Dissertation Defense Protocol

If I have not already communicated the fact that I can be an awfully socially awkward person in certain contexts, let me do so now. I dread the odd social gathering at someone's house, unless I know most of the people who are going to be there, and even then, it can be cause for some anxiety. We're talking non-academic, even. So this is not just the pressure of networking. Oh no. It's not being able to answer a query from a person I don't know that runs like this, "Hey, you know that cake you brought? Are we going to eat it or what? Can I cut it since you're busy breastfeeding?" with an honest, "I was waiting until everyone--namely me--was finished eating, and I'd prefer to cut it, but thank you for your offer!" instead of muttering a weak, "okay" and then brooding about it for the rest of the party. . .er. . . weekend. It's deciding not to go to the shower at all because two were scheduled for the same day and you RSVP'd to the one given for the person you knew well, but not as well. I take comfort in my committee chair's admission that there are times that he has entered a home for a gathering and proceeded straight through and right out the back door. That's so me. So what am I worried about with the upcoming dissertation defense? Refreshments. Yup, you read that correctly. Because I heard waaay back--and again today--that the defendee (person on the hot seat) usually brings snacks or breakfast or something in hopes that the committee members are too charmed by the offering--or too afraid of crumbs escaping their mouths--to ask any difficult questions. Or as a courtesy, maybe. That was all vague. Anyway, it's been months since I've had any meaningful face-to-face interaction with my committee chair department head, and while I have asked a couple of times in meaningful ways what is expected of me, he simply will not say "some koolaid and a tray of brownies." So I'm in agonies over which snack would be too childish, the politics of pastries, what about the vegetarian (and what are his reasons for being vegetarian--do they preclude icing?), would it seem like a bribe--and a weak one at that, is it rude to come empty handed? (Except for the dissertation--there is that. . .) And that is my primary source of anxiety. What snack (if any) to bring, and how my choice of snack reflects on me. Literacy-chic, you are an idiot.

Happy Mardi Gras -and- an short academic aside

I had to squeeze in a last post before midnight. Happy Mardi Gras! Have a spiritual Lent! (You can't wish someone a "happy Lent," can you?) I will be away, but you know where to find me (psst! the profile). Also, for the record, I received some bad news today that in the perverse nature of academia, I'm probably supposed to regard as good news. A chapter of my dissertation in article form was rejected. Well, what at first read as a rejection was actually a fairly enthusiastic revise and resubmit. The problem? With all of their good submissions (which vex me because they are doing a special topic on--what else?--reading), they can't wait around for me to make the revisions, which will be very easy since my whole project deals with exactly what they're asking me to clarify. This is part of trying to take something out of a larger work and make it stand alone. However, they returned the results to me 5 months later than they were supposed to. Now their "schedule won't permit"--thanks, guys. On the other hand, once I get over being deflated, I should really have something to work with.

The Nature of the Job Market -or- Why I Won't Be Hired -or- A Coffee-Inspired Digression

Let me preface this by saying that I'm having a little debate with myself about coffee--whether I should have more of the stuff or avoid it altogether. You see, when I have more of it, I get agitated, but when I get agitated, I write stuff--sometimes even the stuff I'm supposed to be writing. When I have less coffee, I am calmer but less productive. Incidently, the best coffee in the world is made by monks.

So I received an email today about a job candidate to whom we've offered a position. This person is being hired in a marginal subfield related (somewhat) to my marginal subfield, but also intersects with many hot-topic subfields (some related to marginal groups)--hear: really attractive to a field trying to redefine itself as interdisciplinary, non-Western, and socially and politically "relevant." This person would also help the minority profile of the department, and comes from a somewhat more high-profile state school than the one that has offered him a position--also a state-school better known for liberal arts than the one that has offered him a position. He is a self-described "activist"--attractive to some segments of the faculty and grad student body, though the university is not located in a place that one would necessarily consider an ideal locale for activism (unless he painted tiger-stripes on himself and posed naked with the PETA chicks who protested the Barnum & Bailey circus a few years back. . .). He also has extensive creative publications, which would add a possible creative writing instructor to the faculty. His publication record is impressive, albeit limited to journals and book chapters in his particular, very specific, not very prominent ethnic literature specialization--the equivalent to me publishing in the fictitious Journal of Literacy in British Literature of the Early Twentieth Century. No wait--that's less specific. Oh well! He is in the process of being wined & dined by numerous other departments who want him for the exact same reasons I have outlined: well-qualified & looks good politically. So what's the problem?

