Saturday, February 13, 2010

Women who wish to become mothers need to plan their lives/careers differently

This article came to my attention and it's a good example of what I often talk about here: that women are different from men and that they need to plan their lives differently if they wish to become mothers. Since I believe most women do wish to become mothers, this article is relevant to most women no matter their profession...

Enjoy!!!



The Chronicle Review


February 7, 2010
Women, Birth, Death, and Mathematics


Jon Krause, for The Chronicle Review

By Susan D'Agostino

When I decided to become a mathematician, I assumed that my greatest challenge would be intellectual. That was before the Christmas Eve my father made shrimp scampi in a Pyrex dish under the broiler. When he opened the oven and added cold lemon juice to the sizzling prawns, shards of glass flew 15 feet in every direction. Normally a fastidious cook, he had been distracted by my mother, who, at that moment, was telling my very young children—because none of the adults would listen—what she wanted for Christmas: for the family to acknowledge that it was time for her to die.

Nothing in my graduate program had trained me for this. I am a doctor, but not that kind of doctor. Not that being an oncologist would have helped at that point. With Stage 4 kidney cancer, my mother had no more than months to live. I was not at all surprised when my father picked up the shrimp and ate it; it was an earnest, if dangerous, attempt to show the power of mind over matter.

The message was that none of this was happening: The shrimp was not infused with glass, and my mother was not dying. At the time, I might have added that, in spite of my decision to take time away from formal employment to care for my babies and mother, my intelligence and training still had currency in the world of academe.

The day of the exploding shrimp seems like ages ago. My children are now in grade school, my mother has passed away, and I am an assistant math professor at an institution that makes me extremely happy. Still, I can remember the confusion that resulted from following my heart rather than toeing the feminist line.

Discussing this topic does not come easy. Having earned my doctorate right on schedule—with a baby on my hip, no less—and landing an assistant professorship in the geographic region of my choice, I could easily portray myself as some sort of mathematical, feminist superhero. In particular, I could gloss over the fact that there was a period in which I took time away from academe to change a lot of diapers and serve as a nurse to my terminally ill mother.

But just as I tell my daughter that she has more options than "witch" or "princess" for Halloween, I want to exist somewhere between "nun for science" and "stay-at-home mom." I have tremendous gratitude for the feminists who blazed the path before me. However, I respectfully reject the notion that my desire to engage in these so-called female activities is a 1950s-era can of worms that is better left unopened.

I am compelled to write because when I was thinking about family planning and end-of-life issues, it was the rare woman in math who revealed any ambivalence about how personal choices affected her professional life. Were there women who, in the absence of maternity leave or affordable child care, dropped out of their math graduate programs upon the births of their children? Or women who delayed childbearing only to struggle later with age-related infertility? Or women who were racked with guilt when a parent died alone in a hospital bed because they could not afford the time away from research?

As a math graduate student, I attended many women-in-math conferences, but those were not the stories I heard. There was casual mention of finding a "work-life balance," but most of the discussion concerned achieving equity. And when it came to equity, the messages converged around a central theme: "Work more," "Hire a nanny," or, my favorite, "That's what hospice volunteers are for."

Something changed for me during my hiatus from academe. No, I did not, as some had either feared or predicted, lose my ambition. Yet I am no longer the woman who, as a graduate student, took pride in the fact that I returned to work just days after having given birth. Of course, with no formal maternity leave, I felt that I had little choice. Still, my former self happily spun my postpartum math research as proof that I was making it in the old boys' network. My present self, on the other hand, is no longer concerned with the old boys' network. Rather, my present self strives to live the life that I want, which includes both family and work.

During my time away from academe, I realized that the world is much bigger than those in academe would lead you to believe. I came to realize that if academe did not see my merits, then I could still find work that was both stimulating and satisfying outside of it. As my mother's early death poignantly illustrates, life is fleeting. Too fleeting, in fact, to have only one definition of success.

This change of heart has made all of the difference in my life. Like businesswomen who ultimately rejected oversized shoulder pads as a superficial, not to mention odd, attempt to mimic their male counterparts, I am no longer trying to be the archetypal male mathematician who has a wife to birth his babies and a sister to care for his dying mother.

