, then said "You're right, but I'm not sure I know what is jargon and what isn't anymore. I should practice."

So we pretended that I was Great Aunt Milly and I asked her about her recent Activity activities, and my daughter started talking about this, trying but failing to avoid jargon. I listed the incomprehensible words she had just used, and she tried again. This time I made an obnoxious beeping sound whenever she jargonized, and then we both started laughing too much to continue for a while.

Later, we tried again, and she did much better, and by the time we were surrounded by Great Aunts and Not-Great Uncles, she did an excellent job of talking about her Activity, and our relatives were able to ask her questions instead of lapsing into stunned silence, which is what some people have done when she's gone into full-jargon mode in other conversations.

It occurred to me that I could use some help de-jargonizing my own descriptions of my work. I can easily give a 101-level description of my research, but in some cases (e.g., elderly family members) that doesn't work very well, probably because even the most science-phobic undergraduate has recently had some science in high school, whereas some of my relatives have not thought about even basic science concepts since Eisenhower was president.

So I started thinking about all the different 'levels' at which we need to talk about our general or specific fields of expertise; in this example, I will use Science:

- Great Aunt Millies: total non-scientists who don't know even the most basic words that we don't really consider jargon because they aren't particularly specialized are incomprehensible in this context.

- Non-scientists/non-students who can handle the basic vocabulary of science, either from K-12 classes or from watching shows on TV (or reading science fiction?) or maybe from some technical experiences related to their job of hobbies.

- Non-science faculty and administrators who read our internal grant proposals, award nominations, or other documents that are supposed to be jargon-free.

- Students in introductory-level Science classes (if not at the beginning of the term, by the end..).

- Students in more specific classes in Science.

- Science faculty or administrators who are in our department or our institution but who aren't in our specific field of research AND science faculty, students, and others who attend our invited talks at other universities (if the talks are supposed to be oriented to a general Science audience)

In grant proposals to programs in our field and certainly in articles in journals, we can typically go wild with the jargon because the people reading our text will understand these terms, although even here it is possible to go too far and use complex terms where a simpler one would suffice.

What about talking to the media? For those who aren't science journalists, I think it's best to go with the Great Aunt Milly level of simplicity, and for science journalists.. it varies.

My last experience with the media was with a science journalist who seemed to know the basic jargon of my field. Nevertheless, I kept having to decrease the Science level of the conversation because, although he knew vocabulary, he didn't really seem to know what these words actually meant in terms of processes or interrelated concepts. Although we talked for a long time and I asked him to repeat back some of the essential points (a suggestion that seemed to annoy him, perhaps understandably), the result was kind of bizarre. In fact, as I was trolling around the science news headlines, I overlooked the article about my research because the headline had absolutely nothing to do with my research. Only once I started getting e-mail about the article did I realize which headline referred to my work.

Clearly I need more practice de-jargonizing my Science speech. Fortunately, I know exactly the right person who will help me with this, most likely by making obnoxious beeping sounds when I use jargon, but that's OK.. that technique actually seems to help a bit.

Breathing Room

The Sunday Styles section of The New York Times yesterday has an essay by a woman who is part of a 2-career academic couple of English professors. Or, I should say that she was a part of an academic couple until her husband was denied tenure at his college, and thereafter reinvented himself (quite happily) in a career in "investing".

Most of the essay describes the history of this couple as an academic pair. Most of it sounds rather familiar, including that the couple spends some time living apart with jobs at different institutions until finally, luckily, they both get academic jobs near each other.

What also sounded familiar were the concerns of hiring committees and departments about the academic coupleness of these people. The author, Caroline Bicks, gets an interview for a position, but before the campus visit:

..a professor of mine confided that a member of the interview team had contacted him about my candidacy and asked, “Is the husband going to be a problem?”

The wife, however, does not seem to be a problem for the husband:

No one on his interview committees seemed to be sniffing around for info on his “problem” wife. Maybe they assumed that men put their careers first, or that women are less serious about theirs. It felt as if my wedding ring was a hurdle I had to clear to prove my commitment to academia, while Brendon’s was a badge of stability and good-guy gravitas.

Actually, that is different from my husband's experience back when we were applying and interviewing for jobs. He was asked about me at more than one interview. I was definitely seen as a potential problem. Hooray for equal-opportunity unethical questioning by hiring committees?

