I'm not going to delete the post. It is an accurate reflection of how I feel about the strain of trying to balance an academic career with motherhood on the bad days. There are many good work days that I haven't written about, and many more average ones. Still, the bad work days, and my struggle to figure out a new balance with work have been a big part of this year. I also think many of my friends in academia identified with what I wrote. Our collective frustration speaks to some fundamental problems in these kinds of careers and the post-women's-lib era generally. I really appreciated hearing from all of you who wrote me. Hopefully we can continue those conversations over email or in real letters. And eventually I'll write about some of these issues more thoughtfully here.
To everyone else, I sincerely apologize for WHINING about my blessed life, and for doing it in public.
Without further ado, here are some cute pictures of babies in Star Trek onsies:
10 comments:
ooohhh...I made a red Star Trek onesie for Tam too. Great minds think alike and appreciate the same shows. Your kiddos are such cuties!
As to the post...we all need to whine sometimes.
I'm sorry to hear that you regret making personal posts. Personally though... I don't think I've ever regretted sharing, even difficult things, in public. I've had many, many positive experiences as a result, and so few negative ones that I don't even remember them. You just have to remember to make an effort to share the ecstatic parts of life too :)
@Zane -- Part of Hanna's regret in posting rather personal things on this blog is due to a conversation she and I had over the weekend. I continue to be indecisive when it comes to deciding how much personal information is appropriate to commit to a format that is readable by the entire planet. I deliberately made this blog associated with us, rather than hiding behind pseudonyms or other obfuscation, with the idea that I would share my opinions with anyone who cared to listen. At the same time, I don't know that employers (current or future), colleagues, potential clients, etc. need to know every detail about our lives. For example, I am more candid about the difficulties raising twins with close friends than I am with my office mates or more casual acquaintances. I've never been sure where the line should be with respect to blogging. Certainly, I've had productive conversations thanks to being candid here, and Hanna even more so. But I wonder if those conversations might be better suited to a less public forum. I swing wildly between the "live out loud" philosophy that encourages the unprecedented degree of openness we see in the social networking generation, and wanting to tightly control every shred of information that is available about me on the Internet. At the moment, the former is winning; openness brings more benefits than drawbacks. But I can't help but wonder if that will continue to be true. Just as drunken college kids come to regret placing photos of their debauchery for all to see, I wonder if I might not regret being so candid in the future.
@Summer: James is to thank for the onsies. He seems to be on a mission to keep D & T supplied with cool nerd gear. :-)
@Zane: I don't regret writing something personal per se -- but I regret writing something that was thoughtless (I dashed the post off in 15 minutes) and without context. You, Summer, Naomi, and probably lots of my other friends from college and grad school understood where that post was coming from. I'm glad I wrote it for the sake of getting to talk with all of you about it. But other people didn't understand where all the abrupt negativity came from -- and probably weren't interested in reading it instead of happy baby stuff. If I'm going to write about something I feel strongly about, I'd like to think about who the audience is and provide more context for what I have to say before I throw it out into the world.
@Dane: I think I generally go by a modified version of your rule about blogging. You don't write anything you wouldn't want to see on the front page of the New York Times. I try not to write anything that I wouldn't want to see in the New Yorker. That gives me more leeway to be more creative and personal, but keeps me reminded not to say any damn fool thing.
YEEESSS!! I sent the pics to Stephanie, who is sadly 350 miles away on vacation but finds them very cute.
Hanna, take heart, every working mom feels what you are going through. The good ones, anyway.
Although you may regret your last post, I am thankful that you chose to vent in this forum as your words closely mimicked my thoughts and midset. It is nice to know that I am not alone in my struggle with working full time in this field with a newborn at home. My sister calls the lack of ability to string together a two word sentence the result of a 'lactating labotomy'. I look forward to having my brain back.
Children are zombies - they eat their parents brains.
@Mindi: Thanks -- hearing from everybody makes me feel less embarrassed about ranting. I think it is important to be honest about how INSANELY hard this is -- to me it always seems like other women/mothers/scientists are keeping it all together so beautifully. Then I talk to them, and I'm shocked to hear that they all feel the same way I do. I will keep writing about this stuff -- but I'm going to try to be less whiny about it.
Also, I can't tell if I've got a double lactation lobotomy, or it's massive sleep deprivation, but it makes math and coding a lot harder than normal. Please tell me it goes away.
@James: Sorry we didn't get those pictures up earlier. I was planning a whole post just for you, but I never seem to write quite what I plan. Thanks for all the cool stuff!!
@Hanna & @Dane:
The "writer's remorse" thing happens to me on occasion in the more public forum of FB, and I will occasionally delete posts. There, for me, it is usually the result of getting into a conversation that would perhaps be heated, but still friendly, in person but becomes "wrong" when written.
A blog post is a different beast, but still you have the opportunity to expose more of yourself than one might wish. In this weird world in which we live, the problem is that societal changes may make opinions or things we do seem a little off, wrong, or even criminal as time marches on. In an online world where there is no expectation of privacy it's hard to remember that anything you write will be read by strangers and interpreted through their worldview.
I think everyone who strives to be both a good mother and what our fields define as a good scientist has days like this. Even without kids, just trying to balance work and family can be tough sometimes, so I can't imagine how much more difficult it would be with kids. Good luck with the last five weeks! You can do it!
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