Today I am a mathematician who willingly participates in the nurturing surrounding birth and death. The fact that I can state that proudly is not just good for me but is also good for math. Just as biodiversity is vital to an ecosystem, diversity of experience and perspective is crucial in academic research. Research involves asking questions, and the kinds of questions an individual is predisposed to ask are constrained by his or her gender, language, and cultural background.

The Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Barbara McClintock described the uniquely feminine and, at the time, revolutionary approach that motivated her research in Evelyn Fox Keller's biography of her, A Feeling for the Organism. McClintock treated individual corn plants as if they were distinct children she had reared from birth. She used words like "patience" and "listening" as she gained an "intimate" knowledge of what distinguished one corn plant from another. In doing so, she cultivated what she referred to as a "feeling for the organism" that most people develop only with humans or pets.

And Dian Fossey's groundbreaking research methods were decidedly feminine, writes Sy Montgomery in Walking With the Great Apes, because of her intense focus on nurturing relationships with individual gorillas. Fossey broke the previously undisputed rule of maintaining a distance from her subjects, much to the benefit of science.

Who is to say that any marginalization I experienced as a woman or mother in math did not influence my decision to study nonlinear codes as opposed to the more mainstream linear codes? Only later did I learn of a connection between nonlinear codes and the hot topic of quantum error-correcting codes.

When the math community recognizes that some women not only pace their careers differently from the archetypal man but may want to allow room for some (dare I say it?) stereotypically female endeavors, the groundwork will be laid for equity. In the meantime, if you are a young woman establishing yourself as a mathematician while at the same time contemplating family planning or elder care, take heart. Being a woman attempting to combine birth, death, and mathematics is a great challenge—greater, I think, than doing math in a vacuum. However, there is nothing I would change about the path I have followed. And if I ever run into you at a conference, I will very likely tell you as much.

Susan D'Agostino is an assistant professor of mathematics at Southern New Hampshire University

16 comments:

PolishKnight said...

NYMOM, the thesis that women are different than men is a "duh" kind of statement. I'm not directing that at you but rather at the feminist notion that all problems caused by men/women differences are in favor of men or a patriarchal conspiracy.

For men, the "career/life" balance is simply that if he doesn't have a good career or job, he won't have much of a life. You can justify it by saying that all men who don't have careers are bums, but that doesn't change the reality.

On the other hand, men have the luxury of time to get their life together and start a family. It's not good or bad but simply reality.

NYMOM said...

"NYMOM, the thesis that women are different than men is a "duh" kind of statement."

It should be but frequently is not, especially to young women who think they have all the time in the world.

Men have TIME, that's the whole point of the post...women do not...

Thus, they have to plan their lives differently.

PolishKnight said...

NYMOM, there was an interesting question on The Family Feud recently. The survey asked "What is an ideal age for a woman to get married?" and the number 1 answer was: 25.

That may not sound like a lot of time, but for driven career women it's not all that bad. Most of them can get a master's degree by that age or even a PhD or, in the very least, get settled and mature enough to have a relationship and start a family.

The fundamental problem, NYMOM, is not just that young women take time for granted, but also marriage. They don't just "plan differently" but rather don't plan at all. A number of young women friends I know said it was fashionable for them to say "I don't want to marry! Marriage is oppressive to women!" and expect that the man in their life would "man up" to the challenge and insist upon proving to her that she was so important and great that he should make marriage into this ideal thing she would HAVE to want.

One women friend of mine blames Disney and those sleeping beauty and princess fantasies that were pitched to young girls.

Just to show you I'll be fair: I think young men have also been sold a bill of goods that they should be able to enjoy "the playboy life" and sleep around in their youth and have a good time and then settle down later. Certainly, feminism did make that prospect seem possible if not necessarily always practical. The problem with it, young men need to hear, is that the sensible young women who "plan" when they're younger to get married may not want to get hitched up with an aging playboy and these men wind up with the leftover women. I saw that looming for me in my mid 30's and I got cracking. I did everything to meet a good mate and worked my tail off. A friend of mine is a bit lazy and getting older and he's realizing that while he still has "time" to get married and have kids, it's a matter of how happy he will be with the compromises he needs to make. So men also have to "plan" and keep a mind of time.

