Reader MC3 (I hope it stands for mass times speed of light cubed?) had a question:

… as an academic, did you purposely have your kids very spaced out age-wise? In your experience, what do you think are the benefits/costs of doing so, vs. having 3 kids very close in age to one another? (This is coming from someone in grad school who doesn’t have kids yet, but probably will eventually, and is trying to decide on the best time to have them…)

I am pretty sure I wrote about this before, but I am also pretty sure that it would take me just as long, if not longer, to find the old post (likely on Academic Jungle) as it would to write a new one… So here’s a new one.

My kids are now 17, 10, and 6. I see a lot of incredulity — a lot — whenever their ages come up in conversation, usually at parties. The ages always come up eventually, and when they do, there is always at least one person in the circle who says, “Wow, those are quite the age gaps you’ve got there.” However, in contrast to “Where are you really from?” which is the unparalleled bane of my existence, this incredulity doesn’t actually bother me; it mostly amuses me that so many people seem to assume the only right way to procreate is at two-year intervals or that everyone wants to “be done with kids” (i.e., have them all in rapid succession and be done). And while I don’t mind this question very much, many people who have large age spacing between kids because they battled infertility or divorced/remarried might not find it as amusing as I do, and would likely consider if quite intrusive.

Anyhow, my canned response, which is not untrue, but is mostly intended as pithy and not uncomfortable for the conversational partners, is the following: “This is academic spacing! The first kid in grad school, the second one on the tenure track right after my first big grant, and the third one was a gift to myself as a reward for getting tenure.”

This is true enough.

However, the reality is the following. Eldest was our “Oops!” baby; we had him early in grad school. We were financially in no situation to raise a kid, especially not with the crappy insurance for families that we had as graduate students (e.g., we spent a lot of money out of pocket on the not-yet-gone-generic Augmentin for repeated ear infections). Since there was no financial help coming from anyone, and we didn’t want to do any illegal work as many students do when they can’t make ends meet (there were a number of foreign students pumping gas or working as waiters in restaurants, none of which was permitted by the F-1 visa status, but people did what they had to do), so we took on some credit card debt, because that was the only thing we could do, with the plan that I would graduate and get a real job quickly. I graduated in 4.5 years with a ton of papers and started a faculty job right away. [By the way, I was far more productive working 9-5 (during daycare hours of operation) than many of my single grad school friends who’d sit at the office for 12-14 hours a day, presumably farting around on the web for most of it. In my experience, parents are very focused and very efficient, and make great graduate students and postdocs.]

So there was absolutely no chance of having a second kid during grad school. Then I moved for my faculty job with Eldest, who was then 4, and my husband stayed back to work on his degree. DH (stands for Dear Husband, an abbreviation common on internet mommy fora)  and I lived apart for the first two years on my tenure track, and he didn’t want to have a second child until we were living together again.  DH moved here in August after my second year (Eldest was then 6) and we had Middle Boy the following May :-). Eldest was 7 when MB was born. This was also midway through the tenure track, and yes, after I got my CAREER and some other grants, but we didn’t actually time anything after grant funding. This is a definite case of correlation not meaning causation, even if I make it sound so at parties.

In year 5 of the tenure track (when MB was about 2) I traveled a lot (the tenure tour), which was tough for my husband. Around the time that I started seeing the light at the end of the tenure-track tunnel, and started thinking about having a third kid. DH never thought we’d have three kids, as everyone back home only had two, and was initially against it. It didn’t help that he was at home by himself with our two kids, one of whom was 2, a lot of the time and didn’t feel he could handle staying by himself with a baby on top of the whole circus. But, through a combination of my relentless pressure, the fact that MB turned 3 (which is really much, much easier and more fun than 2), and a hope that we might have a girl, DH eventually relented after about a year of arm-twisting, and then roughly a year afterwards (June) we had Smurf; MB was 4, Eldest was 11.

So that was my reproduction story. We’ve been fortunate not to have fertility issues, so we’d get pregnant quickly each time (there was a very early miscarriage right before Smurf, but that’s par for the course). I know the road is much rougher for many people, and most people don’t know how this will turn out until they get down this path.