During her interviews, Bicks also made sure not to seem "too eager to have children any time soon."

I know other women have been asked directly about actual and potential children, but I was never asked about this during interviews. When some interviewers started talking to me about schools in the area, I wondered if they had ulterior motives, but in most cases I think they were people with families and were genuinely trying to give me useful information in case I got the job.

The author's life in an academic couple then veers in a new direction when her husband is denied tenure "Despite a teaching award, a book contract and extreme collegiality". That's rather chilling, but the story has a happy ending for this couple:

Still, it turns out that being two separate bodies has its advantages. For one, it’s given us a lot more breathing room, since we aren’t endlessly comparing our jobs, progress and institutions. And with distance comes perspective. Watching Brendon’s successful reinvention has pushed me to try new kinds of writing — to tell my own stories, and not just Shakespeare’s.

I suppose my husband and I compare our jobs and career progress to some extent, but I don't feel competitive in any way, nor stifled by the fact that we are in the same field. I do not need any "breathing room", and I enjoy the benefits that come from being married to someone who totally 'gets' my job and my professional life.

Strangest of all is the last sentence of the essay -- the last sentence in the excerpt above. I suppose we can all find creativity in the strangest of places, motivated by various unexpected events in our lives, but the implication is that the lack of "breathing room" in an academic couple might somehow stifle creativity(?).

If you are in an academic couple, and especially if you and your significant other are in the same general academic discipline, where do you fall in the spectrum between 'my significant other totally gets my job and professional life' (and that's great) and 'we are endlessly comparing our careers and progress' (and this is stressful/stifling)?

Perhaps most people are somewhere in between, or perhaps the answer varies with time and career stage, but how does it balance out for you?

Stay At Home

What % of faculty in your department have stay-at-home spouses?

How should you classify those faculty whose spouses stayed at home while the kids were young and then went back to work? I would not include them in my own count of stay-at-home spouses. My own calculation represents the % who have stay-at-home spouses right now, including those without kids but with a non-working spouse or long-term significant other.

I would also not include in my SAH category those faculty whose spouses have part-time jobs. Let's count employed spouses as employed spouses.

What is the % faculty with stay-at-home spouses in your department today?
	0-9
	10-19
	20-29
	30-39
	40-49
	50-59
	60-69
	70-79
	80-89
	90-100
pollcode.com free polls

Do You Always Give the Same Talk?

My mother, who is not a scientist and not an academic and who therefore understandably doesn't really know what my professor job entails, recently asked me the question in the title of this post. She knew that I have given talks at different conferences this year, and she was wondering if I gave the same talk at each conference.

Just to clarify what she meant by the question, I asked her:

"Are you wondering if I give the exact same talk each time, or whether each talk is on a similar topic, but with updates of ongoing research?"

It turns out that she was asking whether I give the exact same talk each time. For example, when I went to a conference in City X/Country Y to give a talk last fall, and to a conference in City A/Country B to give a talk this spring, did I give the same talk?

I said no, I didn't give the same talk.

Then she said "But why not? The people who live in A/B weren't at your talk in X/Y, so you could give the same talk."

It turns out that she thought that only people who lived in the immediate vicinity and/or the same country as the conference site would have been at my talk in each place. She didn't realize (and why should she?) that these conferences were international and attended by thousands upon thousands of scientists (not all of whom attended my talks).

The fact that I traveled some distance from My City, USA, to go to these conferences might have been a clue that people came from all over the world to attend these conferences, but for whatever reason, this was not a clue.

I have been going to conferences and giving talks for decades, but it never occurred to me to explain to my mother what these conferences are like in terms of size or people or themes or what we even talk about when we give a talk.

I should have known. A few times over the years I have been invited to give talks at colleges and universities in the state of my ancestral home. Each time my mother asks "Did they invite you because you are from here?" So I did have some inkling about the depths of her misunderstanding, but I never really explained how these things work (talks, conferences etc.).

I always think it is a little weird when I see someone's parents attending their conference presentation (unless, of course, one or both parents are scientists or the offspring is getting an award), but I guess one way to show our non-scientific/non-academic relatives what our world is like is to bring them along to our conferences.

I think I will skip this particular mother-daughter experience and attempt instead to do a better job of explaining more about my work.