I hope that was useful and fair.

NYMOM said...

Well it was useful in that it showed me a ten year age gap in the amount of time men have...you said most thought of 25 as the ideal time for women to get married but you waited until your mid-30s...even mid-30s can be hard for a women to meet someone and be with them long enough to wish to have children with them (or to be able to w/o using extreme fertility measures)...

So it's a little different for women.

But I'll concede everyone has to do a certain amount of planning.

PolishKnight said...

NYMOM, my language was a bit misleading. I didn't want to imply that until the age of 35 I was slacking off. Anything but. I meant "cracking" by that I stepped up my game to the highest level and lived with a sense of urgency. You're right though: That moment came for me 10 years later than it would for a sensible woman.

Another turnabout-fair-play observation: Men have more time, but they need it. There's a saying that women mature faster than men but that also means that women's standards are more slack when it comes to the provider role. It's the difference between women at the age of 25 having a great career because that's what they WANT versus men having a great career at the age of 35 because that's what they NEED. Women have less time to learn how to walk the high wire, but they also get to work with a net. Do NOT underestimate that advantage. Sadly, most do and they wind up squandering it.

I'll confess: up until the age of 35 I sowed wild oats. I traveled the world and was a bit too selfish for marriage (looking back.) To my credit, I had a deadline and stuck to it. When the carriage turned into a pumpkin, I abandoned unrealistic idealistic notions and demands of the opposite sex and accepted them for who they are and how best to deal with the situation. It's funny that I found that liberating rather than sad.

In closing, just because women have "different" work/life balances, doesn't mean that men don't either. My great grandfather died after 40 years working the mines and spending little time with his children. It may sound easier because it's simpler, but it doesn't change the pain, literally, he went through not having more time to spend at home with his children.

NYMOM said...

"There's a saying that women mature faster than men but that also means that women's standards are more slack when it comes to the provider role. It's the difference between women at the age of 25 having a great career because that's what they WANT versus men having a great career at the age of 35 because that's what they NEED."

First of all no one either man or woman has a GREAT CAREER when they are only 25 years old. Unless you're a model or an actor or something. Most careers don't take off until you are in your early to mid 30s...I remember when they used to take about JFK being too young to be President, he was around 42 or 44 or something like that...

"Women have less time to learn how to walk the high wire, but they also get to work with a net. Do NOT underestimate that advantage. Sadly, most do and they wind up squandering it."

This is not valid anymore...Women need to prepare as hard as men do for careers. That's why including boys in that Take Your Daughter to Work Day was so misguided since too many young girls still believe this baloney...that they won't have to work.

They will have to work as hard as men and probably as long since anytime they take off to be home with children will knock their salary down...so they'll have to re-build from scratch practically every single time they return from an absence (be it 6 months or 2 years)...

Whatever they take off at the front end they'll have to make up at the back end which means years of working very hard when you're older and not as healthy...

There are no golden parachutes to retire when mothers are 45...

"When the carriage turned into a pumpkin,..."

Men have a lot more choices then women when that happens to them as far as personal relationships go...a lot more...

PolishKnight said...

NYMOM, you define "no one" as having a "GREAT CAREER" at the age of 25, then hedge it to models or actors, and then finally hedge it to "most".

Agreed.

This ties something I said previously that one reason why male society didn't "share" "GREAT CAREERS" with women until recently is that few men had them. A "great career" for men at the age of 35 is one that reliably pays the bills and not necessarily one that he has fun working at, pays super well, or let's him come and go as he pleases for a "work/life balance."

That's not to say that men can't be unrealistic. As I said, many sow wild oats or require time to develop themselves as a reliable breadwinner in a society that doesn't respect his role as such. This makes it even harder today for women to find such men especially if her own standards are higher due to her career. But that's something WOMEN demanded and got, yes?

