I call this blog "Prof. Mama" because my intention is to chronicle my experiences and thoughts about being a professor and a mother. I have one 4-year old son, live with his father, and have been chuffing my way down the tenure track in the English department of my mid-sized state university for the past near-ten years (notice the sly Thomas the Tank Engine reference).
Confession #1: I find it hard to screw up the usual working-mom guilt about not spending more time with my son. Mind you, I love spending time with him, he's the love of my life, but I'm definitely not a mother who is going to work every day with a lunchbag of guilt borne of not being home to watch junior play or not being able to greet him at the playground after pre-school. Yet all good mothers (professional or not) are supposed to feel guilt so that they can be self-helped not to feel guilt. I feel more guilty about not feeling guilty than I do about having a professional life that engages me.
Confession #2: Where I feel guilt is with my partner, my baby-daddy (herafter BD). I get to go to work because he is home to take care of the child. My career has not stalled at all due to parenthood, and I attribute this largely to the fact that he picks up the childcare more often than I. (It's partly also due to the fact that he teaches six fewer hours a week than I do, but still.) Thus, I may be experiencing the usual professional-woman-with-equal-male-partner guilt. Does this exist? Something to answer for next time. . . .
So, this blog will hit on motherhood, heterosexual partnering, co-parenting, professing, work-life issues in academia, and much more.