Well, as I see it, and as the faculty has presented it, he is one of the best qualified new scholars currently on the market, and has other benefits besides. Every department hiring for anything related to his specialties wants him. He's got lots of people fighting for him, and unless we're making him a really sweet deal, he might not be willing to settle for "flagship" school in Texas miles outside of civilization. I mean, another department in liberal arts had a candidate turn them down because the local high school didn't have a good enough tennis team. Yeah. Neither the climate of the school nor the faculty in general nor the majority of the student body are really activism-friendly. (Okay, you all know where I live now. C'est la vie!) So why make him an offer he's likely to refuse? Naivete? Ambition? Have the faculty who are here convinced themselves that it's a really great place? After all, we've got the minimum number of Starbucks to be considered civilized now, a definite improvement on 10 years ago--oh wait, do activists like Starbucks? Hmmmm. . . But what do I have against making him an offer? If he refuses, we just move on an no one has lost anything, and there is the snowball's chance in hell that he will accept.

Well you see, I'm thinking about this as a grad student approaching a firing committee--oh wait, that's "hiring committee," "firing squad". . . Sorry! In the "professionalization and publication" class I took, we talked a bit about the "culture" of a department/university, and how we should make sure we would be a good fit, and how we should learn about the university's/department's "culture" in order to make a convincing application to that department. Anyway, this "culture" thing is supposed to be a deciding factor for search committees. At least in theory. A candidate can be bumped for not fitting in with the "culture"--it's permissible. Clearly, I don't think he quite fits, but this is not about me. Well at least I wasn't the one giving input (for many very good reasons). In theory, someone who is well-qualified but not as high-profile--say, someone from a lesser state-school or one not particularly well-known for liberal arts--can win out over someone who looks more attractive initially based on a well-crafted argument concerning fitting in with the school's "culture." There are other strategies, too, and admittedly it's probably not best to play up a connection with the "culture" of a school with decidedly non-intellectual "culture," but presumably being much more suited for a more cosmopolitan area could influence the decision of a hiring committee in a less cosmopolitan area.

Because, you see, if the top, kind of wacky candidate is not offered all of the 10 positions open in the field (or 6, or whatever), but the positions s/he is most likely to accept (or where s/he is most likely to feel comfortable, not leave within 5 years, etc.), then the second-best, still excellent 2 or 3 candidates might be offered 2-3 positions in the first cycle of offers, which basically means that the hiring process will be completed sooner and the second- and third choice candidates get offers sooner. After all, there are so many people in this discipline who are really well-qualified but lack the academic pedigree of a certain university, I'm not sure the top candidate really is the best candidate--at least, I hope not.

By all accounts, the job search is expensive, grueling, anxious, miserable, and often unfair. And did I mention a load of laughs? If you're from a lesser school, you really need to start padding the vita against guys like the one described above from day one. But if you don't quite have the same list of pubs, does it really mean that you're less worthy? (Working on politically correct subject matter often helps, too. This guy has it all!) A lot of the misery of the job search could be lessened--at least for some candidates--if the hiring committees would be a little more realistic & rational about the whole process. I mean, what if their own students were competing against Mr. Star Candidate? Would they feel like their own students had the chance that they deserved, or that the decks were stacked against them? Would they (and their students) appreciate being left on the back burners while the top few were treated to the grand tour, even by schools whose offers they were least likely to accept? And what about the committees themselves? Are their resources best spent making offers to 4-5 candidates before one accepts? And isn't it just a little nicer for everyone involved to know that the first candidate to receive an offer accepted it?

