Abstract
Women have long known that the demands of balancing work and family can be overwhelming and often mean the sacrifice of something—time with family or achievement at work. The collection of essays in Papa PhD reveals how some men in the academy also tackle this balancing act. These men with academic and professional ambitions also reflect on their ideals and aspirations for fatherhood, experiences as parents, and sometimes their positive and negative relationships with their own fathers. Although there are several aspects of the work/family juggling act that may be unique to women, the fathers who have written for this collection reveal that men also face difficult choices in devoting time to children and partners or to the pursuit of scholarship, tenure, or the demands of teaching.
Many of these authors acknowledge the privileges and opportunities a career in academia can afford men who want to be active and involved fathers, such as flexible teaching schedules and lengthy breaks between semesters. Some men view these features of academic life as beneficial to their fathering efforts, such as the father who is able to bring his young daughter on research trips throughout the world exposing her to different cultures and climates. Many other men, however, write about the stresses such positions, particularly untenured positions, can put on their attempts to fulfill obligations to both work and family. Their desires to be active fathers must be balanced with the demands of teaching several classes, pursuing research and publication, and performing service roles in the academy. Many men describe being acutely aware of the scrutiny of advisors, mentors, colleagues, and supervisors and the ways that their active fathering may interfere in their pursuits of scholarship. A few men write about the severe disabilities of one or more of their children or their partners and the ways this necessarily interferes in their professional pursuits. The need to invest significant time, attention, and care for a child or a partner means that time is not available for research, writing, or conferences. Many men reflect on the kinds of parents they want to be in contrast to the kinds of fathers they are able to be given the constraints of their workplaces and institutional demands. These aspects of the variety in the collection highlight how masculinity, fatherhood, and professionalism are sometimes easily merged, sometimes at odds, but often need to be negotiated by the individual men. Several men write of being frustrated with institutional patterns and expectations that interfere with what they see as their parenting responsibilities or the needs of their children. However, few men write of actually trying to achieve any sort of social or institutional change so that parents in the academy might be able to better balance personal and professional roles.
The book contains thirty-two essays divided into three sections titled Fathers in Theory, Fathers in Praxis: Merging Work and Parenting; Family Made: The Difference of Alternative or Delayed Fatherhood; and Forging New Fatherhoods: Ambitions Altered and Transformed. One of the strengths of this collection is that the authors of these essays represent a variety of fatherhood experiences including married, divorced, single, gay, and adoptive fathers. Several men also write about how race and ethnicity, their own or their children’s, influence their perceptions and experiences of masculinity and fathering. Fathers of varied ages and stages of fatherhood are also represented in this volume. Some men write about becoming fathers in graduate school and the ways parenting affected their pursuit and achievement of a doctorate and tenure track job. A few men write about becoming fathers later in life and the opportunities and limitations this poses for them to be the kinds of fathers they wish to be. Other men reflect on their years of fathering and how their parenting has changed during the various stages of their careers and their children’s ages. This variety of ages, races, and fatherhood statuses makes for an interesting collection that addresses a range of issues that contemporary fathers may face.
While the variety of essays is intriguing, there is a significant weakness with the collection. The majority of essays are authored by men with degrees in English and other disciplines in the humanities. We know women in the natural sciences often encounter obstacles when trying to balance their personal and family lives along with demands in the sciences as students in graduate school and as professionals conducting lab work and pursuing research and funding opportunities in addition to teaching expectations. One can assume that men are subject to similar educational and workplace pressures in the natural sciences, but their abilities to negotiate time with family or meet the needs of children may differ, especially if they have a female partner who assumes the majority of home and family responsibilities. Knowing how educational backgrounds, research demands, and working environments may differ for fathers in the natural sciences could provide an interesting contrast of experiences of fathering while in the academy.
In general, this is an interesting and well-written collection of essays on fatherhood in the academy. The authors’ candid revelations about their desires for family, for work, for themselves, and how these are realized, modified, or sacrificed highlights how men are also influenced by social norms, institutional constraints, and the interpersonal relationships of family life. This volume would be useful in whole or in part for general classes on gender or family or more specialized courses on masculinities or work and gender.