Carla brings up an interesting point. Is academia worse than other professional careers in terms of accomodating families? I believe it is.
You spend 7 to 10 years completing your studies. During that time you are earning little to no money, you are not accumulating social security, you probably are wracking up credit card bills and student loans, and you have no office experience. If you have to take off time to raise your kids, you have almost no hope of returning to your job. Your area of study will probably not directly carry over into another career. There are no part time opportunities.
My friend, Margie, has a degree in Ancient Near Eastern Inscriptions. A career that requires mastery of ancient inscriptions doesn’t show up in the NYT classifieds all that often. She and I in our blacker moments wish that we had become secretaries in our twenties and had socked away some money before taking off time to be with the kids.
I have several friends on the tenure track with kids. I’m working on an article on this topic and one refused to be mentioned in the article even in vaguest possible way. She was afraid of retribution before tenure. Another maintains that her job was only possible because she had only one kid. Many have put off kids until their late thirties — not recommended by the AMA.
Apt. 11d 
I try to stay away from bitterness–it doesn’t serve over either the short or the long run, and I don’t want to live my life mired in a sea of it. That said, it does occasionally rear its ugly head. One of my points is that, despite all of the issues, those of you who are in TT positions or are likely to be able to get them are doing what you set out to do, what you sacrificed to be able to do. That should be worth something–or, at least, it looks that way to someone (me) who went through those sacrifices, etc., but who could not find an academic job and who had to create a career change. As Margie and Laura and probably many others can attest, that career creation is no easy task. (To people who say, “Well, at least you have your degree! That’s worth something!” I point out that I spent 7 years in grad school, another year unemployed, and 10 years paying off my loans–would YOU want to spend 18 years of your life (in the case of the loan repayment years in the form of significant funds spent on those loans rather than on, say, retirement funds or a down payment on a house) on a career you didn’t get to have?)
I agree wholeheartedly that the academy is far from perfect, or even ideal, and, in general, it’s kinda the opposite of “family-friendly.” I also know how many in the academy fight the notion that they are “like” the rest of the world. Thus, I truly believe that men and women should work together, across careers, across gender and class lines, across whatever boundaries we find, to fight for family-friendly structures, which probably includes some fighting about what that can possibly mean. (I’m comparing the situation of academics to, say, the experience/situation of women being shooed off of welfare–they, too, have little access to child care, they make little money, if they make “too much” they lose their state-provided health benefits, and they’ve got damned little social security.) And as long as we think that our problems are unique, or, conversely, that there’s only one solution, we’re screwed.
Apologies for the length here . . .
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I’ve been thinking about the whole student loan thing a lot lately. I’m still in grad school, and my husband (who works for nearly charity wages at an inner-city school [that is private thus disqualifying him from student loan forgiveness programs]) and I have managed to scrape by without taking out more loans for my grad school than what was necessary to buy a computer and fix my badly damaged car during my first year. But we both have a huge amount of undergraduate debt, that is really beating us down. (I went to a private liberal arts college, he went to a state university–frankly, we owe about the same amount, which either says a lot about my financial aid office, or doesn’t say much about his.) We don’t make enough to really be chipping away at it, so arrange to put off payments during summer months (while I don’t get stipend checks), mine is still in deferment while in grad school.
So as opposed to people our age who have managed to pay off enough to consider buying homes, we’re looking at starting to begin serious paying off around mid-30s. And I’m not even close yet to begin to even consider looking for the few academic jobs that exist! When do the desired children enter? Question mark. We’re too busy playing Russian roulette with the power company.
I’m interested in the student loan thing. I don’t know if we are just so humanities-minded that we’re just missing easy financial solutions. But I just wonder how long the student loan thing haunts people. Does the weight of debt keep people from risking the academic job market so that they can have the “American dream” of house and 2 kids? Is this something that just bothers me because I’m still a student? Do “grownups” get frustrated with their low-income humanities careers and high amounts of debt to get the humanities education?
