leaning in?

This op-ed in the NYTimes really caught my interest the other day.  It's by Kristof about his thoughts in response to Sheryl Sandberg (the no. 2 at Facebook).  She wrote a book that will be published in March, suggesting that women need to be more assertive in the workplace, that the Davos conference, for example, has only 17% women because too many women are hesitant to "lean in".

And then I read this in the NY Times this morning:  http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/01/30/taking-the-lead-on-child-rearing?hp

And then this blog post: http://academic-jungle.blogspot.com/2013/01/underachieving.html

And this sentence that Academic Jungle wrote really resonates with me, "The nagging feeling that deep down I knew I am just mediocre and that I purposefully overburdened myself to avoid facing the lameness of my professional prospects."

I have been thinking about this kind of issue for quite a while, as do a lot (if not all) of us.

Three things I've been thing about specifically in response to this rather related issues:

1) I completely disagree with the NY Times debate about the "lead" parent usually being mom because we want it to be so.  My husband does make an effort to be very involved in our daughter's care, but he never initiates the things that need to be done.  He does not feel responsibility if I am there.

For example, when we get home from work/daycare, he sits down on the couch and starts looking through the mail.  He knows that dinner needs to be on the table in 30 minutes in order to make bedtime.  I have run the experiment of sitting down too, playing with M, and waiting to see if he'll start dinner.  Nope.  45 minutes passed, M started freaking out from hunger, and then I felt compelled to step in and make an emergency dinner. 

And every single meal, Dh turns to me and asks what M should eat.  What clothes should she wear?  And doctors' appointments?  I'm not sure he even knows the name of her doctors, although I really hope he remembers where I posted the phone numbers in case of emergency. 

So, no.  I am not the lead parent because I diminish his choices as a parent. He can do it all, and did a great job when I was in the field for a month.  But if I am around, he happily relinquishes responsibility. 

I am the lead parent because someone must watch the clock.  Someone has to step up and make dinner.  Someone has to monitor the diaper supply.  Someone has to remember that the kid needs to go to the doctor.   

Dh knows I will do them, so he doesn't, unless I very specifically and carefully ask.  The danger of being accused of treating him like a child and bossing him around is very high (despite that his comeback, when I talk to him about his lack of taking responsibility, is always, "you didn't ask me"), and so it just makes life easier if I do it.

2) Academic Jungle writes about not having enough energy for the intellectual heavy-lifting at work.  Ok, that's my interpretation of what she said, but I think I'm paraphrasing correctly.  And you know why?  Because it is exhausting always having to make decisions and be in charge.  I read an article recently about President Obama, and that studies have shown that the more decisions you have to make the less good you are at making them.  He never is asked what he wants for dinner, it is just served.  He has only two types of suits and alternates them, so he doesn't have to decide what to wear.

So for those of us who are always in charge of what is going on around us (from stay-at-home-moms to women who are in leadership positions at work), we are the decision-makers CONSTANTLY.  It is emotionally and intellectually exhausting.  I find it very hard to be intellectually creative these days too.  And I am not.  And my research definitely shows it.

3) My daughter is almost 2, so I don't have a lot of experience with parenting and an academic career.  But I am happily surprised by how ok I have been with the impact the kid has been on my productivity.  While I am obviously feeling stressed (I grind my teeth like a fiend at night), I care a lot less about what colleagues think.

As I've written about before, I went through a horrible experience when I was up for tenure.  It had nothing to do with my case, and everything to do with asshole colleagues who hate my research field and my husband.  It took me a while to come to the realization that these people (older men, btw), will hate me and diminish my work no matter how good I am.  So, why the hell was I working so hard to try and impress them? 

I started realizing that I was doing a lot of CV-self-critique in order to make sure I was wining the competition, as academia is truly a competition.  But if I was never going to "win" by the asshole standards, I needed to re-think what success is.

For me, right now, my career goal is to enjoy my daughter and keep enough of me in the academic game that I don't lose my place at the table.  My daughter will grow up, she will move out, and then I will have a huge amount of time to go back to working 12 hours a day.  And if I can keep myself in the game enough, I'll jump back in big-time then, if I want to.  But that does mean that I'll never be the super-star.

So then, Academic Jungle's comment, "The nagging feeling that deep down I knew I am just mediocre and that I purposefully overburdened myself to avoid facing the lameness of my professional prospects."

I wonder the same thing about myself.  But I try really hard to remember that there is a lot of luck involved in being the super-star academic.  And no matter how much time I put into it, how much self-sacrifice I could have made, I might still not have had the luck needed to be the super-star.  And then I would have missed out on all the other stuff that I derive personal fulfillment from.  I almost ended up there.  And if I had, I would have been really, really bitter.

So, for now at least, I am content.  Although I would love for someone else to decide what we are going to eat for dinner every night.  I am seriously considering hiring a personal chef to make week-day dinners for us to keep in the fridge.