Reply to Husband as default parent?

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "Husband as default parent?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I am a successful academic, a mom and the default parent.  BUT, being the default parent has entailed considerable sacrifices during my academic career.  I have male colleagues who are not the DP who are able to travel every summer on research trips, take sabbaticals abroad and attend multiple international conferences per year.

When my kids were little, I published like a fiend and did a great deal of academic reading and writing in bizarre venues (in the cafeteria at a local high school while my kids were in youth orchestra, in the stands at day long swim meets).  I made it work.  BUT I also had to play the mom card on occasion.  For years I didn't teach evening graduate seminars because I needed to be home.

However, if your husband doesn't have tenure yet he needs to be on campus, doing all the crappy facetime things that we expect.  He needs to attend other people's research presentations, volunteer to lead the club, etc.

We made it work in our family because we all sacrificed and pitched in to make sure mom got tenure.  This meant a lot of frozen pizza and precooked chickens and crazy weekends where both parents drove kids to activities and did errands in between.  It meant lower expectations for holiday decorating and meals and birthday parties and things.  It also meant paying more for a house cleaner, online shopping, etc.  because one person cannot do it all.

Even if you think you can convince your husband to kick back and put family first, the whole family needs to understand that until he gets tenure, you may be looking at a dirty house, etc.  It also means teaching your kids to be independent as soon as humanly possible -- doing their own laundry by the age of 9, making their own lunches and not forgetting their crap and expecting someone to deliver it to school!

It will not be a walk in the park.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics