Thoroughly pissed off with DH's family for not recognising me doing a PhD as a 'job' or 'work'

[IckleIrt]

Just had enough and need to rant. I left a very good career to do a PhD, this PhD represents a planned directional change for me career wise and I was lucky enough to secure a good scholarship and teach alongside it, all in all I bring in about 20k most of which is tax free, so to me this is an ok income for the time being, it is less than what I was on, but to DH and I it is more about being happy in a career than chasing money (obviously once we are earning enough to live off that is). DH and I planned for this financially and adjusted accordingly. DH's family treat it like a hobby, something I can pick up and put down as I want and laugh at me for taking it so seriously. I have 2 'study' days a week and the rest of the time I fit it into evenings and weekends around caring for my two young children (both pre-school). I work bloody hard to get this done and so fed up with the attitude that it doesn't matter, isn't a 'job' and is just my hobby. They criticise me for leaving my old job and putting us in a financially harder position and often suggest I'm selfish in doing this. They completely ignore the fact that it gives me much more flexibility to be with my children (part of the reason for our timing of the move) I have to complete on time, we cannot afford or me to run over the scholarship, and to secure the career I am going for I have to do well. I stick to a strict timetable and push myself hard, and I absolutely love it, just wish it wasn't such a joke to everyone else. Have to say DH is very supportive as are my family (they do the childcare to support), but we spend ALOT of time with DH's family due to caring needs and business. Sorry rant over, but AIBU to be a little irritated by this?

Yeah, these pesky SAHMs dragging down standards everywhere they go...

Some of the most intelligent and hardest working people I have worked with have been self-funded.

OP, my ILs are a bit like this - in their case because they seem to despise anyone who is academic because they fear what they don't understand.

Smile and nod and enjoy your PhD!

What callamia said above: "Welcome to academia!
No one understands us. My in-laws think I just arse around all day"

This is so, so true.

DH and I are both academics from non-academic families. His PIL (who were lovely, actually) lived in a far-off country and so when they came to visit us, it would always be a long visit of a few weeks. But when booking the trip, they never paid attention to our university term times, so instead of showing up in between terms when our schedules were less manic, they would show up at the busiest part of term. MIL would then confide in me about how disappointed she was about how DH would just "spend all this time sitting around with his computer" instead of going out sightseeing with them. At which point I would have to explain for the millionth time that when DH and I sit around with our computers, we are actually WORKING, as in writing our lectures and sending admin emails and sometimes even doing our research and just in general bringing in the income that keeps our family going.

I don't think she ever really believed me though, bless her.

And as PlumBear said, even though academia has its perks in that some of the work can be done at flexible times, the grim side of this is that you never feel free of the obligation to work. There are so many evenings and weekends when I'm madly trying to work at home when the DC are around in order to meet work deadlines. I look at the neighbours whose work is truly FINISHED when they get home at 6 pm, so they can sit in their garden with their DC running around and have a drink any evening they want to, and I feel a pang of envy.

On the other hand I love my research and hope to carry on doing it long after I've retired, so I don't want to change my situation really.

I don't even have a permanent job so thinking about retirement is a bit rich but never mind

Bravo and good luck to you!

I think my response would be something like, "I'm sorry but I don't remember asking for your opinion on how I and my family live our lives. I don't expect you to understand what I do or why I do it but I do expect you not to be so rude. If you can't refrain from it then I suggest you leave and come back only when you can be supportive."

Oh and add a "Fuck off you ignorant cretin!" at any point just to add emphasis if required.

Do they even know that you have an income or do they think you are just studying?

Ignore their remarks, practise selective deafness, who cares what they think as long as you're happy and your DH supports you.

I second Xenadog's sentiment. I could nor have said it any better.

I do find with our extended family on DH's side, who all work part time BTW, don't understand what it means to have a professional full time job. I get cross at their comments but have ignore them for the best part of a decade.

What Xenadog said with the exception of the word cretin.

I too have seen this but in my case have suspected it is more reflecting of an underlying sexism on the part of DPiL. In their minds men's paid work is important while women's work is less important. This despite that fact that for much of the last 20 years I have been the WOHP. They have no idea what I do for a living.

YANBU
PhD is hard in itself let alone with young children. I did the same, the hours were crazy. I was living on 2-3 hours sleep for months on end. In the end my health really suffered and I decided it was time to take it easier.
Just ignore unsupportive people, whoever they are. They are acting like for their own reasons, none of which should really be your problem. Some of them will be jealous, others would not understand the need for further education in general. Concentrate your effort on the huge undertaking you've started and your family. In the grand scheme of things opinion of those people have no weight.
It's going to be hard even without wasting your time and energy explaining yourself. I was lucky in that my family was supportive.
Good luck with your studies.

sats your post is incredibly nasty and condescending. I'm sure these SAHM, you despise so much are both very hard working and intelligent. I'm sure their thesis will be subject to as much scrutiny as any other student's thesis.

