Two-body problem; post 2
Yesterday I began writing about our current two-body problem. I want to write a little bit about how I’ve felt so far, and why.
First I was extremely excited at having an interview! Then I started thinking about what all this means for our family. And that has obviously been the difficult part.
Ok, so I grew up in a very “traditional” home. My dad worked and my mom stayed home. I stayed home with her until half-days at preschool when I was 4. It was always kind of an unspoken truth that mommies should stay home with their babies. And that wives should defer to their husbands. My parents have a pretty equal relationship, but there is definitely an undercurrent of patriarchalism there.
I was always encouraged to excel in school, and in science and math. My dad has a master’s degree in some sort of computer science and my mom has a bachelor’s in math. When I wanted to go to a tech school for a science degree my parents were proud. When I got my degree they were more proud. When I went to grad school the pride continued. Then when I got pregnant they started thinking of the child, and what would we do with it? What were my plans?
Froggy was born shortly before I defended my master’s thesis. SkepToad was working on his PhD already, so we shared caring for Froggy. I worked part-time at the University while SkepToad researched and we would switch off at lunch-time most days. So I pretty much stayed home with Froggy.
Now that I’ve re-entered the working world, I realize that I need this. I need to be involved in something bigger than me. I’m smart, and I need to be intellectually challenged. I would be so bored if I were a stay-at-home mom full-time. I am happier for working. Besides these things I want to give Froggy a good example of a working mother, doing something she loves, not just working to pay the bills. That has become as important to me as someone staying at home with her was before she was 2 years old.
With this potential job I feel that I can give Froggy this example. But at the same time I am tugged at by feelings from my upbringing. Besides having a non-working mother, there was also the whole “husband as head of household” part. My dad worked, and we moved a few times for his job. He was the only one with a career, so of course it was the most important. Now that I have a chance at a pretty awesome career I find myself feeling guilty. Do I deserve to pursue a career if it makes it more difficult for SkepToad to pursue his dream career? How can we work it out so that we both have a chance at a good career? Should I just give up and fulfill a completely supportive role, just making enough money to get us through the PhD and postdoc process, and find myself without a real career afterwards?
These “women-come-second” feelings are awful! I feel them at the same time I’m kicking myself for feeling them. But it is difficult to let go of this thing that has been in my subconscious mind my entire life. It helps to have a husband who understands where I’m coming from. He’s really good at telling me I do deserve to have a meaningful career and that we will do our best to work something out that is good for both of us.
A version of the two-body problem; post 1
Right now my family is going through some upheaval associated with the infamous two-body problem. Some backstory: I have applied for about four jobs so far this summer, most on a whim. I am employed and not severely unhappy in my job. Yet something is definitely lacking, and I have been inspired to apply for other jobs. I got a rejection letter from one, heard nothing about the others. Until nearly a month after I applied (and I had forgotten!) I received an email requesting a phone interview.
I was flabbergasted as this application was (along with the others) just really a whim and not exactly what my education is in. I had the phone interview and it went quite well. I hung up still very interested in the position. The person that interviewed me hung up still very interested in me. I got a call back in about an hour for an in-person interview. An all-expenses paid trip to Favorite State. Yes, this job happens to be in my (and SkepToad’s) Favorite State.
So I’m going to interview, and I’m going to try my darndest to get the job. But this poses a large familial problem. SkepToad is still working on his PhD. He loves his research and is getting more into it every day. A new job for me would mean moving (a long way!) again. I don’t want it to mean taking SkepToad away from his research or his PhD.
We’ve been looking at some of the logistics of possible futures. SkepToad can do some work from “home” meaning anywhere in the country. He is required to do a bit of travel to field sites anyway, and can travel from any major airport. There would be enough money for him to keep a bachelor pad in the city to be close to his adviser. This may be a good thing as well because he would be away from distractions (me and Froggy) and may actually be able to focus more on his research and produce a kick ass dissertation. But it means being away from his family more than he’d like. And it may have other career consequences, especially if we really want to try to settle down in Favorite State. Neither of us can say what these career consequences may be, so we have to learn as we go here. SkepToad is currently in the process of actively finding career opportunities possible in Favorite State.
We started a Google spreadsheet with Positives and Negatives of each situation (staying in current job or taking new job offer). Keep in mind that I haven’t been to the interview yet. But we want to be prepared for the decision if we do have to make it. And, like I said, I’m going to try my darndest to get the job.
Tomorrow I will continue with how this whole thing is making me feel. I come from a conservative and traditional background and right now that’s playing havoc with my newfound feminism and career hopes.
Yes… I’m a scientist.
I had to take my car to the dealer this morning for service. It was going to take an hour so I got the shuttle to work. Driven by a nice (enough) old man, most likely in his 80s. He wanted me to sit in front with him and he dropped me off last. He told me all about his old business (a grocery store) and how terrible it was. Then we pull up at my office and he says, “What do you do anyway?” “I’m a scientist,” I say. “Really?” He says, “Why aren’t you old and ugly?”