Babies & Academic Professionalism

Okay, so the baby (the Chic-lette, as she has been named courtesy of Mrs. Darwin!) is not even 2 weeks old, and I already have a professional dilemma of sorts. I asked my adviser for his advice, but he is, admittedly, male, and didn't feel qualified to answer this one!! (Although he did say that he would have no problem personally with the situation I described.) On Thursday, there is a colloquium I would like to attend sponsored by the university's humanities center. A fellow-graduate student is presenting a paper on D. H. Lawrence, whom I am working on right now (trying to wrap up that pesky chapter). Actually, I think attending might jump-start my attempt to finish (if one can jump-start a wrap-up). My problem? Very small baby (well, no--very young baby!), exclusively breast fed. First issue--she is very young. I have doubts about whether I should have her out & about, but she would be kept very close to me and I'm about to lose my mind staying home most of the time. Every day or every other day I have to get out--usually just a quick ride in the car (with the baby), but it helps. So this actually sounds more attractive than it might otherwise! Second problem--silly as it sounds, I don't want to draw too much attention to myself (and my baby) or to seem like I'm trying to draw attention to myself. I'm imagining people thinking that I want people to ooh and aah over the baby, when in fact, my attitude toward such things is more the "No thank you, please don't breathe on my baby" attitude. Third--and the biggest--issue (I won't say problem) is the breastfeeding issue. The department is currently filled with swarms of mothers who do or have breastfed. Even so, there are a number of different attitudes present about the correct time & place to do such things. Many of the other grad student mothers also have alternated with bottles of breast milk or formula, which, even if I decided to do at some point, I would not do so early. The grad coordinator, who possesses a different generation's feminist notion of the place of children in one's professional life, made a comment once in a class about the scandal of a prominent scholar breastfeeding at the large national conference. In that case, it was recognized as an attempt to draw attention to herself. In my case, it would not be, but it might be interpreted as such. While generally I scorn those who are offended by breastfeeding in public, I feel a bit different about professional situations. This might be because I hate professional situations. In general, I actively seek to avoid them. Usually, if people I know are involved, I don't mind as much, but in this case, I feel awkward precisely because there are people I know involved. I don't particularly want to be sneered at with my baby for violating professional decorum. And at the same time I hate feeling hesitant. I don't like playing the game, really. Especially when I don't agree with what passes for "rules."

UPDATE: Well, I just learned that the scadalous example of breastfeeding at the national conference "featured black fishnet stockings, a black letter (maybe leather?) bustier, and a male attendent" and was not "run of the mill breastfeeding." Ha!! I am much amused.

Although I Probably Shouldn't Criticize the Ivory Tower. . .

. . .I decided to write this post anyway. Because, well, I'm kind of sick of the same old assumptions--namely, that everyone in academe (indeed! every intelligent person!) feels the same way about political and social issues. And darn it, I've already shown how judgmental I am by saying that parents should be able to have their children around with them if their job is flexible enough to allow it, and that I think that breastfeeding is the preferable choice for infants and mothers. And since everyone already knows what kind of fascist I am--I even think I'm better than the people in front of me in the grocery store when they're putting six-packs of store-brand sodas, no-name frozen dinners or tubs of hydrogenated lard on the conveyor while I painstakingly pore over ingredients lists (Intense Chocolate Ice Cream notwithstanding)--I'll just go ahead and say my peace and invite the increased scorn of the non-judgmental types out there.

I think it all started (the post, that is), when I was working in the computer lab in my department before my class and looked up to see posted a list of proposed bumper sticker slogans--most of them mocking the intelligence of the president with such mature witticisms as "Bad President! No banana!" Not able to help myself, I wrote on the page (yes, it was me), "Show me a viable candidate, and I'll show you another country." My utter disgust with the two-party system is increasing daily as I watch the candidate pool fester. Later this evening, I received an email about an upcoming lecture sponsored by our department featuring the author of a book about how wacky conservatives are anti-education for criticizing an imagined liberal "bias" in education (the quotes are in the title, implying the ridiculousness of the term) and also conflating the use of "liberal" as in "liberal politics" and "Liberal Arts," implying that the two are equal, or at least necessary compliments to one another. DISCLAIMER: So far, much of my information on this book has been gleaned from reviews, albeit favorable reviews. Doing a little further research, I was able to read the review of the book posted by none other than Amanda Marcotte on her blog, where she issues the disclaimer (of sorts) that she had, indeed, guess-hosted the blog of our illustrious guest-lecturer. Of course, those are credentials enough, no?

