Hope you come into the ton of money needed for your double reality cafe. Sounds wonderful.
My husband is basically living out the dream you mention in your first paragraph. He is an academic who thinks and thinks and thinks for a living. He is happy with it, and I can't imagine him in any other field. But as he told a friend recently, "It is always finals week for me." He is constantly under pressure to finish this paper, prepare that talk, organize this conference, and again, finish this paper -- we measure things by papers. (I proof-read all of his papers and listen to the rollercoaster of progress throughout, so even though I'm not an expert in his field, I do indeed know what he's talking about.)
We have not had a vacation in approximately 5 years, and that was when I accompanied him to a talk he was giving in Hawaii; vacation for me, not so much for him. Our last attempt at a vacation was when we went to Seattle for 3 weeks when the sozlet was 6 months old, for a -- symposium? I forget the term -- held at the University of Washington. It was baaad -- E.G. still went to work as he always does, just at the UW instead, and the sozlet and I had to cope with a hotel room (actually converted apartments, nice as these things go, but hardly plush) and numerous disruptions of routine instead of home, the park, friends, etc. We keep planning "real" vacations, but money is tight and there is always always always something Extremely Important on the horizon.
He has a choice in deciding what is and is not Extremely Important, of course, and could easily take a path of less resistance. But he is a driven type, and he is doing well. Perhaps in 5 years or so he will get tenure somewhere and he can relax a bit. But I doubt it. Then it will be getting grants, becoming chair of the department, trying to get the Nobel Prize... (I kid you not.)
Oh and I didn't mention my ideal job. It frequently brings me to the brink of insanity, but I am infinitely grateful to have had this chance to be a stay-at-home mom. Today we were reading "Curious George Rides a Bike", where he makes a fleet of newspaper boats, and the sozlet was looking closely at the diagram showing how to make the boat, and I said "Do you want to make one?" and she said "YEAH!", and we made one, and went down to the river and launched it, and watched it until it was too tiny to see (a strong, seaworthy craft indeed), and a friendly goose came up and the sozlet explained that we had no food ("I'm sorry goose, we don't have any food. Will you be my friend anyway?") and a girl came up and gave the sozlet some corn to give to the goose, and she did, holding it right out to the goose who took it from her fingers (!) -- a very quick, neat move, no damage -- and I had no plans beyond launching the boat when we left the house and we ended up hanging out doing this and that for several hours, until it was naptime, and then I gave the sozlet a piggy back ride home, and she fell asleep on my back (!) so I had to lean way forward to make sure she didn't fall off, and got her home and eased her down on the couch.
A nice day. A nice job.
[size=7]Porn star.[/size]
Well yeh, Sozobe, I think that's more or less what I had in mind when I said the kind of academic dreamjob I had in mind doesnt really exist anymore - if it ever really did, of course - the whole "work in quiet" and "be left free to focus, focus, focus" thing, I mean ... <smiles>.
Competitiveness and versatility are the keywords, instead, and rightly so, in principle, probably - except for the part in the development where - << enter prejudiced rant >> - the individual, esoteric and single-minded has been rejected in favour of the efficiency-plan-driven collective effort with strict division into methodological part-tasks, on topics chosen on market interest by people selected on self-marketing skills. << end rant >>.
Fascinating little insight into a personal life there, though! That was interesting <smiles>.
Nevertheless, I would insist on that proper holiday some time sooner or later if I were you, if it's in any way important to you or the sozlet! Because your SO doesnt sound like someone for whom the Extremely Important will ever spontaneously leave left-over time to enjoy in relaxation! <smiles>.
I've fantasized about the equivalent of stay-at-home mum ... I mean, stay-at-home dad has a lot of stigma, but it doesnt sound all that bad when I think about it. I would love to have the chance to spend all that time with the kids I would have ... it's the cleaning and housekeeping that stay-at-home mums seem to have to spend much of their day on that would scare me off! <grins>.
Still, it's really true - my nightmare has always been ending with a wife who would insist on being a stay-at-home mum herself ... I'd have to work long days to provide for all, and live at my job - instead of being able to raise my children and making our home home in equal measure myself as well, like I would really want to ...
I know part-time jobs are rare but I really hope we'll be able to do it half/half ... that's how I was raised as well, to think of that as the right way to do it - it would be ever so ironical if it'd be my SO who'd object in the end, huh ;-) - I was really afraid of that with my ex-gf.
Wilso - that's really small stuff you wrote there, heh. But if that's really what you'd want to do, you'd have to present yourself in a, err, bigger way, you know ;-)
I see what you mean, nimh, about a different kind of freedom to think. Still, the pressure E.G. feels originates largely from interior rather than exterior forces. He is not thinking, "I must finish this if I want to keep my job", but "I have ALMOST figured out how to circumvent that possibly theory-busting problem -- my theory is so elegant! I want it to work! How can I make it work??" I think that kind of intensity is necessary for maintaining happiness in that sort of endeavor, actually, otherwise it gets boring.
I'm actually quite lucky in that he is a housecleaning fiend. Our division of housework is probably 1/3 me, 2/3 him. I usually make dinner, though, which could be considered housework I guess. Then it's more half and half. But he does a LOT. This was explicitly discussed before we decided to have kids, as I was NOT gonna be the houseslave; I consider my job to be raising the kiddo, not housework.
So you raise the kiddo and you cook - now that's two things I think I'd like (I mean, I know I like cooking, just haven't had any children!) - and you dont have to do much of the housework? Now that does sound like a pretty good life! Especially as I would guess that such an arrangement would leave you some time for other interests or occupations as well?
I can see myself do that - raise a kid, cook and shop, and still have some time for reading, writing perhaps ...
Damn, I hope A. will become a wildly succesful writer, then I'd opt into that role while she copes with success! ;-))
Sounds good!
I'm sure I will be able to read at some point, but for now it is a mighty struggle to fit in the entire New Yorker. Part of that is just my own idiosyncracies of how I like to read, though -- I don't do well at all with little tiny disconnected chunks, which is what I tend to have, free-time wise. (While those little tiny disconnected chunks are PERFECT for discussion boards like this, hence my 3770 posts...
)
The sozlet, at 2.5, is starting to be much more independent, though, which is affording me more opportunities for focused non-sozlet stuff. Part of this is that I can't just listen in on what she is doing (since I'm deaf), but have to actually watch. So hard to do vision-based things (read, paint) at the same time. That's definitely changing, though. I've started seriously working on a children's book that's been percolating for a while -- stay-at-home mom plus author and possibly illustrator would be just loverly. Maybe with some high-paid consultant stuff in my field (Deaf Education), too. Ooh.
We'll see.
Yeh, that should be lovely - hope it'll work out!
(One for the record thing I forgot to mention -- I'm financially able to be a stay-at-home mom because I saved a large chunk of my salary from when I was working expressly for that purpose. That's about to run out, but it's lasted almost 3 years rather than the planned-upon one [I did lots of consulting work in the first year which helped, but mostly I'm cheap as hell], and that's made a big difference to my state of mind, even though E.G. says he doesn't mind supporting me. I don't like being supported if I can help it.)
nimh wrote:Wilso - that's really small stuff you wrote there, heh. But if that's really what you'd want to do, you'd have to present yourself in a, err, bigger way, you know ;-)
That part's not the problem
Wilso wrote:
That part's not the problem
Oooh la la !! Self promotion !! I wonder if there are any directors reading this !!!
:wink:
If I weren't a chef, I would opt for being paid to do absolutely nothing.
I would like to be in Marketing where the Toga partys last all day long.
cuz I can't be a supermom, I gotta be a rockstar....