Sticking up for myself
I’ve been having fun reading some posts about mentoring in academia via Historiann. Something that undine said on Sisyphus‘ post got me remembering something that happened to me as an undergrad. undine said:
If you were raised with working-class values (as I was), you thought that when someone told you the rules, they were really the rules. You didn’t realize that you could argue your way out of them and convince people to do your bidding, because that’s not how the world works if you don’t have class privilege to back it up.
Not that I’m bitter, but I’ve learned that most rules are just starting points for negotiation for people with privilege and have strongly encouraged students who didn’t grow up knowing that the world was their oyster to speak up and protest when some arcane rule gets brought up.
This made me remember working on my senior thesis as an undergrad. I did a pretty big project working mostly on my own with a bit of direction from the only paleontologist at my Uni. I had decided paleobotany was the thing for me, and there were no paleobotanists within a 200-mile radius. I came upon some rules in the middle that dealt directly with the way I approached my senior thesis as a class. It was ambiguous as to how many credits you could use for a senior thesis – credits that counted towards graduation. My reading of the rules, and my thesis adviser’s, was that you could take 3 credits per semester, for a total of 6 credits. I had taken 3 in the fall when this came under department scrutiny. They read the rules another way, that you could only take 3 credits total. You were “supposed” to take 1 credit in the fall for lit review and 2 credits in the spring for research. Well, I was only half done with my project and I was NOT going to find another class to take! I made this clear to my thesis adviser and to my academic adviser, who happened to be department chair as well. They helped me fight for my right to have the extra 3 credits count towards graduation. I was successful and got a nice senior thesis out of it. The fight was well worth it.
I was confronted with some arbitrary rules, and I chose to fight them. I didn’t come from a particularly rich family, private school, or otherwise privileged childhood. I wanted this 6-credit thesis so badly that I wouldn’t take no for an answer! That’s all there was to it!
This really sticks out in my mind right now because, especially being in “corporate America” daily now instead of academia, I feel like I am quickly losing the ability to stick up for myself. Perhaps my goals are more nebulous now? Back then I knew what I wanted and was prepared to fight for it. Now, frankly, I’m not so sure. But, as I write, I am preparing to do a teeny bit of sticking up for myself. We’ll see how that goes…
Almost parallel trajectories
I spent a while on Tuesday chatting with my best friend from high school. We don’t talk very often any more, but we are still good friends. I got up the nerve to ask him a question that had been floating around in my mind for a while now – whether or not he’s still a practicing Mormon. It turns out that he’s now a self-described “militant/evangelical atheist”! I didn’t see that one coming!
I didn’t learn his whole story, but it turns out it was a little bit like mine. What I found interesting about the whole thing was that we have been friends since 1996, and we lost touch for a while somewhere in 2005, and in between then and now we’ve both turned away from our childhood religions and are now atheists. Back in high school we were both fairly committed to our different faiths, mine Lutheran, his LDS. I just found it way cool that we went through similar changes in faith while we weren’t in touch, and now it seems like we have added another layer to our friendship through a “shared” experience that wasn’t even really shared!
Stormy morning
Thunderstorms
This morning we awoke to thunderstorms! Then Froggy and I had to drive through them to school and work. When we left home it was only sprinkling. As we drove through Center City it was raining HARD and there was lightning everywhere. The tops of most of the skyscrapers were shrouded in the clouds. We passed through the storm heading east, and by the time we got to Froggy’s school it was only sprinkling – we had beat the storm.
When I got out of the school and back in the car the storm hit! The same storm I had already driven through! Lightning was everywhere and it was pouring buckets of rain. It was crazy! And fun at the same time. I got this radar picture about 20 minutes after the storm had passed. This was an impressive set of storms this morning!
That old standby – money
I wish I had something more profound to post about today. My mind, however, is being consumed by my budget. I’ve been thinking about it nearly all day. I thought of a new way to visualize and predict future budgets, and implemented that today. It has been good, but it has been a huge brain- and time-sink. I finally got to a point where I can take all my work home to share with SkepToad, and now I feel like I need to just decompress for a while.
I can say this… no more credit card purchases! We’re actually not in debt, but paying for things nearly a month after buying them is screwing up the budgeting process. So, no more credit cards for a while at least. And if we pinch pennies now we’ll be much happier come winter, when I’m sure we’ll have to make adjustments again. But at least we’ll have more of a cushion.
Sea level projections
I know I’m finding this stuff way late, but just in case you haven’t seen these yet -
Flood Maps: Really cool use of the Google Maps API plus NASA data to show projected sea level rise. You can choose from zero to +14m sea level rise, and view almost anywhere on Earth! It isn’t perfectly accurate, but it gives you a good idea of what parts of the coast would be under water with several meters of sea level rise. I can say that my house wouldn’t be under even with +14m sea level, and neither would my office. But a bunch of land in between my home and my office would be!
CReSIS (Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets): A compilation of sea level rise maps and GIS data. You can view JPG or PDF maps of certain vulnerable places on Earth, and you can also view in Google Earth if you have it installed on your computer!