But in spite of any hostility you might detect, the point of this post is not to attack the politics of my peers or my department. For one thing, I generally don't assume that I know who votes for whom or with which party my colleagues cast their allegiances--that's judgmental for you! Nor do I conflate methodology with ideology--I recognize that just because someone favors marxist criticism, that person does not necessarily subscribe to Marxism, just as having worked with ecocriticsm doesn't mean I contribute to GreenPeace, and the fact that I've written about motherhood doesn't make me a mother. . . Oh, wait. . . That is, the fact that I've written about transvestism doesn't make me a. . . well. . . (just kidding!) On the other hand, I don't tend to use methodologies that represent ideologies to which I object on moral grounds. Sometimes I incorporate them in order to question them, but I digress. . .

At this moment of angst, realizing that I, like all in academia, have been pre-judged (oh wait, I'm the judgmental one!) as liberal (in the non-classical sense)--not by wacky conservatives (no offense), but by fellow-academics, I was pleased to see that someone much more tenured than I (and in my own discipline, too!) has addressed this issue. Today on a site called Minding the Campus, Mark Bauerlein, Professor of English at Emory and former Director of Research and Analysis for the NEA, published an article titled, "I'm O.K., You're Not O.K." He responds in part to an essay in this month's Academe written by one Julie Kilmer and titled, "Reclaim Your Rights as a Liberal Educator." Kilmer's article, according to Bauerlein, seeks to combat the power plays by conservative student groups such as Students for Academic Freedom (sounds menacing, no?) from the weak and vulnerable position of tenured faculty (pause for audible snicker). Here is one notable passage:

With such vast disparities between the threat professors envision and the actual security they enjoy, one would think that more people would recognize the problem of ideological bias on campus. But they don't, and the reason lies in a campus advent that has nothing to do with psychology. Instead, it's a sweeping sleight-of-hand that liberal professors have executed in their discipline. We see it operating in this very essay in Academe, and in the sentences I just quoted. Did you spot it? Professor Kilmer worries that a student who "is resistant to feminist theories and ideas" may sit in her class as a "plant," someone to incriminate her and send her upstairs for punishment. That's how she interprets uncongenial students, and it's an astounding conversion. In her class, any student who contests feminist notions falls under a cloud of suspicion. The ordinary run of skeptics, obstructionists, gadflies, wiseacres, and sulkers that show up in almost every undergraduate classroom is recast as an ideological cadre. If a student in a marketing class were to dispute the morality of the whole endeavor, no doubt liberal professors would salute him as a noble dissenter. But when he criticizes feminism, he violates a trust. He doesn't just pose intellectual disagreement. He transgresses classroom protocol.


I was the kind of undergraduate Dr. Kilmer would have hated. Not only did I work in opposition to feminism--even while taking courses that focused on, say, women in art history (the professor's feminism was weak at best, but she did try)--I even went so far as to point out the incompetence and blatant racism of an African-American professor, and won my appeal to retroactively drop the class. Don't ask me why I'm writing a dissertation. Just sick, I guess. Because here, in the same article, is reference to one of the obstacles I fear on the job market:

An ideology has become a measure of responsibility. A partisan belief is professional etiquette. A controversial outlook is an academic norm. Political bias suffuses the principles of scattered disciplines. Advocacy stands as normal and proper pedagogy. That's the sleight-of-hand, and it activates in far too many decisions in curriculum, grading, hiring, and promotion. I remember a committee meeting to discuss hiring a 19th-century literature specialist when one person announced, "We can only consider people who do race." For her, "doing race" wasn't a political or ideological preference. It was a disciplinary prerequisite.

I don't "do race." I don't "do feminism." I don't even "do Marxism." I can do Post-Colonialism, but I don't make a habit out of it. One of the authors I work on is homosexual, but I don't think it's all that important in the grand scheme of his work, and I've got a woman in my dissertation, but I didn't want her there in the first place. Face it, I'm screwed.

And here's why:

In the subsequent essay in Academe, "Impassioned Teaching," women's studies professor Pamela L. Caughie of Loyola University (Chicago) asserts, "In teaching students its [feminism's] history, its forms, and its impact, I am teaching them to think and write as feminists." So much for the vaunted critical thinking professors prize, and the injunction that they question orthodoxy and convention. Caughie aims to produce versions of herself. And it's more than an ego trip - it's a professional duty: "I feel I am doing my job well when students become practitioners of feminist analysis and committed to feminist politics" (emphasis added).

