So I'd been feeling terribly guilty about how grouchy I've found myself feeling during all these phone conversations with my mom. She calls a few times a week, and is always full of questions. I've found myself answering them in short sentences, wanting not to engage, wanting to keep my pregnancy and the rest of what's happening to me mostly to myself.
Now I'm starting to realize that I have good reason for feeling this way.
So, I mentioned this campus interviewI have coming up. It's at a school a really like, and in a part of the country I'd love to live in. If P. weren't to get a job somewhere else (I won't be surprised if he gets several offers), it would be a good place to bring him too, as there are large cities (= more jobs) close enough by. So I've been trying to pull together material for my research and teaching presentations. I was excited about the possibilities there.
But then, my parents called. My mom talked first, asked me if I was still going (???), asked if I'd found out more information about what the visit will entail. I told her a few more details, and she wondered aloud if it was "worth all that trouble." "Are you really suggesting I call and just tell them I'm not coming?" I asked her. No, it wasn't that, she said, but then she asked "what if they want you to commit right away?" and she asked about P. I told her that neither of us has an offer in hand yet, and this place is actually a really good opportunity. She reminded me that "you're married, and you two have to go together," and then suggested that really I just need to be waiting for P. to get a job because that school could probably come up with something for me, anyway. No, mom, actually spousal hires aren't that easy to come by-- we can't rule out anything yet--
she hands the phone to my dad. He mentions the high cost of living in the area where this school is, told me I better make sure to ask about insurance and benefits, etc., and then also brought up P. "Your job's really secondary at this point," he said.
What the fuck is wrong with them?!?!? P. and I have talked about the two-job situation extensively, and he's never been anything less than supportive about my career. We're already planning to do everything we possibly can to end up in the same place, but we recognize that doesn't always happen. We recognize we'll have difficult decisions to make later on, but we'll try to go where there are the best options for all three of us. I hate my parents' butting in on this (though they assured me in precisely those words that that's not what they were doing). It makes me angry and it hurts my feelings for them to tell me that my career is "secondary." This is a competetive school-- I had to beat out a lot of people to get as far as I have. It hurts not to have gotten a "congratulations" or even a "good luck" from them.
All my life I've had issues with trying to please my parents. I got a ph.D, I got a job my first year on the market, and they were proud. But now that P.'s degree is finished (and probably becasue I'm pregnant, too), that's all over. Now they find it necessary to talk to me about what my new and "secondary" role should be.
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9 comments:
Wow. It's tough enough to please search committees, never mind trying to make parents happy, too!
I find it nearly impossible to talk about the academic job market with my family--it's hard to explain how we likely won't have jobs in the same place, how it's not at all easy to hop off the tenure track for a few years and then hop back on, and how, actually, no, the fact that I'm "so personable" isn't going to put me ahead of the 250 other candidates who are also personable and have better publications to boot.
I know it doesn't count as much coming from a stranger, but congratulations! And good luck!
Oy! It is really, really hard to talk to nonacademic family members about what we do. Not that hearing this will be new or will alleviate any of your frustrations, but it's still true.
Congratulations on getting a callback somewhere you're interested in. You gotta do what you know if right and count on the parents to figure out that you're doing the right thing sometime in the future.
Family is such a huge pain in the ass sometimes.
It's not so much their confusion about how the academic world works that bugs me (though yes, that's annoying, too). It's the sexist subtext (which isn't really subtextual at all) of the whole thing.
Please god don't let me be like this...
First off I think it's hard to let your children be adults, and not treat them as children.
Second, yeah the whole sexist thing sucks. Also not treating you like you have the capacity to fully examine a situation is annoying.
My parents constantly tell me how lucky I am that Bert is an involved parent. I want to go, hey isn't Bert lucky I am an involved parent too ?
Different eras.
Yes, different generations. My mom told me not to buy a stereo in high school because my boyfriend had one and obviously so would my husband if it was hs boyfriend. Or when my mother-in-law said we wouldn't need a carseat since obviously I'd have to stop driving now and sit in the back to hold the baby.
aren't you glad some things have changed? I know when we've had months of living in different places (countries) our folks just couldn't imagine that things were ok with us.
You sound so calm actually and I'm really happy you got this campus invite.
This parental feedback sounds familiar...
If my parents have gotten a little bit better on the sexist stuff, that's only because I keep reminding them of what it would mean to turn my back on years and years of graduate school study and sacrifice. I think my mom gets it better than my dad does. But both act kind of alarmed anytime I get "too feminist" on them, and try to make jokes about how being in academia is making me "so closed-minded to the way that most NORMAL people live and how most NORMAL husbands and wives arrange their lives." Blech. And, no, they really don't understand the vagaries of the academic market.
But I will add this: Ever since getting pregnant, I have certainly been subjected to those "your job is secondary" messages (subtle and overtly stated). Which I hate. But I also have noticed that both my family and my husband's have also started to put a lot of sexist pressure on him... hinting that he needs to hurry up and get an even better tenure-track job, or maybe even leave academia, since, after all, he is going to be Daddy and Breadwinner.
I would say get used to these throwback attitudes. Maybe even keep a journal on them, just to laugh later. In our final childbirth class the other night, the instructor made a point of teaching all the men in the class how to swaddle a baby. She didn't bother to make the women in the class do it because, heck, women are genetically programmed to know how to swaddle infants, right?
Good luck with the interview. And, for what it's worth, I'm sure nobody can tell your pregnant by looking at you at this point. So erase any anxieties you might have about that as you go into this campus interview.
You guys are so nice.
Thank you.
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