These websites are awesome! It can give you a good idea of what the Earth might look like with up to 14 meters of sea level rise. Many populated places would be under water. Many people would be displaced. How do we plan for a future with sea level rise? Something to think about…
German song
I have a great CD of German children’s songs that Froggy and I love to listen to. I know a bit of German and my hope is that Froggy will not have an American accent if she chooses to learn German one day. I know a couple of the songs from my German grandmother, but most of them I hadn’t heard before I got the CD. This song is one I really like (with the German and English translation) -
| Weißt du wieviel Sternlein stehen? | Do You Know How Many Stars There Are? |
| Weißt du, wieviel Sternlein stehen An dem blauen Himmelszelt? Weißt du, wieviel Wolken gehen Weithin über alle Welt? Gott der Herr hat, sie gezählet, Daß ihm auch nicht eines fehlet An der ganzen großen Zahl, An der ganzen großen Zahl. Weißt du, wieviel Mücklein spielen In der hellen Sommerglut? Wieviel Fischlein auch sich kühlen In der klaren Wasserflut? Gott der Herr rief sie mit Namen, Daß sie all’ ins Leben kamen, Daß sie nun so fröhlich sind. Daß sie nun so fröhlich sind. Weißt du, wieviel Kinder frühe Stehn aus ihren Bettchen auf, Daß sie ohne Sorg’ und Mühe Fröhlich sind im Tageslauf? Gott im Himmel hat an allen Seine Lust, sein Wohlgefallen, Kennt auch dich und hat dich lieb. Kennt auch dich und hat dich lieb. |
Do you know how many little stars there are In the wide blue sky? Do you know how many clouds go about Over the world? The Lord God counted them so well, That none are missing From the whole lot of them. Do you know how many little flies play In the clear heat of Summer? How many little fishes cool themselves In the clear high tide? The Lord God called them by name, So they all came to life, And they’re all so happy now. Do you know how many children, Get up early from their beds, That they’re without worry and sorrow, Happy all day long? God in Heaven has, for everyone, His pleasure, his welfare. Knows you too and loves you. |
My family isn’t religious. I was raised Lutheran but I’m not religious any longer. We don’t usually sing religious songs at home, because that’s not a part of our lives. But every time I hear this song and stop to really listen to it, it gives me the warm fuzzies. It is nice to think of a great god in heaven that named all the animals one-by-one and knows you and loves you personally. That’s just so nice. I don’t believe it, but it is nice to think about in the context of this little children’s song.
Froggy’s preschool adventures
I just dropped Froggy (my daughter) off at her new preschool. Today is day #2 there. She was a little upset today, but not crying. Yesterday the drop-off was a huge success with no tears and no “Mommy, stay!” When I picked her up yesterday she was bubbling over with excitement. She had to show me a picture of Tinkerbell she thoughtfully colored black and green. She had to tell me about “Little Gym” and how they danced, and how she got rained on outside, and she ate all her lunch and she slept at naptime. I know she had a great day, and I know that today will be great too. But there is always that part of me that feels really guilty dropping her off at school while I go to work, and it gets amplified when she doesn’t want me to leave. But, notice, she doesn’t want me to take her away with me, she wants me to STAY. The kid likes school.
This is Froggy’s third “daycare” situation since January. If it was a perfect world we would have picked the right place from the start. But, we didn’t. Back at christmas time I was interviewing for jobs, and I had two really great prospects. We had just relocated for my husband, so we were totally new to the area and had to start looking for daycares. Originally we planned on one near our house, in the city. We looked at a few there, and were all set to start at one when I got a job. The school was nice enough, but my job turned out to be about 30 minutes out of the city, with hours of 8:30 to 5:30. I couldn’t make it to pick Froggy up by 6. So, my husband was picking her up; not a problem in general, but he’s got to go do field work for 3 weeks in the fall, and our situation has to be doable without Daddy. Froggy liked that school, but not enough. She would whine in the morning when I dropped her off and it was usually a little bit of a struggle (hello guilt!). So, we started looking for a place closer to my job.
We found an agency that manages in-home daycares, and through them we found a great “nanny” – a woman with one 4-year-old boy who was looking to care for just one other child around Froggy’s age. I liked her so much that I didn’t interview anyone else at the time. And we thought that Froggy may do better in a home environment than in a school (at that point she was just 2.5 years old). So she went to the nanny’s house for about 2 months. We would have kept her there but the nanny’s husband got transferred and they were forced to move, very quickly in fact. We had to find another place.
Our nanny told us that Froggy was definitely ready for a school environment. She would take her to her son’s preschool when they were dropping him off and Froggy wouldn’t want to leave! She grew a little less introverted and started liking to play with other kids a little bit. So, when the nanny told me they had to leave, I started looking for a school again. And I found one that is really close to my workplace and also one of the best preschools in the area. Luckily, they had an opening for her age group! I visited, and then I took Froggy to visit, and then her nanny took her there for a few minutes each day during their last week together. Like I said, she started there yesterday with no tears! It is a great environment and I’m so glad we found it.
I feel bad that Froggy’s had to go through so much change in the last 6 months. But she is amazingly resilient. When she’s in the right place, she’ll be just fine. And she’s going to learn so much and make friends.
