Is anyone else an academic who has not produced enough research while having kids and is now in the s***?

[Kathyis6incheshigh]

There are lots of academics on MN, just wondering if there is anyone else in my position.

Am pg with 3rd dc in 5 years. Have had hyperemesis and other problems in all 3 pgs, which on top of 2 maternity leaves means heaps of time off work. In the meantime I have completely lost research momentum and produced sod all apart from a few book reviews. I was not submitted for RAE (though fortunately my dept did very well without me so none of my colleagues are holding it against me personally.)
Every time I come back it takes me all my time to get back up to speed with teaching and admin, get on top of all the changes in my field etc, and I only ever seem to make baby steps towards producing anything before I am sick or pregnant again.
Just had uncomfortable meeting with (supportive) HoD at which she broke news to me that I am about to get a scary letter from Personnel and a process is going to start which will probably include ritual disembowelling/change to a teaching only contract if I don't get something submitted before baby is due. Which would be fine as long as the foetus behaves and sickness holds off - am only just back at work after 2 months off with HG.

Serves me right for having children, doesn't it?

Fourfoucault

I do work but PT . I was working 4 days a week and dh was commuting 50 miles to work which meant he spent very long days in the office (and working on the commute) but offset that by working form home 1-2 days a week most of the time.

I now work 3 days a week but we have moved nearer to Dh's work after I was made redundant.

I agree however that women generally are much more affected by all this than men are. One of my husband's colleagues is held up as an example of being able to do it all. as well as bing a generally lovely person she is a professor with 4 children (the youngest a baby) but she does have a husband who is the primary child carer who works part time.

just having a peek at this thread as i am the SAHM wife of an academic and wanted to say that i have huge admiration for all of you.. our situation is that i am currently studying (the irony!) whilst doing the SAHM thing and although it doesn't always suit me down to the ground, we consciously decided to have children when my dh was at the beginning of his career and realistically it would have been extremely difficult for that to get underway if i had been hell-bent on my own career. Am hoping that at some point in the next few years, once dh's career is well established etc that i will get a chance to use all this studying that i have been doing, but there is no guarantee
Anyway, i think you are all doing amazingly, especially the OP (think we have been on hyperemesis threads together!)..all the best to all of you

Thanks Fairylights

I made dh come back early from a conference yesterday because I was throwing up too much to pick dcs up from nursery. So it definitely impacted on him. But OTOH since I was the one that was throwing up all day, it impacted on me a lot more

Puddlejumper, that's interesting about Liverpool Hope's office hours requirement. I have a friend at a London university where they insist on something similar (doubtless because they reckon that due to the commute, if they let people work from home people would hardly ever be in). It has definitely affected her negatively - not least when she had SPD and they wouldn't let her work from home initially, so she was exhausted and in pain by the time she even got to work

I have a colleague who has to work in the office because her dd is at home with her dh so there is nowhere for her to work at home, so her solution is to be completely ruthless about not answering the door or the phone. It works for her. However probably if a uni is insisting on presence in the office they probably wouldn't stand for that. I'm lucky that my place is flexible about such things. I have a 3 day a week office requirement during termtime, written into my contract, to offset the fact that they have let me off the residence requirement, which seems entirely reasonable.

Seems to me that the danger of insisting people are in the office for 35 hours a week is that they start believing that's the job and only work 35 hours a week!

I was struck by Fennel's comment about wanting the "stand and stare" time. I also find myself rushing around trying to be as productive as possible in the time available, but what I'm missing out on is the leisurely browsing through journals, reading interesting but unrelated papers and the luxury of playing around with ideas that may lead to nothing - all these are what generates new ideas, and that's what I'm not managing at the moment.
Being required to be physically in the office for certain hours is also not compatible with this way of working.

Yes indeed Skiffler. One would be tempted to do things like taking all one's holiday, or refuse to go to conferences on Saturdays and ring up distance learning students in the evenings.

Kathy

I thought the 35 five hours a week was related to student demand for more contact/more access rather than anything else.

I hope this thread has gone slack because you've all had some brilliant insights and are busily writing them up!

Hello! Here's what I've been doing: Finalising my article, following the conference I went to. Then finalising it again and finalising it a little bit more. Then going to do something else, reading a bit of Mumsnet, having another read, decide that it's not really good enough and perhaps I'm more suited to a different career, read a bit more Mumsnet, wonder why I haven't got pregnant this month (in a slightly weird and obsessive way, it's our first month of TTC no2!), cleaned the bathroom, returned to article. Wondered whether I should send it off . . . hoping that one day I will be able to change my name!! Hope others are having more meaningful insights than that!

• you're doing a lot better than I am these days! As well as the babies I've had dh home with injured leg, ie, unable to do anything other than hold dd for me. So three dc's to look after, effectively . Was hoping to write tonight - mentor-y prof says those 1000 excess words need to go before submitting article - but I want need the tv on to keep me awake and ds has re-tuned it so there's no picture [grr]. Still, all this faff means I really won't fiddle with it once I've chopped that pesky extra verbiage .