I don't want my students to think like me. Really. I like it when I can teach them to communicate to me why it is that they think the way they do and move towards convincing me. I admit that I was elated when I taught a student to be open-minded about the homosexuality in Plato's Symposium. But that was for Plato's sake, and for the student's enlightenment--that he was able to access one of the world's great philosophical tracts without letting his personal prejudices interfere, not because he would go out and vote for gay marriage.

Remember when you were told as an undergraduate (or as early as high school) that as long as you agreed with the professor, you'd pass? Don't look now--from what I'm hearing, it might be true:

We end up with indoctrination passing as proper teaching. When Kilmer states, "What happens to the feminist classroom when students challenge feminist principle?" we might respond, "An energetic discussion follows." But for Kilmer, it means disruption and intimidation. By her own admission, she can no longer distinguish honest disagreement from insubordinate conduct. That's what happens when disciplines admit ideology into their grounds. Accept the ideology and you're sure to advance. You're okay. Decline it, and you're not okay. You're not only wrong - you're illegitimate.

I would likely be less cynical had I experiences to the contrary, and to be fair, not all of my colleagues do this. But I have heard enough about the students' conservatism at the university where I teach, and witnessed enough attempts to sway the students' beliefs--including their fairly strong Christian faith (which, admittedly, could do with some challenges--but to strengthen not destroy). I realized after the summer semester that I was having a hard time teaching Gilman's Herland--the students didn't buy the feminist arguments and I couldn't either, and I didn't care. I couldn't make them see the "good side" of the utopia. They won. I'm teaching William Morris's News from Nowhere as my utopia this semester. I wonder, will socialism fare any better? I look at it this way, it's pastoral. Next time I'll just "do" dystopia.

Pregnant Grad Student Angst

I am in the process of recovering from a very stressful meeting with Dr. Adviser. I was dreading it in the first place, and so having a mini-panic-attack which for me means that I am pretty much sick to my stomach. It started out bad and got better, though I know I will be replaying various segments of the 2-part lecture: part 1-I'm disappointed in your progress; part 2-this is what happens when you get pregnant as a grad student and it's not going to get any better. Great. What I didn't need was for my dominant emotion coming out of the meeting to be "WELL, I DIDN'T EXACTLY ASK FOR THIS, DID I?" That's a really healthy attitude for someone about to enter her 7th months of pregnancy. I didn't realize that was as close to the surface as it was.

Problem #1: Well, we've already covered the "I don't really want to do this," haven't we? The thing is that when I'm doing it, it's stimulating. When I'm not doing it, I dread doing it so much that I have no motivation to push myself.

Problem #2: Teaching 15 weeks worth of material in 5 weeks, while pregnant and anemic, hence exhausted, every day for an hour and a half in the heat of summer in Texas, having to trudge to another building in the heat, and trying to find someone to watch the children while I do it since my husband was unable to do it this time and even if I liked daycare, I could not afford any of the child care programs that could accommodate the time of day when I taught.

A couple of interesting highlights from the meeting that perhaps deserve further consideration:

Well, at least you can look at it this way--when you finish, you will already have your family. You won't be looking at starting a family when you get a job--oh wait! when you get tenure, like Drs. 1, 2, and 3 who--oh by the way--are not full professors yet because that's what happens when you take time out for kids.

The system doesn't really allow for time off for pregnancy. It's just not "woman friendly."

The last time you were pregnant you were far enough ahead that you could take some time off without it hurting you, but that just can't happen this time.

So there go all of my rosy optimistic ideas. Poof!

Clearly Dr. Adviser is not familiar with Natural Family Planning and that whole "openness to life" thing! And neither is anyone else. So basically, the problem is not so much the getting pregnant in graduate school. The problem is converting to Catholicism in grad school. I guess I should have waited for tenure first.

I'm sure there's a lot more that will come back to me from this conversation. I had at least expected some constructive feedback on what I had written. I was given something to research that might prove interesting--just the seed of something, but a direction to pursue nonetheless.