Somehow I missed sats's post. What Aspiringhuman said. You are talking utter wank.

Don't worry, it's not just SAHMs diluting the PhD excellence, there might be Dads doing it too!

Of course, this is nonsense. There are many routes to and motivations for doing a PhD, and I've never experienced anyone 'buying' their way to it. I did mine while working as a research assistant - it wasn't RC funded (I had previously turned down one of those, idiot), but I don't think I've ruined things for everyone.

Agree that SATS is rude. I accept that in some disciplines, self-funded PhDs may be looked on in askance, but by no means in all.

I self-fund, because however difficult it may be to get funding for a full-time PhD, it's almost impossible to get funding for a part-time one. And given I work full-time and am a lone parent, part-time is the way it's got to be.

You really must live in a privileged little world, SATS.

When FIL is rude we have an ignore policy - I either pretend I haven't heard him/change the subject or suddenly remember something pressing I need to do in another room. DH also finds that a firm "Well Dad that's not really any of your business" is useful from time to time

He actually does it far less since we started this. We have an as-yet-untested pact that if he is really rude (as he has been in the past) we will simply leave.

Get used to it - dh travels a lot to conferences now and when he gets back from gruelling long days he gets asked whether he had a nice holiday :) yes a holiday away from his family and doing incredibly stressful presentations and staying in cruddy business hotels!

Oh my ILs also treat dh's hours and travel as optional - because he's an academic they are less (well, zero) percent sympathetic and ask 'but surely you don't have to travel/work weekends' etc, whereas their other son who works til 7pm somedays (shock) gets endless sympathy.

I'm with you OP! DH and I both have various degrees and my DB is currently finishing his PhD. He got full funding, has worked his arse off and is now a leading expert in his field. He's been on TV, quoted in the press and is generally pretty damn good at what he does. But will my stupid step dad acknowledge any of this? Will he bollocks. He goes on and on about how he's a perpetual student, doesn't want to get a proper job blah blah blah. Surprisingly, neither DB nor my DH and I see him much. Ignorant man.

I think the glut of SAHPs doing a self-funded PhD once they are no longer tied to working outside the home has rather dragged down the accepted level of achievement.

Seriously? Where are all these 'lower level of achievement' PhDs? Can I do one?

Nonsense. It is a phenomenal amount of work and commitment and I am in awe of anyone who even attempts it, let alone comes out the other side.

Not everyone considers a PhD a soft option, Ickle. Good luck

Sympathies, OP, but it doesn't go away once you have the doctorate! I was in a car with my now-husband's family on our way to both our MA degree ceremonies (first people to finish secondary school in either family, let alone go to university) when his mother pointed out a neighbour walking to work in a local shop, and said 'Now that's a proper job, that's the kind of thing you should be aiming for.'

We both did doctorates at Oxbridge subsequently, and I still work as an academic, while DH has changed fields, and neither family has the faintest idea what I do, think I have endless holidays and minimal contact hours, and that it's a bit of a joke job. I've even stopped getting annoyed about it now, because no amount of explanation seems to get through.

My father appears genuinely baffled as to what 'you are doing all the time on the computer' - I think part of the problem now is that so many people use computers as a main source of leisure, Fbing, watching videos of kittens falling down on Youtube etc - so seeing me hunched over my laptop writing an article doesn't compute as 'work' for him.

No one with half a brain considers a PhD a soft option, self-funded or otherwise, far from it. sats is talking out of her/his arse.

I work full time at an RG university, and am currently completing an MSc - it's draining me dry so god knows how I will manage when the inevitable 'so are you going to start your PhD?' raises its head.

I take my hat off to you, OP, and you just have to ignore the clueless twonks who can't get their head around the idea that it is, very much, a fulltime job.

And I agree with whoever said (sorry, can't scroll!) that whilst academia has its plus points, the downside of flexibility is that, actually, you never ever switch off from it. I have never worked anywhere where so much annual leave gets cancelled at the last minute because people feel they simply can't leave so-and-so undone/unanswered/unwritten. It's crazy.

I think part of the problem now is that so many people use computers as a main source of leisure, Fbing, watching videos of kittens falling down on Youtube etc - so seeing me hunched over my laptop writing an article doesn't compute as 'work' for him.

Good point, Burren.

In addition to Burren's excellent point I think that also the world of work has changed hugely since DPiL retired. Most of their experience is of men bringing home the 'real' money and women only working in 'little jobs' bringing in pin money. That of course was more a perception than a reality.