In an abstract mode what’s the deal with the whole student loan thing anyway? I think it’s a pretty dirty trick. What makes any reasonable person think an 18 year old really knows what he/she is doing when he/she takes on that kind of debt responsibility? And once the loan pays the college bill one year, it just keeps coming. (Sure some of my friends were lucky enough that their parents were involved enough in their lives that they either didn’t have to accrue undergrad debt and/or their parents equipped them with knowledge to know how to accrue it wisely…so I consider my undergrad debt comparable to the debt many of my colleagues sign up for to finance their graduate educations, and it is.)
I love grad school. I’m having a blast. My department, though small, is a dream and has gotten me well-connected. I love my discipline, and I can’t wait to start my dissertation. I don’t want to quit at the brink of dissertating because I signed the dotted line as a naive 18yrold!
And what is it about higher education in this country that is so expensive that debilitates anyone who isn’t a high powered executive or working in some computer-related field by age 27?
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I think the academy is a certainly a worse working environment than other professional careers.
The failure of most schools to even make a gesture towards parental leave makes the academy seem like it’s stuck in an era before feminism every was considered.
For those in the foreign languages, the requirement that young faculty lead six week study abroad programs in the summer is particularly hard to accomodate if you have kids. In a intervew, when asked about willing to spend half of every summer in Europe, I mistakenly said that it would be great but when I had kids it would difficult to balance with my wife’s professional career. The professor said that my family could just come along with me. It would be great. I wanted to ask if she had ever fucking met someone with a real job. I guess she just thought that everyone gets the summers off. (I know, I should have agreed to anything during the interview. Probably the reason I didn’t get a call back.)
I don’t think corporations are inherently more just than universities, it’s more a matter that competition means that they have to treat their employees better. Academics, who often like to see themselves as so much better than evil corporations, fail in the one area where they actually have some direct power over the lives of other to even create a small amount of justice. Then again, so many potential job candidates are lining up to take any job no matter how crappy, that there is no reason they shouldn’t continue to act this way.
Sorry for the major rant. Sometimes the academy just drives me crazy. Of course, I’m going back on the market this year for one last time. I’m also applying to law school, so I can walk away from situations that just don’t look good.
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Before thinking law school is somehow going to solve your family problems, you probably should read the literature on lawyers turning away from lucrative firm life because of family demands. Yes, you can make $130,000 your first year at a firm, but tenure track is like a walk in the park compared to the 70-hour work weeks for 8 years that one needs to toil in order to become a partner at a law firm.
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some good points here. There are definitely some drawbacks. That said, I’ve personally found the flexibility of academic life makes it possible to accommodate a child in a way that other jobs might not. I take my baby everywhere I go. Library. Computer lab. Meetings with faculty. Everyone has been supportive of me keeping her with me. I just throw her in a sling. Since I’m nursing, she doesn’t require that much paraphanelia. I do leave her with my husband while I teach three mornings a week. Past that, I get everything I need to do done with the baby on my hip.
I don’t know if that would fly at a law firm. I’m thinking not.
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I’m not saying that being a lawyer is the perfect solution, it’s just the best alternative I can find.
I think academics, though, too often think that the partner track and the tenure track are the same. Most people never make partner and many have no intention of sticking around long enough to even try. After a few years, a lot of people seek positions in house at corporations or with the government. The hours still might be long, but nothing like the hours required by a large firm.
No doubt that a certain amount of flexibility is an advantage to the academy. On the other hand, the academy can be particularly inflexible in other areas (taking time off, tenure requirements). This would be fine if there were alternatives, but there aren’t really any good alternatives. No other models of employment exist if the tenure track academic route doesn’t suit you.
(Sorry for all the typos and such. I’m typing on an ancient mac running an early version of Netscape. I can only see part of the comment field. Ah the joys of being an adjunct.)
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Worse than other professions? Depends partly on which other profession. Depends partly on whether you are one of the elect.
