Is it possible to get your career going after you take off several years to raise kids? Some say yes, others no. There are so many variable to consider — the amount of time off, your profession, your prior experience — that it may be impossible to give a definitive yes or no to that question.

Is it possible to ramp up an academic career? Good question. That’s been a background theme on this blog for quite a while, and since I’m on a part-time, temporary track for next year, I don’t have a complete answer for you. My buddy, Margie on Long Island, is also an academic putting her last child in Kindergarten this fall and getting ready to breath life back into her academic career. This afternoon, we traded ideas and information that we’ve gathered along the way.

Anecdotally, I know of a lot of others in our boat. And not just women. There’s Matt in Cleveland, who’s the only stay at home dad on his block with a PhD in history. Since academic pay is so dismal and the jobs so rare, it’s often the career that has to go on ice when the kids arrive.

Here’s what Margie and I cooked up this afternoon:
1. Publish anything. Blow the dust off your dissertation and revise the best chapter. Or start new research, which is what I did. This can be very difficult if you aren’t affiliated with a university at the time, because you need access to libraries. It’s also a pain in the ass to go to conferences if you don’t have a university under your name, which is why you should…

2. Adjunct. (God, I can’t believe I just wrote that.) Yes, you should accept crappy pay and the damage to your self esteem, because you can access JSTOR and the other academic databases. You’ll get more work done at the university than on your kitchen table. It’s something for the resume and could be a source for recommendations. It’s a temporary move, so suck it up for a short while.

3. Start the publishing and the adjuncting when the kids hit pre-school. Again, not easy. Childcare sucks and the kids get sick and all that nonsense, but just plug away at it slowly. My buddy taught an adult-education class this spring, which only met once a week while her kid was at school.

4. Get to know the local schools. Don’t wait for an advertisement for an opening. Call the chairs at these local schools and send them your CV. If you are out in the suburbs, your PhD is surprisingly an asset, because there aren’t a lot of other PhDs in the area. You are local talent that doesn’t have to flown in for an interview. If they give you a job, there is no chance that you’ll bolt after a year for something better.

5. Chat with other academics. (I refuse to write the word, "network," because it sounds so calculating.) Revive old friendships with your classmates and your advisers.They might know of positions, and it gets you back in the habit of talking about your work again.

Is this a model for getting a job at Harvard and Yale? No. Gaps on the resume are death to those schools. But there are a whole pile of other schools that have nice students and will give you an office and let you do what you like to do. Some of these schools are actually really understanding about the kiddies.

We’re still working on this, so I can’t give much more advice at this moment. Maybe in another year, I’ll be totally cynical and promoting administrative positions and valium. We’ll see.