Tomorrow's topic: more on giving the same/similar talks at conferences.

Unchanging

An ancient post that still gets comments from time to time, in many cases from non-academics, concerns the topic of whether a woman chooses to change (or hyphenate) her name when she gets married.

The most recent comment was from a smug and delusional person who seems to think that women who don't take their husband's last name are more likely to get divorced. Somehow I think the commenter was expressing their own insecurities rather than making a statement based on fact. Somehow I doubt that, after ~ 20 years in a marriage in which neither one of us at any time wanted me to change my name, the name issue is going to break up my marriage.

In this blog, I try to examine issues from various points of view, recognizing that we all have different experiences and priorities in our lives. But sometimes I make an unequivocal statement. This is one of those times:

Whether or not a woman changes her last name to her husband's has nothing to do with how much they love and respect one another. It has nothing to do with the strength of their bond. It is a personal decision that should be respected, no matter what that decision is.

I am now quite used to seeing the CVs of women who changed their names after first publishing under a different last name. In fact, this week I am spending a lot of time gazing at CVs for yet another committee that does this kind of thing, and have seen good examples of this. The change in name is easily and efficiently explained in a footnote to the CV. I completely don't care whether/why a woman changed her name. And I have no regrets about not changing my name. To each her own.

Family Event Productivity Loss

One of the interesting aspects of the recent Center for American Progress report, Staying Competitive: Patching America's Leaky Pipeline in the Sciences, is the recommendation that funding agencies and/or universities provide supplementary funds to "offset family event productivity loss". This recommendation is distinct from those about providing family leave benefits to graduate students and researchers. In this specific case, these supplementary funds would go to the principal investigator of a grant that pays the salary of a person having a "family event" and would therefore (in theory) make PIs less reluctant to hire researchers (e.g., women) who might have such an event (e.g., a baby).

Last summer I wrote about some of the issues for PIs re. paying the salary of someone who has a family leave. The new report addresses some of these issues with the recommendation that PIs receive supplementary funding to cover family leave for their researchers.

I like this idea because it might create a more family-friendly environment for early career researchers: students and postdocs and other research scientists, female and male. I like that it attempts to reduce the problem for PIs who, however well-meaning and supportive, may be harmed by a situation in which grant funds are paid to someone who needs a leave of absence and who is therefore not actively working on the grant's research for a while.

But I wonder how this would work. If I am supervising a graduate student or postdoc who is doing research related to a grant of which I am the PI, and that student or postdoc needs to take time off for a "family event" that will reduce or obliterate their ability to do that research, what would I do with supplementary funding?

Despite the dire world economic crisis, there doesn't seem to be a pool of unemployed or part-time scientists with the necessary training such that they could parachute into a project with a few month's notice, keep the project going for a few/6/more months and then hand the research back over to the returning grad or postdoc to pick up exactly where their substitute left off. Even if such highly-qualified and flexible researchers existed, this scenario wouldn't work for many reasons, including the fact that it involves the undesirable situation in which someone is hired to do some of the thesis or postdoctoral research of someone else.

In a few cases, though, it might work, depending on the project and the stage of the project during the leave. I can imagine some situations in which I could pay a graduate student to do some prep work or certain kinds of analyses, thus moving the project along but not complicating the situation.

In many cases, however, if I were handed the equivalent of the salary of a researcher who takes a leave of absence, the best I could do is extend the length of the project so that the work would get done when the researcher returned, just not in the original time frame of the work plan. That wouldn't help if the research involved time-sensitive activities, but it would help other projects, especially if the extension were no more than 3-6 months.

Are there other possibilities?

If you are a PI, how would you use supplemental funding to deal with a temporary suspension of a research project (or part of a project) during a researcher's "family event"?

Why Don't I Just Quit My Day Job

Sorry for the obnoxious title, but I get a lot of requests via my FSP email. I don't want to discourage people from emailing me: sometimes there are very interesting and important things that come my way via my FSP email, and I try to answer some.

BUT: I don't have time to answer all of the emails, and I don't have the inclination to answer some of them. In real life, I always answer emails. If I weren't (semi)anonymous, I would probably feel more pressure to answer all emails, so chalk up non-answering-of-all-emails as another benefit of anonymity.

