Struggling

I am struggling a bit lately. I'm no longer certain who I am professionally. I'm no longer 100% certain what I want out of my professional life. There I said it. So what does that mean? I'm going to break this down into two categories.

What I know

• I know I am a good teacher. My last set of student evaluations were high, really high. For the 2009-2010 academic year at CU Land (a year in which I taught 4 courses in 3 departments), my average score was 6.4 out of 7, which is a full point higher than the university average.
• I love teaching. I seem to have found my groove teaching. I'm having a great time designing courses and preparing lectures. I even seem to have found a way to make professional writing enjoyable for my students.
• I am also enjoying advising students, and my students seem to be responding to me really well. I have several come to me for advice throughout the year, and I've even had a few request to work with me on the Master's Projects now that they are in the grad programs at CU. Unfortunately, because I'm only considered part-time, I can't work with graduate students.
• I am happy with my teaching, but I'm considerably less happy with the uncertainty of my position. I've had several conversations with the head of the Writing Department and the head of the English Department. Both seem interested in having me on their faculties in a more permanent way. For a variety of reasons, it isn't going to work out in Women's Studies. I'm not great at advocating for myself. I'm not great at selling myself or at "schmoozing," even though I know I need to do this in order to get what I want.
• I've figured out how to balance my teaching with my family, and I'm happy with this, very happy. I'm at a point where (Summer teaching aside) I rarely have to do work at home. I am able to focus on my boys, and I love that.
• As much as I love teaching, I'm growing increasingly frustrated by my limited time to do any of my own work. I've written nothing, literally, since I graduated last August. I have stacks of books checked out, and I've written some notes on how I want to revise two of my chapters. I even have contacted an editor at a reputable press, but I haven't had time to write.
• C is doing really well. He seems to have gotten a really great handle on how to do research. He's been awarded 3 grants since he has been at CU; he's given two invited lectures and has been asked to give another at an Ivy League school; and he's submitted two articles for publication (1 has been accepted, and he's waiting to hear about the second). Oh, and he's submitted a book prospectus and received a letter of interest from the publisher. He is currently working on the first chapter and has a clear plan to have a draft of the book done in 18 months.
• We're happy in CU Land. We're still struggling a bit with making friends, but things are getting better.
  
• That's what I know.

What I don't know

• I'm not certain I want a tenure track job at an R1, which is what CU is. C and I have a handle on me being the "teacher," and him being the "researcher." When he needs time on the weekends to work, we have found a way to balance that. I'm not sure we can handle two "researchers" and still manage our family as well as we do.
• I'm not sure I want to be a "researcher." I don't feel very successful at it right now. As I wrote above, I have a lot of confidence in my teaching. When I present at conferences, I get a lot of positive feedback, but I haven't had time to revise anything and submit for publication. I also feel like I live in a bit of black hole right now. I have no one to talk to about my work. It has been really hard to meet people in the English department, and the people I've met in the Writing department aren't in my field. I miss being part of an intellectual community, and I'm not great at introducing myself to people (see "schmoozing" point above).
• I don't know if I want to deal with all the BS that accompanies a tenure track appointment. I see a lot of the stuff that C has to deal with, and while I want more job security, I don't have to deal with committees or departmental politics at all. Well, okay, not at all, but only in a very limited way. I fully realize that I also don't get a lot of the benefits that accompany a tenure track appointment.
• I don't know if I'm done having children. There I also finally admitted that. My feelings on this are so conflicted and are also very tied up in my identity as a female academic and a feminist. On so many ways I would love to have a third child, but I don't know if we can balance a third child with an academic lifestyle. I feel like a third child is absolutely out of the question if I get a tenure track job, especially at CU Land. I feel like I have to choose my career over my family, at least with this decision. I also feel like I won't be taken seriously as an academic if I have 3 children. In all honesty, I feel like I'm pushing it with 2 children. There are lots of other factors wrapped up in this, but these are some of the driving issues.

This is where I am today. This is all quite likely to change tomorrow or as soon as I publish this post. I'm struggling. I acknowledge that. I don't know if there are any definite answers for me, at least at this point. I'm constantly thinking about these things, and I think I will be considering these for a long time to come.