I am reminded of one of my earlier angry momma posts that asked whether God liked to play tricks on unsuspecting Catholic women by letting them know somewhere along the line that they're supposed to have large families instead of those other pursuits that they had--especially before they were married or before they were Catholic. It's all very well to say "re-prioritize," but a lot depends on where the family is at the point of re-prioritizing, and most who make that observation are either 1) the men--usually husbands, frequently husbands whose wives are stay-at-home moms, or 2) women whose husbands have jobs that allow for re-prioritizing of personal and familial goals. It also implies a degree of materialism and frivolity of personal and familial goals. So how does one "re-prioritize" away the financial need for a teaching assistantship, either to take care of babies or to finish a dissertation? And how does one "re-prioritize" away the need to finish last 3 chapters of a dissertation, abandoning the Ph.D. altogether? In spite of my lack of enthusiasm, I just don't see the value of abandoning everything at this point. In spite of my lack of enthusiasm, I don't really want to abandon everything at this point, as my "children in academia" posts should indicate.

But I'm getting off track. That's not at all where I wanted this to go, but it's all bound together. I know what's at stake and why I need to finish (after all, he's got 3 grad students in the pipeline after me--one of whom is also pregnant!). But that doesn't make any of this any easier--emotionally, physically, or intellectually.

I'm so tired of having to explain myself

Has anybody considered that staying home with one's children is actually a luxury? I'm sure some have, and in some places it is actually a marker of status to be a stay-at-home mom. But the reason I ask this now is because while stay-at-home moms may have plenty of people to answer to--strangers, perhaps, or well-meaning family members who feel compelled to give advice about finances or the children's or mother's well-being, these people do not have any authority over them. There is no one to expect an explanation of why they have not performed up to the standards by which these things are judged. And you know what? Having to explain myself does not really lend itself to a good working attitude.

I have not possessed a good working attitude--except sporadically--for many years. I was not crazy about staying at this university for the Ph.D. because I knew that the course offerings were not what I wanted from a Ph.D. program. I stayed because I didn't get in to the other places to which I applied that time around, because it was convenient, as my husband had just entered an M.A. program, and because it was familiar. Oh yes, and because two people I respected shook my hand and said they'd like to see me stay. That's it. I was never even considered for a fellowship, as those are reserved for people who they lure here from elsewhere, since students from elsewhere are certainly better for the program than those who are already here. Speaks volumes about their opinion of their own program, no? Anyway, it has been non-stop drudgery since then because my heart has never been in it the same way it was at first, except for little moments along the way. But what does one do? Not a thing. I have applied for jobs sporadically without luck, and since my daughter was born, that doesn't even seem like much of an option because I don't want to relegate her to full-time child care, as I've mentioned before. I stick with it at this point because I have no choice, because I am our hope for any future we might conceivably have at this point that does not include this university, and because being in grad school is more convenient from a family perspective than a full-time job. End of story. Any enthusiasm you may have noted along the way is purely coincidental.

So what, you might ask, is the occasion for the rant? The return of the dissertation director from his vacation. You know, the same dissertation director who advises other grad students not to get married & become pregnant. And don't get me started on vacations. The last time I had a vacation was when I went to Disney World with my family when I was 6 years old. Otherwise, vacations are making the best of something I have to do anyway and can't really afford, like a conference or a campus visit to a university I was planning to attend when my son was 2.

So no, I have not performed as expected. I'm not a trained poodle, I'm a person who pretty much meets her own needs rather than having them provided by my trainer (furthering the poodle metaphor, here, and alluding to my need for the assistantship, not implying anything more sinister). And on top of that, I am responsible for other people. Why have I not done more? Let me count the reasons. But of course, there are countless others against whom I can be measured. They all perform as expected. Shall I enumerate the differences? You know, the not wanting or affording the child care option? Having, in fact, more children? And only one car between all of us? Health, a move, extended family, stress, burnout? Being further along in the first place and having to write the darned dissertation, which is what causes people so many problems without the extenuating circumstances? No, better not. What's the point, after all?

When Feminists Talk about Motherhood. . .