Here is an example of an email I am not answering, however much I might sympathize with the situation of the person writing it. Perhaps someone else can be more helpful than I can be with this; perhaps someone who is closer to the caring-for-an-infant stage of life than I am and/or who has a bit more time than I do right now and/or who doesn't find this email quite so.. exigeant?

I would really like to know details of how you managed your schedule (balanced your professional work and your life with baby and husband and fit in exercise etc) when you had your baby years ago. .. I would particularly appreciate specific examples especially of day-to-day and/or typical week activities, including grant writing, teaching, writing papers, advising students/post-docs, managing it to make it to the gym, taking care of a needy baby, etc. .. specific examples and ideas would be most appreciated. I would also really appreciate a personal reply.

Advice I Got

The recent post on "Kidlessness" elicted quite a few comments, some of which reminded me of a bit of comforting advice I got from another FSP years ago when I was sort of freaking out about the impending birth of my daughter.

I had absolutely no interest in babies; I thought they were ugly and I had no idea how to take care of one. I had had some traumatic experiences helping out (not by choice) at a local preschool when I was a teenager. I confided my fears to this colleague, who had two kids.

My colleague said "All babies are scary and gross. Except your own." She said she was profoundly uninterested in babies etc., but she loved hers intensely and was fascinated by them from the start. This was immensely comforting.

And prophetic. I couldn't believe it when I saw my daughter for the first time. She was beautiful. How lucky I was to have one of the only cute and fascinating babies on the planet. A few years later, looking at her baby pictures, I realized that she was as hideous as every other baby. Yes I know, some people think babies are cute -- I encountered quite a few of these people and was both grateful for them and alarmed by them -- but I have never thought this about babies, except for one particular one, more than 10 years ago.

I think the biochemical effect that makes us think our own babies are cute and interesting is probably quite useful in general for the continuation of the species.

All this is to say that you don't have to think all babies are cute and wonderful to have a very happy experience with one of your own.

I turned out not to be quite as extreme as my FSP friend. Once my daughter was born, I didn't think all other babies/kids were weird and gross. At whatever age my daughter has been, the other kids her age have been kind of interesting to me. It's fascinating to watch them growing and learning new things. A different, older FSP once told me that every age (of her daughter) has been her favorite. That has definitely been true for me as well.

When I had anxieties about parenthood, it was important for me to be able to talk to these other FSPs. I had been reluctant to talk about my worries with most other people, except a few of my closest friends (who mostly expressed shock that I was going to be a mother; this was not entirely helpful). I worried that my lack of maternal instincts (or at least my belief that I lacked them) would be seen as monstrous in the specific context of being about to have a baby. I felt comfortable talking to these other FSPs, however, perhaps because we shared an atypical experience as women -- that of being FSPs.

(At the time, I only knew well 1 MSP who had been actively involved in raising his kids and had a wife with a career. We often chatted about family-career issues and that was great, but mostly we talked about practical things.)

Now that I am an older FSP, I am perfectly happy to talk about what it was like for me to do my professor job while pregnant (and very ill) or while taking care of an infant (and changing universities) -- perhaps this information can be useful or comforting to others -- but I must say that I loathe it when people assume that I will want to hear their graphic pregnancy/childbirth stories just because I am (1) female, and (2) a mother.

Perhaps that is hypocritical because I once sought out FSPs specifically to talk about baby-related issues, but I think that there is a difference between the type of conversation I had with some FSPs and conversations in which someone (male or female) revels in the intimate details of pregnancy and childbirth: for me, the former is mentoring, the latter is TMI.

On Kidlessness

Yesterday's post contains some interesting data that the author of the survey will no doubt have fun contemplating and interpreting, keeping in mind of course the limitations of such surveys and the inferred demographics of this particular blog's readership. I will not summarize the data -- though I hope we will get a summary eventually! -- but I will note that I found it interesting that the majority of respondents are women (not surprising) with no children (perhaps also not surprising, depending on the reason for the lack of children).

There is no information about age of respondent, but would it be safe to assume that many (most?) of my readers -- or at least the survey respondents -- are at an early career stage and are childless now but plan/hope eventually to have children? Or do the data indicate an inclination towards childlessness, at least among this subset of female scientists and engineers?

At the risk of upsetting my ethically inclined bio-colleagues with another survey, I hope that some of the childless respondents from yesterday (female and male), or anyone willing to share their personal data, will leave a comment today that completes this sentence:

I am [female/male] and I do not have children because.. [rest of sentence].