When is the best time to have kids? Whenever you want to. My general guidelines would be that, if you have someone you want to have kids with (or have perhaps decided to do it alone) and are in a reasonable (not perfect, but reasonable) financial shape, then do it sooner rather than later. One reason is that fertility issues do get more pronounced with age. We may not like it or think it’s fair, but that’s the truth. I know far too many high-achieving women who ended up using assisted reproductive technologies (ART) like IVF to have a kid; most of them were in the late 30s or early 40s, and I don’t know if they would have had to rely on ART if they had been younger or not, but advanced age probably didn’t help. And let’s not forget that the male partner’s swimmers aren’t getting better in quality with increasing age, either.

I definitely would not advise waiting until all the ducks are in a row, because a) ducks are assholes, b) who wants to herd ducks, seriously, and c) why do they need to be in a row for you to get frisky? I know in the US a lot of people won’t have kids until they’ve finished degrees, got jobs, bought a house… You don’t actually need a house or a gigantic salary to have a kid, but you need enough money to be able to afford child care if you plan to continue working.

Academia is fairly flexible when it comes to having family and I know a number of women who’ve successfully had kids at various stages — grad school, postdoc, faculty position (in fact, one of my students just had a baby a few days ago; obviously, the baby will start learning quantum mechanics right away 🙂 ). If you have a healthy pregnancy and baby, it’s really not a big deal unless you work for an advisor who’s a slave driver. I personally have no issue with anyone having babies in my group, and then easing their way back in after a few months. My PhD advisor, who is a crusty and grumpy old man (so others tell me), was a great and very supportive advisor, who always accentuated that he cared about what I did, not when I was at the office, and would never bat an eyelash when I had to leave to be with my kid.

Articles like this one are scary. But don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it. Honestly, if you want kids, you should have kids. Having kids is not a terminal illness, it’s not a personality flaw, it’s not a statement of your professional abilities, and it’s not something to apologize for. You can be ambitious and have kids, and you can go back to work. A career is 30-40 years. Each kid might slow you down temporarily, but it won’t be for long. We need more women who have multiple kids in all spheres of high professional achievement in order to show others that it’s possible, doable, and very cool.

The pros and cons of larger age gaps: Eldest is basically like an only child, but being so much older than his brothers makes him a great (free) babysitter. Middle Boy and Smurf are thick as thieves, and while they adore each other, they’d probably fight even more if they were closer in age. We’ll have kids in our home for 29 years before Smurf leaves for college, which some people think it’s a con, but I think it’s a pro, as my kids are awesome. We will have paid off the house entirely before MB goes to college, so that will help tremendously with college saving for MB and Smurf. It’s tough to find things to do that are fun for all ages, but Eldest is cool with doing uncool things when necessary, while MB and Smurf rise to the occasion and are sometimes game to do more scary stuff. DH and I also practice a “divide and conquer” strategy, where one of us will do something with the older two while the other one is with Smurf, or one of us is with Eldest while the other one is with the younger two. MB taught himself to read because he wanted to play older bro’s video games; Smurf is along the same path. Having significantly older siblings pushes kids to get better at all sorts of activities, gives the kids a good idea of where they will be in a few years, and I think helps build confidence. Professionally, I think it helped me tremendously to only have one very small kid at a time. I don’t know how I would have managed with two under two or similar, especially because all our kids had ear-infection issues upon starting daycare. Breastfeeding and the associated perpetual lack of sleep are probably more responsible for any loss of my grey matter than the kids themselves; do not let yourself be guilt-tripped into breastfeeding if you don’t want to do it. There’s a militant lactation movement in the US now and they can be just awful to women who can’t or simply don’t want to breastfeed; don’t let them bully you. Also, however you have your kid is fine: vaginal, C-section, medicated to the gills, not medicated at all. The goal is to have a healthy baby and mom; everything else is small-talk fodder, but completely irrelevant in the long run.

Overall, don’t worry too much about optimal spacing. I think having kids close together is harder when you work an intense job, but other women may vary in their experiences. We like having kids far apart in age, and there were reasons why it worked out that way. For some people, the large spacing might have to do with fertility issues or divorce… Sure, it’s okay to plan when you’ll have your kids, but planning the spacing between the kids is not something you should lose too much sleep over, at least not until you have the first kid. Who knows? Maybe you decide you are happy with one. Anyway, both large and small age gaps have benefits and downsides.

Finally, here is some uplifting reading for young women in science who want to become mothers but are worried about it interfering with their careers. (tl;dr Don’t worry. Have kids. Be brave about your personal and professional choices. You have one life, live it how you want.)

Here’s Mothers in Science.

And look at this post How Does She Do It? (e.g., Sharona Gordon had a procreation trajectory similar to mine).

Here’s also a new related post from Prodigal Academic.

