universities couldn’t conduct research or even instruct their growing undergraduate populations." From Mark Taylor's "End the University As We Know It" in The New York Times, April 26, 2009.
With two notable exceptions, I haven't told anyone at school about my pregnancy. This was at first in part due to my pregnancy shock and my desire that my teachers not know anything about my "new creative project" until my other creative project, my thesis, was finished and done. But now it's mainly because I am in a state of indecision about what's going to happen next year. I've applied to teach part time in the fall, but being due October 5 means giving birth in the early-middle part of the semester, which would obviously be disruptive. I simply don't know what my options are going to be. If I were a public school teacher, I would get maternity leave, but as a TA-turned-lecturer I am a contract employee with few benefits, even though I have worked at UMD for three years. Since we have been receiving ominous emails about there being fewer teaching positions due to the economy, I was uncertain if I would even be offered any classes, so I figure it wold be stupid to tell anyone about my issue until I had been offered a position. If/when that happens, I can talk to them about what options I have, if any, for teaching part of next semester.
All of this is very frustrating. Being pregnant has brought up a lot of feminist-related issues. For awhile, I felt as though I had solved all problems in my life related to sexism and gender. I went to college, discovered feminist theories, worked through the appropriate stages: rage, sadness, acceptance of a sort, personal solutions to larger political problems, various forms of activism, especially in my writing and teaching. But now, being pregnant, I mostly feel helpless.
It's been pointed out to me, by wise woman such as my mother and mother-in-law, that the best thing would be to take the semester off anyway. Health-wise, they are likely right. Even so, as my wise friend Liz pointed out, there are many parts of the working equation to consider: physical and mental health, yes, but also finances, my career, and sanity. Maybe after six weeks I will be ready to have a five-hour-a-day, two-day-a-week break from the baby. I could also want nothing more but to stay home, but if I do feel as though I could go back, and if I am offered a job for next semester, I should be able to do it. However, the fact of the matter is that they might tell me that there is no way for me to take six weeks off in the middle of a fourteen-week semester.
That opens the question: could I take four weeks off? Three? Five? Would such time spans be enough? I have no idea. I've never had a baby. Even if I had, there's no way of knowing how this will work out. I could have the baby early, or late. It could go well, or I could have to have a c-section and thus a longer recovery time. There are a million possibilities.
It should be a given that if a women is going to have a baby, her job will be available when she is ready for it again, if she wants or needs it. But for many women, it isn't that way at all. (There's a particular story I want to tell her about a wonderful, hardworking woman who was basically pushed out of her job, which she'd had for about seven years, due to her pregnancy. It's not my story to tell, but it's awful and real.)
Sigh. There's more I want to say--about problems with the university labor market, and how the so-called ongoing "breastfeeding wars" play into all this--but I'm overwhelmed, and I have papers to grade later.
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