I chuckle about you bringing up JFK. I'm reminded of how many teachers tell young children that ANYONE can grow up to be president. It misleads children into thinking that none of them will ever need to work as taxicab drivers, plumbers, or landscapers. Most men "get that" by the age of 16, 25, or even later at 35. But YOU and many women _still_ don't get it. And that's part of the problem!

Next you bring up TYDTWD. Again, another chuckle. If I have a son, I'm going to organize a "take your son to women's work day". Guess what it will be! I'll have him come to my work and then we'll leave at lunch and tell the female women at work to pick up my slack and then go home and I'll look after him and then go shopping later for stuff.

Really, NYMOM, as I said the role of "father" encapsulates more than just the time spent with kids or even out earning a living for them. It includes the stuff men do to be decent fathers before they even meet the mothers of their children. For many men, during their teens and early 20's, it means working at jobs they hate to pay for dates and buy cars just to be in "the game." It's the difference between men "finding" their mate via actual WORK versus women who complain they can't "find" a decent man by sitting around waiting for men to walk up with stuff!

But you have a point: many women NOW have to work as hard as a man since women's entry into the workplace has decreased the number of men willing or able to provide for women to do the double dip: Demand equality in the workplace while marrying up.

It's ironic that you notice that when women get something at the front end they lose it at the back and life balances out. Well, that's something men also knew for years! That men got paid more but would up in a breadwinner role that even the most well paid women are unwilling to do. I know of a few SAH dads who are largely bums too BUT these men were picked by these career women because they're good looking. They wound up divorcing later when the woman got disgusted but here's the thing: Most career men who marry the cheerleader-who-can't-cook-or-clean don't blame women for that choice.

I won't say men have "a lot more choices" but, like I said, DIFFERENT choices. For example, when I dated at 25 I found it a lot harder because I didn't have a "great" career nor good looks but plain looking at women at 25 could post something to match.com and get literally a hundred responses.

Let's put it this way: Back to athletes. One could argue that most of the don't have a lot of "choices" either since their careers only last a decade or two. But during that time, they can do a lot with their careers and get themselves set for life. Women have a lot of choices but just not all those that men have. But don't feel so bad, we don't have all your choices either!

PolishKnight said...

NYMOM, you define "no one" as having a "GREAT CAREER" at the age of 25, then hedge it to models or actors, and then finally hedge it to "most".

Agreed.

This ties something I said previously that one reason why male society didn't "share" "GREAT CAREERS" with women until recently is that few men had them. A "great career" for men at the age of 35 is one that reliably pays the bills and not necessarily one that he has fun working at, pays super well, or let's him come and go as he pleases for a "work/life balance."

That's not to say that men can't be unrealistic. As I said, many sow wild oats or require time to develop themselves as a reliable breadwinner in a society that doesn't respect his role as such. This makes it even harder today for women to find such men especially if her own standards are higher due to her career. But that's something WOMEN demanded and got, yes?

I chuckle about you bringing up JFK. I'm reminded of how many teachers tell young children that ANYONE can grow up to be president. It misleads children into thinking that none of them will ever need to work as taxicab drivers, plumbers, or landscapers. Most men "get that" by the age of 16, 25, or even later at 35. But YOU and many women _still_ don't get it. And that's part of the problem!

Next you bring up TYDTWD. Again, another chuckle. If I have a son, I'm going to organize a "take your son to women's work day". Guess what it will be! I'll have him come to my work and then we'll leave at lunch and tell the female women at work to pick up my slack and then go home and I'll look after him and then go shopping later for stuff.

Really, NYMOM, as I said the role of "father" encapsulates more than just the time spent with kids or even out earning a living for them. It includes the stuff men do to be decent fathers before they even meet the mothers of their children. For many men, during their teens and early 20's, it means working at jobs they hate to pay for dates and buy cars just to be in "the game." It's the difference between men "finding" their mate via actual WORK versus women who complain they can't "find" a decent man by sitting around waiting for men to walk up with stuff!