Things that might cheer up a grumpy academic:

• Taking a road trip with 2/3 of the brood. There is nothing quite like driving on the freeways of the vast land that is the US. Maybe I need to moonlight as a trucker. Seriously, if I didn’t worry about blood clots in legs, I would drive cross-country all the time, everywhere.
• Enjoying a lovely hotel room with the kids. Watching Friends reruns on Nick at Night (evening/night program on Nickelodeon), which is now a family tradition when we go on vacation, since we don’t have cable.
• Splashing with the kids in the hotel pool. Holding a reluctant swimmer Smurf with one arm and playing “pool catch” with Middle Boy using the other arm.
• Sleeping on a very uncomfortable pull-out sofa, so the kids could sleep on the king-size bed. Thanking lucky stars to live in the US, because everyone back where I came from sleeps on pull-out sofas their entire lives (apartments are too small to have separate bedrooms, so most rooms are both living and sleeping areas).
• Dropping a ton of money at an amusement park. Getting immersed in the kids’ enthusiasm and joy as they go on various rides. Forgetting to be grumpy altogether.
• Feeding the kids delicious and overpriced food at a restaurant with  wild-animal animatronics.
• Driving back without stopping, with the kids snoozing in the back seat nearly the whole time. Vowing to get more music for the car for the upcoming 10-hour trip for work (yep, I will  drive).
• Looking at the pics of Smurf and MB. Melting.

I heard this song today in kickboxing class, after a long while…And I realized that’s exactly what everyone needed this Friday:

I have often written about my hatred of meetings. I believe what really bugs me is that most meetings in academia don’t actually accomplish anything concrete, let alone all that they supposedly set out to accomplish. This is a common problem with faculty meetings, but it seems broader, and is probably ubiquitous wherever there aren’t clear negative repercussions to poor decision-making that consistently results in unfinished business.

Here’s a recent example: We had a meeting of the advisory board of a journal at a biennial conference in the field. The publisher representative had asked for input before the meeting and I had sent a whole bunch of questions and suggestions. I had also asked that we allot 3 hours for the meeting, because in the past we would always have 1-1.5 hrs and never have enough time to decide anything.

The meeting came and, of course, it was 1.5 hours long. I asked why we didn’t have a longer slot, they said something nebulous about scheduling. In plain English, I figured that the editor who was to run the meeting didn’t want more time devoted to the meeting. We had a very full agenda, as we always do, with many issues that keep showing up over and over. We discussed all those issues (again). Another member and I had a number of suggestions and pushed a bit for votes or some decisive action on several of the items, but all we managed to do was to irritate the editor. He was more concerned with going through the entire agenda than about actually resolving once and for all any of the issues that repeatedly pop up. So yes, we did get to the end of the agenda, with a whole bunch of suggestions up in the air and zero decisions. We will apparently do this again in two years in 1.5 hours. Only next time I might skip the meeting or just keep my mouth shut, because we apparently meet just for show.

I will never understand this attitude. I would much rather address fewer issues but actually resolve them, especially when the meetings are as seldom as once a biennium, than sit and talk about 2x or 3x more issues over and over and over and not get anything done. The latter is a recipe to have someone like me completely disengage, because what’s the fuckin’ point, and life’s too short to waste time like this.

If there’s nothing substantive to meet about,  let’s not meet. But if there is something important to discuss, then let’s move things around and take as much time as needed so we get to the bottom of whatever the problem is. Years ago, I co-advised a student with a colleague, and the colleague wanted us all to meet weekly for 30 min. We did, and if the student was stuck, the colleague listened patiently and then, when the 30 min were done, said “Good job!” to the student, said “Good day!” to me, and was on to something else, presumably another meeting. But I would then clear out my afternoon and spend several additional hours with the student on the board or looking at the code, until we hashed the problem out in detail and the student had a number of very concrete things to try, along with appropriate follow-up strategies. What’s the point of having an advisor (or two!) if you can’t actually get advice when you need it?

If I hate a book, I drop it and don’t look back. If I stop caring about a TV show, I never watch it again. I hate wasting time on anything that doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do, like business meetings whose only product is unfinished business.

 

 

2014 was my first year on WordPress. Based on their stats, these were people’s favorite posts:

Blogroll

Xykademiqz Attempts to Socialize

Question from Reader: Dishonesty in Fellowship Application

About

Tenure Track, Illustrated

Writing Papers with Graduate Students Who Don’t Want to Write Papers, Take Seven Gajillion

The Life and Times of TT Academics: A Stream-of-Consciousness Post

Navel Gazing: On Energy

Musings on Grad-School Work Ethic

The 7-Year-PhD Itch

Perception

Costly

Feelers

Potential and Ambition

Tenure Denial

Ride It Like You Stole It

You Got Tenure… Now What?