Wanna be my article-submitting buddy? Aim for a no-excuses-end-of-July submission?

Sounds like a good idea Phdlife. I am now going to print out my article and read it in hard copy! That's definitely the next best step to take ....!

I have just hit the 'send' button on my June article and .

OK it was two weeks later than I said it would be ... so not TOO bad.

Is too long and kind of just gave up with the conclusion . But have been sitting on it so long thought it best just to let gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Wish me luck.

Will be back here rabbiting on soon as will have another paper to write and therefore will need displacement activities...

Hi - I'm here too.
I submitted my article - which came back v quickly (for complicated reasons) with a few changes to make and telling me the conclusion was rubbish - not in so many words but that is how I have interpreted it and so I trying to gear myself up to do the changes and look at how embarrassingly bad the conclusion actually was. I knew it was but didn't have the energy to change it.

In relation to this thread - I was in a meeting this morning where someone (a man) told me that I would be surprised at how many 'traditional' relationships there were at this university - by which he means where the male academic has a career and the woman stays at home (and does what she's told - is how he put it!). I actually think they are post-traditional relationships - where the female partner has taken this role out of choice (a big difference with traditional relationships) and actually gains from it. (By this I mean more than just getting a kick out of doing the ironing - as in the Guardian Family article this weekend).

Hello! Well done for submitting you two! Foucault, I bet the conclusion wasn't that rubbish and if that's the only big thing to change that's a great result isn't it?

I am going to send my article off by the end of the week. I've got to a point now where I need those referees to tell me what to do with it, even if it is just screw it up and try again! Is that bad? I hope not.

Re: the choice thing I'm actually about to start writing about that very subject for a second paper, in relation to neoconservatism / neoliberalism / individualism (amongst younger women in particular). I guess the argument is that 'choices' don't take place in a vacuum and I definitely agree that it can be a really positive choice to stay at home, I just don't think it always is, or at least not in a really clear and straightforward way. It's also one that men don't have to make on the whole. Which isn't to say that the persistent male breadwinner ideology doesn't bring lots of problems too!

I hope these "positive choices to stay at home" will factor in the effects on the gender pay gap, and pensions discrepancies, and the poverty trap after divorce for women who did subsume their careers to their husbands?

It might be a positive choice if there weren't such serious long term implications.

That woman in the Guardian article was off for a year, due to health reasons, and fully expected to go back. She wasn't giving up her ambitions to help further her husband's career.

and how 'post-traditional' will it be when the academic guy runs off with one of his postgrads leaving the wife and kids in the lurch?

Interesting that FouFoucault's colleague felt the need to add 'and does that she's told'. Nothing post-traditional about that!

I also think people don't always experience staying at home as a 'choice'. If your husband works very long hours, prioritises his career above yours, and is unwilling to take on 50% of the drop-offs/sick days/school holidays, staying at home may seem like the only practical option, unless you can afford a full time nanny.

campergirls, I had written something like that too and then deleted it. But yes, in my subject, there are endless 50- and 60-something men with their new bubbly student girlfriends, first wife and family moved on. Maybe it's particularly my subject, but it's very common.

yes sorry, that was a bit in-yer-face for my first post on this thread (although I have been lurking on it with great interest for a bit). I'd just want to know what the couple in question were doing to protect the woman from the inherent inequality and vulnerability of her situation before I agreed that that set-up was 'post-traditional' in a good way.

I don't think it's specific to any field tbh - it can happen in any area where there are lots of middle-aged male academics, and lots of female students. So pretty much all the humanities and social sciences...

Yes - I am sure you are all right (if slightly cynical?!) I do know people like this - but perhaps I am only seeing the positive and attractive aspects of it - or the early days. I suppose it depends whether it is a long-term thing - or a short-term measure and whether the nature of your job enables you to go back to it.

Right. Need help.

Gotta do my annual appraisal form

What kinds of things do you lot say that are actually helpful to your career/development as an academic? That I can shamelessly nick learn from?

I wish I could claim that having effectively given up my career to do the baby thing (ok it may turn out to be only temporary, but it doesn't feel like that from here) while dh is working was a post-traditional choice; that might make me feel a bit better about the whole thing. But it is just bad luck, and it gripes my cookies no end that despite our best efforts, we've ended up as traditional as they come.

Sorry. Having a bad night.

Remus, I can't help (obviously) but it's a good question for this thread - good luck!

But that's the point, Phdlife, it's structural inequality not individual choice which pushes people in these directions. You can frame it as individual bad luck but it happens all the time, to woman after woman, however good and qualified and committed she might be to her career.

I really do think that my particular case was just a very shitty set of circumstances, very little to do with the institution really. However if we can't get ourselves out of this situation in a year or two, that will be alllllll about the structural inequalities, for sure.

Do none of you recognise me in my HP suit then?