But you have a point: many women NOW have to work as hard as a man since women's entry into the workplace has decreased the number of men willing or able to provide for women to do the double dip: Demand equality in the workplace while marrying up.

It's ironic that you notice that when women get something at the front end they lose it at the back and life balances out. Well, that's something men also knew for years! That men got paid more but would up in a breadwinner role that even the most well paid women are unwilling to do. I know of a few SAH dads who are largely bums too BUT these men were picked by these career women because they're good looking. They wound up divorcing later when the woman got disgusted but here's the thing: Most career men who marry the cheerleader-who-can't-cook-or-clean don't blame women for that choice.

I won't say men have "a lot more choices" but, like I said, DIFFERENT choices. For example, when I dated at 25 I found it a lot harder because I didn't have a "great" career nor good looks but plain looking at women at 25 could post something to match.com and get literally a hundred responses.

Let's put it this way: Back to athletes. One could argue that most of the don't have a lot of "choices" either since their careers only last a decade or two. But during that time, they can do a lot with their careers and get themselves set for life. Women have a lot of choices but just not all those that men have. But don't feel so bad, we don't have all your choices either!

NYMOM said...

"This ties something I said previously that one reason why male society didn't "share" "GREAT CAREERS" with women until recently is that few men had them. A "great career" for men at the age of 35 is one that reliably pays the bills and not necessarily one that he has fun working at, pays super well, or let's him come and go as he pleases for a "work/life balance.""

Once again you frame the response as if I disagreed with you. Didn't I say neither one had great careers at 25 years old?

This is what I"m talking about, even when I agree with you on an issue, you still frame it as a disagreement.

Anyway, many men had the choice to become a well paid professional, lawyer or doctor, for instance. This is not uncommon. Women had the careers as teachers and social workers (which are pretty much underpaid considering the years of schooling you have to put into becoming one)...

Everything is comparatively speaking, after all...

However the work/life advantage that I'm talking about which men have and women still do not have is the choice of investing years into establishing yourself and getting a well-paid career AND still having children.

AND those children will still pretty much love and respect you whether or NOT you are home with them everyday OR have someone else raising them...

Men have that advantage.

That was the point of the research I cited about non-custodial mothers versus non-custodial fathers. For the non-custodial father it makes no difference in the way their children view them as adults (as long as they paid their child support and followed through on visitation, etc); however, for the non-custodial mother being non-custodial means they have NO relationship whatsoever with their kids as adults...

I'll admit that women who work and pay someone to raise their kids are probably in the same situation (more or less).

Whereas a male professional who is busily working while the childrens mother raises them still has the love and respect of his children...

Not to mention that the typical 'old maid' used to be thought of as a school teacher or librarian whereas doctors and lawyers have always been sought after as a 'catch'...so a woman who invests the same time as a man in her career frequently winds up with no husband as well as no kids.

That's why I understood exactly why that doctor neglected her career (for the time being) to spend her every other week with her children (as well as her ex's week)...She had to make that investment of her time if she wanted ANY relationship whatsoever with her children as adults. Since even if her and their father made the exact same investment of time in them, it would have only impacted her (as their mother) relationship with them.

Not to mention men make no investment of themselves physically in having kids to begin with...they risk nothing medically speaking and invest little...

PolishKnight said...

NYMOM, I framed my response as if you disagreed with me (regarding men having great careers at 25) because the next thing you did was generalize about "many" men that became doctors and lawyers. I also used your point as an opportunity to illustrate that the best way for women to appreciate the problems men have is for them to walk in our shoes. As it turns out, the workplace isn't a cakewalk after all, eh?

Regarding women schoolteachers and social workers. This used to be a profession that appealed to many men. I know a man that wanted to teach but quit when he felt he was subject to discrimination. You're also incredibly wrong about them being low paid even considering for their educational level. Plenty of journalism majors work at starbucks as coffee baristas in the private sector. Also, teachers get incredible pensions and they are bankrupting NJ as I type this. The job is well paid based upon the benefits package and "work/life" options it offers.

