Tonight I went to a friend's house for a grown-up "girls just wanna have fun" night. LG had a sleepover. Tiny Boy stayed with our babysitter. It's very rare that I go out at night for fun. I'm glad I did; it's something I need to do a bit more, as so much of my life is work and kids. I'd guess that for most single parents having a social life is what gets sacrificed.
But as I said in my replies to comments on the previous post, I'm also not a crazy workaholic. I work hard. I work efficiently. But I'm not the sort who puts in 50+ hrs per week, even as an academic. I do my job. And by all "metrics" I do it well--I have the publications, the teaching evaluations, I do my share of service--but it's not what I live for. I have a career I like, but mostly my job is a means to an end.
And on that note, it's 9:20; I need to read for class and go to bed!
People always seem to have an opinion-- some say we work too much, others say we work too little. Or we're not working efficiently enough. Why can't we be trusted that we're working the right amount unless we're complaining about it?
ReplyDeleteI know. It's all crazy making.
ReplyDeleteI think my comment was more in thinking about Laura Vanderkam and her 50 hrs a week line. I really do think it's possible to be SUCCESSFUL in a profession and not go over the 40 hr a week norm.
But for every LV, there's also someone telling us we're working too much and if we're doing more hours we're inefficient. We cannot win!
ReplyDeleteI remember asking my advisor how much I needed to work when I graduated and got a job. She said it depended-- she knew one guy who only worked 4 hours/day, or maybe it was 4 hrs/week. But he got a lot of brilliant theoretical work done during that time. Essentially what I got out of that was that not everybody needs to work the same amount to get to the same place (and I'm probably going to need to work more than that guy to get not as far).