I choose my choice

I'm putting this title up so that I actually blog about this line, which is from an episode of "Sex and the City." I've been thinking about this line ever since Jennie and I had our conversation about motherhood and feminism. I think many women, particularly academic women, struggle with being feminists and being mothers. There is the perception, as Jennie points out, that as ambitious, learned women, we're supposed to feel somewhat unfulfilled by motherhood, particularly if we end up staying home with our children for any length of time. I have to admit that I hadn't given that a lot of thought until Jennie brought it up. Why does that perception exist? Why do we end up feeling guilty, on the basis of our feminist beliefs, if we aren't unfulfilled? Why isn't it ok to have a degree (or even three) and decide to stay home with the kids? Why do we pretend to not be interested in our children when we're in certain circles? I have an anecdote about this. I have a professor who is a staunch feminist and who has a young son. I don't see this professor as often as I would like, and when I do, I invariably ask her how she's doing. To be quite honest, I don't expect her to tell me about her son; we don't really have that sort of relationship, and given that she is who she is, I'm more interested in her work. But she does tell me about her son, and she often shows me a picture. I then comment on how cute he is (not out of sense of obligation either. This kid is genuinely beautiful.). She then makes some sort of self-deprecating comment about her mothering skills. This is a woman who is extremely accomplished and fairly confident. It always bothers me that she makes such self-deprecating comments about her mothering skills.

My gut reaction is this issue is that women are too hard on themselves--we have been taught to expect too much out of ourselves (yes, this is the generic sort of statement that my peeps over at The Rhetorical Situation would hate, but I do think it is a largely true statement). I do believe that we're all insecure about our abilities to mother and to be successful in life in general (as evidenced by my professor's comments), but I'm not quite sure why we continue to feel guilt and confusion over being mothers, wives, and feminists. I am going to think about this some more and revisit this quotation. In the meantimes, does anyone have any thoughts?

Being a feminist mother

"Personally, becoming a mother has enabled me to be much more clear and efficient about what I want and who I want to be. And that feels feminist to me, because it empowers me. I'm not as wishy washy as I used to be. I don't fake things as much. I'm more aware of the realities of what can hurt me in some ways, because I'm painfully aware now of the things that can hurt my daughter, but at the same time, I'm less willing to waste my time or energy or let someone walk over me just to avoid a conflict. My mothering has taught me to see myself as the same sort of precious entity that I see in my daughter. So it has helped me achieve the kind of self-respect and love for myself and others that feminism, no matter how you define it, should be aiming to bring to all women."

I'm still not certain I can articulate why I am a feminist and, therefore, why I am a feminist mother. WWWmama posted the above comment on my previous post on feminism, and I trust that she'll forgive me for reposting it. I am reposting it because wwwmama artfully expressed a lot of the feelings I have about being a feminist, a mother, and a feminist mother. I too feel less passive, less willing to put up with crap than I was before I became a mother (not that I've ever had a high tolerance for crap). I simply don't have the time to waste energy beating around the bush. I've always been direct, but I've become more so now that I'm a mother. Now that I have a child, I don't want to waste time figuring things out; I'd much rather know what is going on, which I too find empowering. I'm not as afraid to ask questions or as willing to let things unfold. I want to avoid passing on my less than wonderful qualities to my son, so I've tried to become more aware of myself. I also want him to be an empathetic and sympathetic human being, so I'm trying to be more empathetic and sympathetic myself. I think awareness, especially self-awareness, is empowering. I hope S will develop a similar level of self-awareness, and that like his father, he too will call himself a feminist one day.

What does it mean to be a feminist?

Further, what does it mean to be a feminist and a mother? I want to pose these questions to those of you who read my humble blog because it is a question I have been contemplating myself.

I've recently heard feminism described as a term with "a lot of baggage," and I'm not altogether certain what that means. I proudly proclaim myself to be a feminist, and I've been called upon to explain why I consider myself a feminist more times than I can count. I haven't completely formulated what I want to say about feminism, myself, space, and motherhood, so I think this will turn into a series of posts. I do want to say, however, that I don't think feminism and motherhood are incompatible. I wouldn't have even considered that notion if someone hadn't posed that issue to me. For me, being a feminist unconsciously informs most decisions I make, including many of the ones I make regarding my son. I think being a feminist or not being a feminist is very similar to the idea of competitive mothering I wrote about a few weeks ago. As women, we feel compelled to defend our choices, and a lot of that defense takes the form of judging other people's choices. Isn't the purpose of feminism to give women (and by extension men) choices?