How Can You Hate Saturday?

Just another way my life has changed since procreating. I occasionally hate Saturdays.  Ordinarily, I wouldn't have minded a day like today - heading to campus around noon and helping the rest of the department greet twenty-some prospective graduate students during our annual Visitation Day. Like many in my line of work, I find it difficult to be idle. Unfortunately, this means that for far too many of us, 40 hour work weeks get stretched beyond control to 80+ hours/week. But today, I was down right resentful.

You see, I am no longer just Professor. I now have an 8-month-old who generally goes to bed between 6-7 p.m. each night, which means on a good day I might spend 1-2 hours interacting with him. Often, it's less than an hour. And this amazing little creature is growing and learning at such a pace that even if I were a stay at home mother, I would find it difficult to keep up. But I'm not stay-at-home. I'm a working mom. Not only that, but I am a working mom who researches how people learn. So I am enthralled as I watch my son make sense of the world around him, not just as his mother but as a scientist. Frankly, I'm getting rather tired of missing out.

Today, after a week of 10+ hour work days, I was expected to participate fully in departmental events. Again, normally this wouldn't really bother me too much. I enjoy the students.  But at lunch, I realized something. Only half of the faculty have children, and of those, only 4 have children under the age of 8.  One of those faculty members didn't show up to participate.  I wish I had so much courage.  But I'm pre-tenure, and I've learned that I will be evaluated based not only on my actual talents as a scientist, teacher, and colleague but on my perceived talents as well.  So I grit my teeth, and participate.  And I fight back tears when my husband brings my baby to the poster session just 45 minutes before his bed time so that, on one of only two days of the week reserved for family, I can spend longer than an hour with my son. 

Yes, today I hated Saturday.