It was interesting to note the contradictions in perspectives on the work/family balance among the different speakers. There is not one single equation for success in these sorts of situations. What works best for one profes- sor/mother depends on individual factors of personality, family constraints, work constraints and so forth. Here we present an amalgamation of the dif- ferent points of view and pieces of advice.
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Strategies at home
Child care:
Some of the speakers have nannies who come in to the house to take care of the children. Others have relied instead on a day care or pre-school situation during the pre-school years.
Prof. Hunt feels fortunate that her chil- dren have been cared for and educated within a five minute walk of her of- fice. Caltech has an on-site day care cen- ter (started in 1972 and founded by a group of faculty wives and Caltech staff members), which enrolls children
from 6 months to 5 years of age. While her girls were young, she was very active in the Children’s Center at Caltech serving on the board for a total 4 years with 3 years as the president. It is a high-quality program; it was a terrific resource during the early years.
Her children now attend Polytechnic School, which is near the south- western corner of campus. This school was started as the spin-off from the Throop Polytechnic years. It is a private independent school with children from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Her children have enjoyed their years at Poly, and she is able to easily run over for the occasional class play, skinned knee, choir performance, student-teacher conference, etc.
Most of the speakers made similar comments about the flexibility of academic life. Academic jobs offer flexibility that you can’t find in many other professions. This flexibility is a great asset in child rearing. Certain commitments such as lectures and office hours cannot be switched around freely, but other time during the day is spent doing research, or meeting with individual graduate students, where there is tremendous flexibility in the scheduling. This has the advantage of allowing faculty parents to attend events at their children’s school or pre-school relatively easily, more easily than most women in industry would find it.
Prof. Cosman has a nanny/housekeeper who comes in to her home each work day. This has the advantage that the nanny can wash the dishes and
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do the laundry while the 1-year-old is sleeping. Prof. Cosman feels it is an enormous benefit to have the housework done, so she can devote her home time to being with the children.
Prof. Wadia-Fascetti commented on the importance of reliability in child care, and of always having a back-up plan in case the main plan falls through. Part of Prof. Cosman’s back-up plan is to never teach a class earlier than 10:00 in the morning. In case one wakes up in the morning to find that the nanny is sick, and can’t come to work (happens less than once per year), one needs a bit of time to react, and to activate plan B, and with teaching an 8 AM class there would be no time to react.
Give up on some things:
When people talk about whether it is possible to “do it all” the answer depends on what you mean by “all” . If what you mean by “all” is having an exciting, intellectually stimulating career, and also having a loving family with which one can enjoy plenty of time, then the answer is yes, it is possible to have it all. But the answer is NO if the “all” means the above two items, plus also the following: (a) having a house which is at all times ready to be photographed inside and out for Architectural Digest, (b) keeping up with all your pre-children hobbies of bonsai-cultivation, ballroom dancing, rock climbing, and tae kwon do, (c) spending lots of quality time alone with
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your spouse, and (d) throwing dinner parties and entertaining your friends regularly with haute cuisine and decorations that would teach Martha a thing or two. In short, having kids and a career will be about all that can be done, and (a),(b),(c), and (d) will largely have to go by the wayside.
In essence, this is a mat- ter of redefining one’s prior- ities at home, after the ar- rival of a child. As discussed below, the same kind of re- defining priorities takes place at work as well, after a child is born. Professor Bhatia commented that before hav- ing a baby, her priorities at home (that is, everything not pertaining to work) were her
marriage, taking care of herself, her house, extended family, and friends. After having a baby, the baby became the number one priority, while the house and the friends became tremendously reduced in importance.
Professor Cosman concurred with this sentiment, giving examples such as postponing a car wash (car washes are never needed, because it rains in December) and ignoring the spots in the carpet (carpet spots should be literally beneath one’s notice).
Shared responsibilities:
Whenever possible, find ways of sharing the jobs that need to be done. Professor Hunt commented that she drives a big mini-van and carries a big purse, neither of which she would do if she didn’t have children. They are symbolic of the types of choices that we make. Although she doesn’t need the minivan just for her own two kids, she believes in carpooling and is happy to drive other children because she knows that her children may be in need of a ride in the near future. The big purse is the family carry-all.
In a similar vein, Professor Cosman commented that she issues almost all of her dinner invitations as potluck dinners. While this may not be considered the height of elegance by some, it allows her to enjoy lots of social time with friends and family, without having to leave work early to get the cooking done, or having to stay up to midnight the night before. In any case, guests are going to feel bound to bring something, and better that they should bring something useful instead of a box of chocolates or a bottle of wine.
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Time for self and spouse:
Everyone agreed that it was important to maintain some time for yourself (for example, having time for exercise) and for your spouse (occasionally going out on dates). As Dr. Goulden’s data on faculty divorce rates showed, academic life can put a lot of stress on a marriage, and it is important to go out with one’s spouse! Professor Wadia-Fascetti said she tries to have regular Friday nights out with her husband. Professor Cosman wishes she could have regular date nights! But even just putting the toddler in the stroller and walking around the block with her husband can feel like a nice micro-date.
Strategies at work:
A number of topics were discussed about work, including re-ordering one’s priorities at work after the arrival of a baby, travel, off-loading responsibil- ities, and planning.
New prioritization:
After having a child, all the speakers agreed that priorities at work got re- examined. For example, Professor Bhatia had a pre-baby list of priorities that began with Research (funding, managing a lab, publishing), next had Teaching (writing books, classroom teaching, and Web-based materials), and then Service (at the department, university, and national levels). After having a baby, the tasks of managing a lab, as well as all components of teaching and service were reduced in importance. Only publishing and maintaining funding were still considered of prime importance.
Travel:
All the speakers addressed the difficulties of travel. There was huge varia- tion in opinion. Professor Hunt said she traveled extensively, and thought that it was important professionally to do so. Frequently she would cut down on the number of days of travel, however, going to just one or two days of a conference, rather than attending the full conference. The opinion of several people was that professional networking is valuable, and present- ing seminars at other universities is a very useful way of building visibility and making connections with people who will write tenure letters. Pro- fessor Bhatia said that she made typically one overnight trip per month, usually 3 days with 2 nights. In addition she would make some trips that did not include overnights. At the opposite extreme, Professor Cosman said she made only one professional trip each year, and in fact had no travel at all in some years. She did not think it was particularly important profes- sionally to go to conferences or to present seminars at other universities. Students can be sent to conferences, and in that way the research will still