..in which [rest of sentence] might indicate age/relationship status and/or might indicate whether you eventually would like children, whether you would like to but don't feel you can because of career issues, whether you just don't want to have kids (by choice), whether you think it has nothing to do with career issues, or whatever else is relevant to your life.

If I were answering a survey like this at any time before I was in my early 30s, I would have answered that I had no children because I didn't want any. It wasn't because I didn't think I could balance career and family, I just wasn't interested in being a mother. And then I was interested, had a kid, and have always been very happy that I did. Go figure.

Mommy and/or Professor?

This is part of a comment on yesterday's post:

.. doesn't hauling a child around your workplace just reinforce the stereotypes of you as a mommy and not a professor?

Short answer: No

In fact, I spend much more time trying to convince younger women (and some men) that they can be a parent and a science professor at a research university and have a happy family life and career.

Over the years, I have had trouble being taken seriously by certain colleagues, but in most cases I don't think it is because I am a mother.

I recently wrote about being a "mother figure" to students and how this hasn't always been a good thing for me. At the time of the anecdote that I used to explain my initial thoughts on this as a young FSP, I was a childless 2o-something recent PhD. In that case, the students were in fact stereotyping me (female = mommy but not professor), but I don't think that the reality of my reproductive history would have erased or reinforced their view.

Rather than hiding the fact that I am a mother, I want to show students that women are mothers and professors. Or are professors and not mothers. Whatever. Just like real people not in academia.

Furthermore, I think that others in academia (faculty, administrators, postdocs, and students) should be more, not less, aware of the issues faced by faculty with young children, particularly those faculty without a stay-at-home partner.

And further furthermore, I never have to "haul" my child around my workplace. She loves coming to the office with her dad and/or me, and she is particularly fascinated by our graduate students. We keep a low profile, but we also don't slink through the halls hoping to be invisible.

No Kids Allowed

On behalf of a reader, today I am seeking information about universities that have banned children from campus buildings 'for safety reasons'. Of course I am not talking about bringing children into labs with hazardous materials or delicate equipment, and I am not talking about whether someone should bring their ill child to campus. The issue is whether all children can and should be categorically banned from offices and classrooms.

If your campus has a such a policy, does it have a negative effect on you or someone you know (such as a colleague or student)? Or do you agree that the ban makes sense, for the safety of the children and/or university personnel who might contract an illness (swine flu!) from contact with child-vectors in campus buildings?

In terms of the health issue, I am not an expert but I think I am more likely to get swine flu from contact with my university students and other campus regulars than from contact with a younger child who happens to be in my department building, even if that child is brought to a class or meeting. As long as labs and other sites with hazardous materials have restricted access, there seems to be no good reason to exclude all children for their own safety.

Do universities fear what might happen if a child is injured in a campus building; for example, if a child slips on a recently waxed floor? I doubt it; some universities aren't even particularly concerned when professors slip on a recently waxed floor.

Bringing a child to a class or a talk might not be a good idea, particularly if the child is disruptive, but I would rather deal with these situations on a case by case basis than have a university ban children from campus buildings.

There have been times when my husband and/or I had to bring our daughter to campus; e.g. on days when she had no school and we couldn't arrange childcare or our schedules so that one of us could stay home. We brought her to talks (during which she sat quietly in the back coloring or reading) and classes (during which she sat quietly in the back, amazed by all the talking/texting students around her). Bringing out daughter to campus allowed us to do our jobs.

Perhaps these bans are not rigorously enforced (has anyone by any chance seen a few dogs in campus buildings in which no dogs are allowed?) but provide the university with some security if there is a problem. Even so, students, postdocs, staff, and untenured faculty would be reluctant to violate such a ban, fearing repercussions.

If someone wanted to protest such a ban as ineffective as a safety measure and harmful to university personnel and students who on occasion need to bring a child into a campus building, what is the best strategy? Presumably the people taking the lead should be tenured full professors (men and women), though it would be good if administrators knew the full range of the problem for students and those with more precarious employment situations.

If administrators realized the many ways in which the business of the university (teaching/learning, research, service/outreach) was being negatively affected by such a ban, perhaps someone with authority would take a calm look at the issue and come up with a sensible policy.