Double Bind

Research University, Illustrated

Xykademiqz Drowns in Swimming

Xykademiqz Goes to Athletic Department Kick-Off

Eggucated

 

This is one of the key questions in the career of a professional scientist. How do you come up with ideas? How do you choose which ones to pursue? A few people have impeccable taste for new projects and open up completely new research vistas more than once in their career: Andre Geim of graphene fame is one such example; Anthony Leggett, Pierre-Gilles De Gennes, and a two-time Nobel laureate John Bardeen (type-I superconductivity, transistor) also come to mind.

But let’s talk about us regular, mortal academics, who do good work and publish in reputable journals, and how we train our students to pick projects to work on once they are independent.

I have a couple of anecdotes from my advising past, and invite you to share your own in the comments.

Moving to a new field

Moving out of one’s comfort zone and into a new field can be intellectually invigorating and result in highly original and impactful work. As one colleague says, you have to read a lot, but not too much. You don’t want to read so much that you, too, get entrenched in the field’s cannons and lose the ability to think your own thoughts. But, there is such a thing as reading too little. It’s important to develop a real respect for the field, to learn about where the state of the art is and what the real open problems are.

Some time ago, a student who’d just started helping another former group member wrap up some papers came to my office full of ideas. The problem was, those ideas were clearly the first thing that popped into his mind and something that the field had dealt with decades ago. I tried to tell him as diplomatically as I could that those ideas were likely correct, so he was obviously getting what he was reading, but that the ideas were simply not novel enough or interesting enough to people right now, as the field had moved way past simple, quick-and-dirty models to much more sophisticated and accurate approaches and the cutting edge now lay elsewhere. He admitted that these were literally the first things that he thought of when he was only starting to read up.

Being a misunderstood genius… Or not

Each research group develops a specific style — not just in how they write and present their work but in how and why they choose the problems they tackle — and the style is strongly influenced by the group leader. I am not one who keeps students around for 8 years without a paper because I don’t want anything less than a Nature publication; far from it. Students in my group publish well, but there is definitely a bar to what I will agree is publishable with my name on it. There are colleagues in my general field who churn minimal publishable units that I never would, but I allow that it’s not just the question of their style or scientific taste; it may be an issue of external pressure related to salary, promotions, grants… Who knows? Basically, setting aside the stuff that I won’t work on because I think it’s misguided or wrong (hopefully nobody wants to work on that), there is also the stuff that I won’t work on because I think it’s too incremental, too boring (to me), or otherwise just not a good investment of effort and money (e.g., the field is moving too quickly for anyone without an army of postdocs).

Occasionally, I have a student who wants to do something that I don’t think is worth doing. We discuss the pros and cons and often the student agrees that something related but more “meaty” or otherwise clearly publishable would be a better use of their time. But, on occasion, a student  is quite enamored of an idea that I don’t approve of (not because it’s wrong, but because it’s too small potatoes, or not very novel, or yes — boring science) and thinks that I am standing in the way of their genius; the student might become relentless about trying to publish this work I don’t approve of.  This is when I do what I call, to myself and I suppose now to everyone who reads this blog, “polishing a turd for educational purposes” — give the student’s manuscript the best chance it’s got in terms of improving the text and layout and have the student submit the draft for publication in a venue that is suitable for the topic and type of work. I repeat until the end that I expect we will get creamed in review, as the work is just not complete enough or not novel enough, and sure enough, so far we’ve gotten creamed 100% of the time when I said that we would.  Polishing a turd for educational purposes is not the best use of my time (I could be polishing an actual publishable paper or a new proposal instead), but the educational part is quite important — sometimes, this seems to be the only way to get a strong-willed student to see that if I cannot be persuaded of the importance and novelty of the submitted work, and I have a vested interest in publishing the work of my students, then it’s very unlikely that other people can. The PhD advisor is usually the first line of defense against overblown results; I’m not saying it can’t happen that the PhD advisor is totally wrong and the student is indeed a genius, but it hasn’t happened to me yet, and probably doesn’t happen very often in general.

(To be continued…)

Please share your own thoughts/experiences about choosing well or poorly what to spend your scientific energy on.