Too much?

I had a lengthy conversation with a good friend a few nights ago.  K told me she was impressed with how much I've gotten done "academically" since George was born.  She said she was a "drooling idiot" for the first 6 to 8 months following her daughter's birth.  For the record, I want to say that most of the things I've gotten done are fairly easy tasks--some editing, a bit of writing on a collaborative project, some service oriented tasks before my leave officially started.  Mostly I've been mothering.  And most days I'm not sure I do that all too well.  Wild Man and Bear are eating too many applesauce, carrot sticks, and chicken nugget dinners for my taste; I'm drinking way to much coffee (and thanking my lucky stars that the caffeine doesn't seem to affect George); I'm perpetually running late; and some weeks I'm lucky if one of us makes it to the grocery store before 6:00 pm on Sunday evening.  Archer is picking up a lot of slack, but in the midst of all of this, he has renovated our downstairs bathroom (stupid, yes, but necessary as the tile floor was literally breaking apart) and started renovating our basement (also stupid, but also necessary for reasons I'll go into in another post).  In my mind this seems fairly normal, for us at least. We always have too much going on.  K's comment, however, got me thinking about the differences in the American and Canadian system of maternity/paternity/parental leave and how my own experiences have influenced my thinking about "leave."

I never officially got maternity leave when Wild Man was born.  I was a graduate student, so I worked around my teaching schedule (luckily I was team-teaching a course with my dissertation adviser, and she told me to "go away" for a few weeks following Wild Man's  birth).  I was able to keep Wild Man out of childcare until he was about 4 months old, and then I found a daycare that would take him part-time (a relatively unusual thing for Southwest College Town).  Even when he was with me, though, I was typically multi-tasking--reading and writing while I was nursing him or when he was in his activity center.  I managed because I didn't know any better.  I knew what I had to do, and I did it.

With Bear, I didn't qualify for maternity leave benefits as I hadn't accrued enough working hours in Canada.  He was born in the end of June, and I had from then until school started.  I didn't do any work in that time period, but by September, I was teaching 3 classes and on the job market.  It was awful, in many ways much, much worse than what I had experienced with Wild Man.  I was not Bear's primary care giver, and that was frustrating for me.  Luckily, Archer was able to take leave, and he was home with Bear for that semester.  That said, Archer was still submitting grant applications and working on an article.  Our schedule was insane as we struggled to find time to work, but again, we made it work because we had to. 

Now, I'm on leave.  I have been employed with CU long enough that I qualify for both provincial and university benefits (this means that I am receiving 90% of my pay).  Also, I will not teach again until September 2013, even though my leave officially ends the beginning of April.  I am not expected to complete any service or research until then.  But I am doing some research.  By some standards, I'm doing a lot.  I've learned this is atypical, especially for female faculty members.  While none of the faculty members I know who have taken a parental leave have stopped researching altogether, most have slowed down dramatically--as have I.  They do, however, seem to stop participating in all collaborative projects, which I definitely have not stopped doing.  In fact, the biggest project I'm working on now is a collaborative project, and I'm continuing to participate in my writing group, although I'm doing a lot more reading and commenting than new writing.  And I'm doing most of this while caring for George.  Some days I do nothing; some days I'm lucky I make it out of my pajamas.  Other days I focus on stuff around the house.  But at least one day a week I am able to carve out a chunk of time to do something academic.  It makes me feel focused; it makes me feel centered. 

But my Canadian friends think I'm doing too much, while my American friends seem to get why I'm still working a bit.  And on some level I agree that I am doing too much, but I'm not sure how to stop.  I think the American system--a system in which parents must think about returning to work almost immediately after having a baby--has hardwired my brain to think about work.  My sister was back in the office (in a part-time capacity) a month after giving birth to her son; she did this partly out of economic necessity, but also because it was expected of her.  Most of my friends either tried to plan the birth of their children around the semester, or they just managed to finish their teaching responsibilities with a newborn in tow.  Given this past experience, being on leave doesn't mean I stop working altogether--at least not for me.  It means I don't have to teach or do service.  I still have to do some research, while managing everything else in my life.  I don't know if I know how to do it any other way.