after all, that's why they are there

Take this lady from the zoo last month. BTW, if you have to come 15 feet out of your way and stand right in front of me to confirm that I am, indeed, nursing my child, it is, perhaps, you with the issue! Although I don't welcome the moment, I pity the person who actually says something to me about nursing because they will receive all the ire I've stored as a result of comments, snickers, and family-in-law issues around breastfeeding.

For the record, most awkward BF moment:
On flight to NYC in August. Since we were 3, I was left with the baby sitting next to a stranger. H. started to fuss during take-off. I latched her on (on the same side as the guy sitting next to me in hopes that would seem less uncomfortable to him and leave him less likely to get kicked. Once I had myself all situated (covered up with blanket, baby nursing successfully, I glanced at my seat companion and found that he his entire body (face included) was smashed so resolutely against the wall of the plane that, had he suddenly manifested hero powers like D.L., he would have ended up falling to his death. So, J. and I switched seats and, although it was a huge pain to manage a toddler and an infant, it was a million times more comfortable than sitting next to that guy. Incidentally, he was a nice guy and spoke gratefully with J. the entire flight.

waxes, wanes

I had a thoroughly depressing phone interview this morning.
4-4 load. No expectations of/support for research. Claims that they want people who love to teach but yet they have you teaching pre-fab classes.
I said everything I felt I needed to say to keep myself in the pool thinking the whole time that I have been completely out of touch with reality.

And now I am completely miserable.

If I had to do it again, I'd have listened to my advisors. 2 out of 3 told me to wait until next year. It's just so hard given the family situation. Namely, my partner being up for tenure shortly and us thinking, given he's at a middling school now, that he has a better chance for a move as a junior lateral. Turns out, in fact, that he is a great candidate. Now it looks like we'll be in the predicament of him having options in great places and me with nothing.

half full

I'm in a more optimistic mood this evening. I suspect the Red Sox, assorted chocolates from the WFM bulk aisle, and two sisters sharing the same bedroom all play a role.

Although I imagine I would do better work in a department where great work is routinely done and, furthermore, I was brought in on the basis of the expectation that I would do such work (leading me to do better work and, more importantly, for folks to scrutinize my work for brilliance), wouldn't I rather labor more independently someplace that provided research support but without the same onerous expectations (e.g. publications but not necessarily ASR/AJS)? If the department were located somewhere I'd like to be then I would be well situated indefinitely. If my work garnered the interest of more prestigious departments, I could consider a move and, perhaps, make one, suspecting, on the basis of the track record that brought me there, that I was able to meet expectations.

I guess what I'm saying is: I just need to be somewhere where I can do my work and have a work/life balance that meets my needs. I have access to a network of folks who can provide criticism, insight and guidance (especially if I have a little development $ for conference attendance). The rest is fluff. I know this is obvious but it is a step for me. Until I started grad school, I enjoyed significant success in my educational undertakings. I'm not used to feeling like I'm not good enough - academically speaking.

telling the code, performing power

Anyone with some advice on the relationship between "telling the code" and Jeffrey Alexander et al's recent work on performativity?

Also, wouldn't you say that authenticity is not always the goal of a performance? That sometimes folks just want to make sure that you've crossed your 't's and dotted your 'i's and don't really care if you mean it? Do you think that Alexander would suggest that in such cases we're not talking about performance? I suggest we could still be telling the code in these instances.

Which reminds me of an odd conversation that transpired a couple of days ago. I was speaking to the partner of a woman in my mom's group. This partner works as a police officer. He mentioned an arrest he made the evening before and alluded to a class of people who engage in crimes that are out of bounds. I said, "You mean like stealing someone's diaper bag out from underneath the stroller while they are pushing their child on the swings? That's what happened to us this summer." and he said, "Yeah. When you catch guys like that you just try to get a couple extra licks in."

So, yeah. I understand the drive. I mean, when we were walking around the neighborhood asking after our missing diaper bag, I really felt the desire to do harm to the culprit. It wasn't so much losing the diaper bag as feeling completely violated by the theft of the bag from a space (stroller, playlot) where I imagined one's personal possessions would be MORE safe. At any rate, so maybe it isn't crazy to want to "get a couple of extra licks in" but that a police officer not only admitted the desire but made it clear that he acts on it is crazy. I would think that, even if they do such things, cops would make a point of NOT making it known.

On another note, how about those red sox?

stereotype threat

A fter this post I'll go back to writing the paper that I am supposed to workshop at Yale in an alarmingly short time.

A difficulty arises in that I desire so much NOT to do what folks would expect that I do on the basis on my occupational and educational history, working class background, and family status and gender. At the very same time, however, EVERYTHING I do and aspire to reflects exactly those things.

Being a mother is the most important, rewarding, and challenging thing that I will ever have the opportunity to do. Ideally, I would be a part-time academic until I sent my youngest off to kindergarten.

I am an academic. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy teaching but I want to engage ideas, articulate approaches, and offer friendly criticism.

I was a first generation college student from a working-class family. I want my work to directly confront material issues. I want my family to understand that the work I do relates to their lives.

Finally, I really am a writer. I am so enjoying working on my dissertation (OK, not so much this chapter which is an add-on resulting from the clear demand for a focus on the "other" or "exotic" elements of the field). However, my drive to write fails when I imagine this project, so much about living breathing people and real hurts and needs being subjugated to the requirements of cultural form, ultimately languishing as a bound and rote academic piece on the dissertation shelf in the basement of the library. Or, if I'm lucky, getting published as a jargon-laden monograph by a third rate academic press so all 150 copies can collect dust in various university libraries.

So, what this adds up to is that I am, perhaps, happy to be a failed academic despite the fact that my ego is bruised and I feel that I am doing women, generally, and mothers, especially, a disservice. Although family finances (loan payments) require that I have some income upon completion of the doctorate (or just leaving), wouldn't I rather be free to revise my book for the general public instead of trying to break into the circle of elites discussing the topic in the academy? Instead of following this line of research until tenure, wouldn't I prefer to move on immediately to the next topic: the culture of mothering? Writing, once again, for change and the public?

Grand re-opening, Goodnight nobody

Just to make it official, I am back.

Seeing as I stopped blogging largely on account of concerns that blogging activity would have an adverse effect on my job prospects and, as it turns out, I have no prospects, I think I would like to return to my virtual ramblings.

Of course, I suspect that any readers are long gone. No matter. Just as I write my dissertation in isolation from my department, just as I raise my children outside of a web of family support, so shall I blog for myself alone.

precipe? crossroads? the dead marshes?

1. My self-esteem is too fragile for the academic job market.
2. When you are passed over by programs that met with you at the big gig in August, it's hard not to take it personally.
3. This tortuous process leads to soul searching.
a. Why did I pursue the Ph.D. in Sociology in the first place? Answer: wanted to make the world a better place. peace corps didn't meet my expectations. social work program was too clinical in its approach (the social system is the problem). so off to sociology.
b. Am I barking up the wrong tree? Am I lacking sociological potential? Will I be most happy/effective as an academic or outside of the academy?
c. Let's say that I will not be successful on the market this year. What do I do? Throw in the towel and look for regular job? Raise my children and try my hand at freelancing? Push back completion for another year to get more publications and drum up interest in my work? Take a dead end teaching gig that is outside of the norm for folks coming out of my program and that will not provide me research support (moral or otherwise)?

That my days as a student are coming to an end is all that I know with certainty.

Publications

Lack of publications leaving you concerned about my productivity?

How's this for productivity?