Regarding your studies that NCP mothers have "NO" relationship with their kids as adults. That's a rather easy absolute to shoot down just like your claim that "no one" had a great career at 25. If NCP mothers have less contact with their children, that's easily explained by the fact that in order for these 20% or so of women to offer, or need, to give up custody they are usually under some exceptional circumstances.

I hardly think that men as NCP "child support" serfs is a great option and you certainly recognized this when you cheerleaded for a Brazilian mother who abducted her child rather than live with that role. That leads us to the next point:

Your observation that many librarians and teachers wound up as spinsters compared to male doctors is based upon the simple observation that men simply put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, to make up for their age and desires. I know construction workers who earn a fraction of what a schoolteacher does who support and have families. Women will stop suffering from sexism when women stop loving it so much.
Nobody puts a gun to women's heads forcing them to be hypocrites.

The woman who decided to go on "child support" because you claim she wouldn't have "ANY" relationship with her kids is an exaggeration to say the least. She had joint custody so I'm sure she at least said "hello" to them from time to time. Does that count as "ANY?" I grew up in a working class neighborhood and women worked because they HAD TO, not as a fun, high paid hobby, and they were respected and it wasn't a problem since the children were in school most of the time anyway. She didn't need to personally chauffer her kids to a half dozen after school activities to be a decent mother anymore than, say, a father HAS to be a doctor and send his kids to Harvard.

Finally, you play the womb card. That swings both ways. Just as men don't invest much in the gestation process they don't produce crack babies, fetal alcohol syndrome, or birth defects from smoking either. Society clearly does recognize the sacrifices many mothers make during gestation but you try to overmilk it (pardon the pun) and act as if all women should be treated like the Virgin Mary.

NYMOM said...

"Finally, you play the womb card. That swings both ways. Just as men don't invest much in the gestation process they don't produce crack babies, fetal alcohol syndrome, or birth defects from smoking either. Society clearly does recognize the sacrifices many mothers make during gestation but you try to overmilk it (pardon the pun) and act as if all women should be treated like the Virgin Mary."

AND this comment explains exactly why you are a troll and shouldn't be posting on a blog dedicated to mothers.

Your posts are nothing but a provocation designed to disrupt this blog and cause every discussion to degenerate into an argument.

So as I said earlier, I'm shutting down comments for a while and you'll have to find someplace else to spend your time...

Sorry, but I warned you I wasn't going to tolerate this sort of thing any longer. It wastes too much of my time...

Val said...

If comments are still on (!!!), I just wanted to provide another minor [personal] data point...
If I knew then what I know now, I would have borne my son when I was still in my 20's, just purely in terms of the physical stress & general endurance requirements. I'm in my mid-40's now & have another 8 yrs in this very-different-sort of endurance event. I ain't complaining; love my son dearly - but as I said if I had it to do over again, I would have gotten started sooner - than I really COULD look forward to scaling back my work hours in my 50's, kicking back & enjoying my life & my family a little more...

NYMOM said...

Hi Val, welcome back.

The only problem with that scenario Val is that if you had your son so young, would you be a vet today????

Additionally, if your ex decided to stage a custody fight then a younger woman might not have had the resources to fight him in court.

I mean think about what your own custody battle cost and if you could have borne those costs in your 20s...

NYMOM said...

"If comments are still on (!!!)"

I decide to return to moderating comments instead of stopping discussion altogether.

It's sad really that adults cannot conduct themselves properly when not being monitored, but, I just can't allow these two characters to mess with this blog all the time...

They winded up chasing away someone else through their nonsense...

Val said...

Very excellent points NYMOM - obviously history can't be rewritten, it's just one of those things I like to speculate about...
[If I had given in to my ex's expressed desire to have kids sooner, does that mean our marriage might have survived?]

NYMOM said...

Or you would have gotten divorced anyway (just when you did) but you would never have become a vet due to your pregnancies and child care obligations. Perhaps not been prepared to fight for custody either emotionally or financially...then instead of having the joint custody you now have your ex would have had sole custody and you would have been reduced to being a visitor in your son's life.

If that...