Mother vs. Professor

Been thinking a lot about this whole balancing motherhood and academe thing, esp. as I return to Dr. Crazy's to see what crazy comments have popped up.  I've also been thinking a lot about Niobe's comment in relation to my original post, because my intent was not to offend her or anyone else.  And yet.  My goal for this next phase of my life--beginning with The Year of Peace (aka The Year of Milk)--is harmony or "balance" or sanity.  And I know for me, I would go absolutely batshit crazy if I either (a) became a SAHM (not that that's possible as an SMC) or (b) returned to work 100% immediately after birth.  That's not to say those aren't viable choices for other folks (and that's why I'm truly sorry for the way I framed it in my OP) but for me, well, neither of those come remotely close to balance.  And much of the rhetoric surrounding "Mama, PhD," while ostensibly about balancing motherhood and academe really isn't very balanced, at least as I see it.  It's female PhDs negotiating a pretty shitty system in personal ways (and I should say there are similar but different problems for fathers, but that's really not my place to talk about).

I realize that I'm fortunate to have a certain amount of choice here (i.e. I got 14 weeks maternity leave, which obviously I have chosen to use), but gee that's still not much in the way of institutional support for parents/new mothers.  (Insert long conversation about FMLA, maternity leave, and childcare in the US that I don't really want to rehash in this post.)  The result is that I find myself thinking of the ways that I will create a workable situation for me and my kids.  Obviously I know from LG that once you've got a workable situation, the kid changes the rules and everything needs to be overhauled; add another kid into the mix, and who knows what will happen.  That's practical stuff, largely.

There's also a question of how these two identities play off/against each other.  And the problem, as folks smarter than me have discussed, is that both motherhood and academe are intensive roles that can take up all the time available.  Neither is a 9 to 5 job.  And both the cultures of academe and contemporary mothering produce massive amounts of guilt for not putting in 120%.  So say there's a work event at 7:00 at night, an interesting guest lecture or poetry reading; if I don't attend, I feel badly both for missing that opportunity and for not supporting the life of my department, but if I do attend I also feel badly for choosing to put kid(s) in childcare in order to do so.  And if I don't go and hear it's the most fantastic thing ever, that sucks; and if I do go and it's the worst thing ever and I've spent another $20 on babysitting, well that sucks even more.  Sure, life is always about these kinds of choices.  But being a professor/academic is more than a job; it's an identity I've inhabited for a very long time, longer than I've been a mother.  For a long time, and especially when I was going through treatment to conceive LG, it was all I had.

So what's my version of balance?  Not quite sure.  But as soon as I'm done with this, I've got some reading to do...until Tiny Boy wakes up.