There is terrible wastage in academia, and this is particularly so in the humanities: fifteen people who have all spent ten years in training chasing one job, and the fourteen who don’t get it then have to go to a third-best job at 42 with no start on savings, maybe too late for pregnancy. If you do get the job, well, you are doing what you wanted, and with luck you are on a collegial faculty and you can still have a family and the school pays college tuition for professor’s children and your spouse can get a job s/he feels good about, all of us should do so well..
Other professions? Big firm law is gruelling, and lots of wastage there as well, folks who don’t make partner. If you do catch the brass ring, you at least have enough money to pay for child care, though you don’t get a lot of sunny afternoons with your child. Many solo practitioners make relatively meager livings, and how exciting can your hundred-and-twentieth bypass trust be? You can be just as infertile after completing a neurosurgery residency as after a 12-year PhD.
Any undergrads reading this? You can Actually Start Your Life five years after you graduate from college if you do podiatry, or dentistry, or accounting.
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I think the lack of interesting, intellectually-stimulating part-time jobs in every field is a problem. I read somewhere – someone must know this cite – that a group has recommended a maximum “family work week” of 60 hours. That is, the parents should only work a total of 60 hours. But there are few steady jobs that will allow you to work 20-30 hours a week. You can work this much in academia, if you adjunct, but the money is awful. You can temp as a secretary, but you’re not guaranteed a job, and anyway it’s hard to set a regular schedule even if you’re great. Teaching elementary or secondary school can be a 30 hour a week job – or at least get you out in time to be with your kids for the afternoon – but only if you do all your prep at school, and probably not then.
Having been in management, though, part-time workers are a pain, even if they’re good workers. So it’s tough to know what to do.
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As someone married to a professor, and as someone who has worked full time in the corporate world for over 17 years, I can tell you that from my experience academia is a family-friendly haven compared to the corporate world. As a TT prof, my husband could usually arrange his schedule: for a few years he taught in the evenings and stayed home with our daughter during the day while I worked. Even when he taught summer school, he still had a month off in the summer, a month off in December and a spring break. Grants gave him the opportunities not to teach every couple of years, and that’s in addition to sabbatical. He did not have to go into the office on weekends, nor did he teach every day. Yes, there was pressure to publish, and yes, it was scary to know that if he didn’t perform he would not get tenure and his career could be seriously derailed or even over & done with. But once he did get tenure, he HAD A JOB FOR LIFE. Granted, sometimes it seems more like a sentence than a perk, but it’s an amazing idea to anyone who works in the corporate world where layoffs, firings, outsourcing and deadly company mergers are a daily reality. Parental leave? I was LUCKY to get 10 weeks. Breastfeeding room? A colleague and I shared a pump and did it in the bathroom. Vacations? On average 3-4 weeks given begrudginly – and if you actually take it all, they give you the evil eye and make mental notes about not being a “team player.” My company hours are 8-5:30. In my department, few people leave before 6:30 or 7:00. There is a monthly, all-day Saturday meeting. Now, I believe you when you say, academia is tough, and that it used to be better. But the reality is that the corporate world is far worse, and far worse than it used to be. (My very high-level-executive Dad was home every day at 5:30 when I was growing up!)Companies pay lip service to the idea that you have to be “competitive” to keep good people. Trust me: everyone’s replaceable, and everyone in the corporate world knows it.
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I’ve had a full-time job in academe for the past 10 years. I’m tenured and very grateful for the security this affords me. I’m fortunate, too, that I haven’t had any student loans to repay. This is because I worked about 3 days a week for most of the eight years it took me to complete an MA and PhD; and during the final year of my PhD I was working full-time at a very demanding job.
I would have found it impossible to combine employment and full-time studies if I had had small children (my son was in his teens). Nor would I have been able to survive the first few years of my tenure-track job. Indeed, the long years of absolute grind — even without small children — has taken its toll on my health. I know several other female faculty in the same situation: two have had to be hospitalized for major depression.
Something has to give. One of the obvious solutions is to eliminate — not just reduce — tuition fees. Another might be to give new, tenure-track faculty a reduced teaching load and no responsibility for thesis supervision (universities have a nasty habit of sucking all the blood out of their fresh appointees).
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