Milo was a cheerful little dude today. He got to do two of his favorite things, go to the store and take a bath. He loves the store and both kids adore the bath. All I have to do is say "do you want to take a bath?" and both of them will run to the stairs, laughing with glee.
One of my FB friends is a professor at my university who came in the same year I did. Her current status is that she wished that she were tenured so that she could take a night off. (It is Saturday night). This status update stressed me out. I am taking the night off. Maybe she will get tenure and I won't because she works every single night, even Saturday nights?
I should probably be working more. I have to leave the office at 5 every day to relieve the twin whisperer. I do miss the days when I could just stay until I was finished with whatever I was doing, or had reached a good stopping point, even if that meant eating dinner at the office and walking home at 10 p.m. It is frustrating to be right in the middle of a good piece of data and have to stop because it is time to go home. I can pick it up later in the evening when the kids are in bed, but it is hard to re-gain momentum.
Part of me kind of thinks that it is unhealthy to work like that year after year, and having a family forced me to stop and turn to more normal habits, which is sort of a great experiment as far as the tenure bid is concerned. It is a high-stakes experiment and in this economy it feels even more serious. I would not be surprised if Jake were unable to find a job once he graduates. There just isn't work in the state for folks like him right now, and I am prepared to continue to be the sole wage-earner for the foreseeable future. So that makes the whole tenure thing even more huge. Losing my job, especially in this economy where universities are putting on hiring freezes and calling off searches right and left, it would be a pretty serious disaster. The entire family is depending on me and my income. I feel like I can't afford to mess it up.
But I also don't want to be a completely absent mom the way I see some parents (to be honest, dads) doing among my colleagues. Maybe it is a necessary evil, though, and it's worth it to sacrifice the next 2 years for the security of the family. On the other hand, Milo & Nora will never be this small again, and these are formative years for them.
I feel like I am under so much pressure all the time.
I think that it should be possible to be a normal human being and also get tenure. So I shouldn't let my friend's FB status get to me. I am doing it differently than she is doing, and that doesn't mean it can't work. I can make it work, right? ...?
3 comments:
Teething DOES sound painful!
Water is fun. :)
Regarding your friend's / colleague's facebook status... First of all, who really knows how that person spends her time? It's too difficult to compare, right? For instance, some of my friends who work most nights tend to sleep late in the mornings. Perhaps some people work more or less efficiently than other people, whatever that means... my point is that I think work habits are like apples and oranges, because what works for one person looks (and tastes? what am I talking about?) totally different than someone else's. One of the cool parts about faculty jobs is the autonomy we have over our time. It doesn't matter when (or where) the work happens (most of the time), but what matters is that it happens at all.
I understand how you feel, though. The idea of not getting tenure in this economy is quite terrifying. I think the job markets in some fields are not as dramatically affected by the economy, though, based on my recent experience. Anyhow, that's not going to matter because you're not going to have to worry about this. People in your department have been encouraging you about your progress. I get the impression that they are pleased with your progress and think you're doing enough. Yet I know how you feel -- we're our own worst critics in this tenure process, I fear.
The pressure is awful due to the uncertainty of all of it. For instance, when my colleagues give supportive comments about my tenure process, my next thought is that the whole thing will tank because external reviewers could tear things apart. It's scary!
I understand and support your high-stakes experiment -- you want to earn tenure and have the life that you want to live. Yet I also get that there is fear associated with the high-stakes aspect of it. Hang in there. I'm sure your work habits work very well for you, as hers do for her.
Take nights off when you want to take them off. It's a good thing to do.
Thanks for the kind words. This tenure stuff can drive us crazy, can't it. I'm going to meet with the chair of my tenure committee this week to strategize plans for timing (go up next year, or delay a year?) and maybe it's stressing me out more than I realize. I think he's going to push me to go up next year and I'm going to resist it because I don't have my two signature pieces published yet.
I feel good about my department being supportive at this time, but I worry about the divisional committee, or like you said, about what external reviewers will say. I think all of this is highlighted because so many people I know are going up next year, and that means that they're all busy starting to freak out right about now.
I know what you mean -- a lot of people are going up next year, and that freaked me out when I was at a conference in February and heard about all of these people who are going up... There is room for all of us to make it, though. Each of us has a line at our own places.
I worry about everything I cannot control, which is quite a lot!
I think that meeting sounds like a good idea. I hope you gain some clarity from it. Do what works for you.
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