This is an interesting post from Anastasia, an academic mom whose blog I read (see sidebar) and who has a few things to say about how feminists discuss motherhood when nobody's looking (or nobody important, or nobody who is expected to disagree). What interests me about this is that it represents one of the major reasons that I have never been able to call myself a feminist, even when I was more friendly to feminism than I am today, and why I actively wrote papers in grad school that worked against the anti-mother rhetoric of feminist theory. What further interests me is that Anastasia seems like someone who would consider herself much more of a feminist than I do! Beware the language (which I'm not necessarily going to say is inappropriate), and let me know what you think when you come back! The comments, you will notice, are very anti-child, a backlash against Anastasia's reasoning that children need to be considered and included, and mainly focus on the type of parent who doesn't do much parenting and, let's face it, probably wasn't equipped to have children in the first place. This rather reminds me of Darwin's post about a playground incident in which he was called down for correcting a child who was terrorizing his much younger daughter. If people didn't hate kids in private and "respect their rights and privacy" in public, instead of, you know, saying "Excuse me, but your child is being incredibly rude and needs to be disciplined before s/he hurts someone" and accepting that some children are indeed well-disciplined, maybe this rhetoric of intolerance wouldn't persist in so-called "intellectual" circles. When everyone agreed on how children should behave, only the crotchety "Mr. Wilson" types from Dennis the Menace were expected to hate children. (Granted that some old-style "discipline" is now recognized as abuse, but many go too far in the opposite direction.) In some circles, cities, stores, it has become the norm.

For a related sentiment, a more subtle child-hatred, see Pro Ecclesia and the source, The Cause of Our Joy, on "The Town Without Children," which is, of course, the logical consequence of child-hatred and child-exclusion.

One more thing: It occurs to me after reading a HUGE number of the comments on the original post (don't go there, just don't; I can't be responsible for the consequences, and I don't want them following you back here--I put the link purely out of a sense of obligation), that no one considers for one minute that a woman might LIKE to have her kids around, that she might actually arrange her time so that she CAN spend it with them (whether she chooses to work outside of the home or not), and that she doesn't consider them an impediment to her enjoyment of life. WOW!

Because Life is Meant to Be Interesting. . .

I discovered today, quite by chance, that the financial aid department at my university no longer considers me to be in good academic standing. The reason? Because they claim that I have exceeded 180 hours towards a single degree. Now, the only way that I have exceeded 180 hours is if my M.A. is counted in the total. That's 2--count 'em!--TWO degrees. But because nothing is easy, I have to submit an online appeals form, which will not be read until I make an appointment with one of their counselors (who can't count anyway), and submit, as part of the appeals process, an Academic Adviser form verifying that I am following a degree plan, that I know all about getting a job in my field, and that I will graduate someday. It's always lovely to have to drag faculty into lovely little matters of not being able to manage my finances.

And nothing much is riding on these loan funds that are now being held. Nope. Just my entire move. Because the bank account is woefully low, the utility company seems to be charging a retroactive late fee from the last time we had service with them--5 years ago, and of course we have to pay the pro-rated rent for the 3 days this month we will live in the new place. Not to mention moving supplies, a truck rental--you know, the usual stuff.

And when was I to receive notice of this glitch in my financial aid? Who knows. The loan was added and removed from my account today, and I had to search my online records in order to find out anything. I discovered this while investigating why I had not been charged for my registered summer hours. So I guess there is some providence in the fact that I realized it now and not late next week when the money was completely gone. But I was slated to receive my funds next Tuesday or Wednesday. That is clearly not going to happen.

In a perfect world, I would not need the loans anyway. But in a perfect world, many of the financial setbacks we have had since we were married would not have happened, or perhaps, as some people advise, we would not have married until the finances were stable. But life doesn't really work that way, and so we will be paying loans until we die. Literally. That doesn't bother me--it'll be like renting our degrees for the rest of our lives. At least the loans don't transfer to the children. But I have to finish the degrees before I can pay the loans. And in order to do that, I need the loans. Kind of circular, no?

Anyway, this crops up at just this moment because I feel better about the pregnancy. The optimist in me says that this is so that I wouldn't have had too many things to cause anxiety all at once. The cynic in me says that it's so that I wouldn't actually get a break from stress. Oh, and the cynic adds, "Dissertation? What dissertation?"