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Optimizing the Parent-Scholar Experience at the SAAs

5/2/2014

49 Comments

 
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The "Project Management Triangle" is used in business to illustrate the necessity of prioritizing among inter-related constraints.  It has corners labeled "good", "fast", and "cheap," the idea being that you cannot have all three at the same time.  If the project is both good and fast, for example, it isn't going to be cheap; if it is fast and cheap, it isn't going to be good; if it is good and cheap, it isn't going to be fast.  It could also be called the "You Can't Have it All Triangle."

My wife and I are both archaeologists.  This year we attended the SAA meetings in Austin with two little kids. I'm not sure what kind of polygon would be required to represent all the inter-related constraints that emerge when you take children to professional meetings, but I'm sure it would need more than three corners.  Maybe 10 corners.  Or maybe 38 corners.  Maybe it would be a hectogon. No matter how many corners there are, however, you still only get to prioritize two.  At times this year it felt like the best we could do was hang on to the "be present during daylight hours" and "eat meals" corners: things like "good" and "cheap" weren't even in sight.

The point of this post is not to complain about the difficulties of bringing kids to these meetings. Bringing kids is optional, of course, so you pay your money and you take your chances.  We chose to do it because it was our best move given where
we're at with our professional and personal lives.  We both needed to be at the meetings and we didn't have options for leaving the kids with someone else while we were away.  So we brought them (and their grandmother) and we all did the best we could.  We used the childcare services that were set up for the meetings, we gave our presentations, interacted with friends and colleagues, covered for each other, tried to maintain our sanity and senses of humor, and tried to keep everyone fed, rested, and as healthy as possible.

Having the kids at a conference can be fun.  Did you happen to see a 3-yr.-old in a space suit singing songs from "Frozen"?  That was mine.  But we also had our share of challenging moments: I spent way too long trying to find a men's restroom in the convention center with a diaper changing station (if you see a guy struggling to get a stroller into the men's room, why not hold the door for him?), my wife got called a "bitch" by a fellow traveler who thought that our entourage was in the wrong airport security line, one of the kids had to go to the ER in the middle of the night, we spilled every drink on everything everywhere, and I delivered my presentation with snot and masticated Cheerios on my suit jacket.  Those are just a few examples.  I'm going to try to forget all the bad stuff before we have to start thinking about next year's meetings.

Taking care of  kids at a meeting compels you to prioritize your time and energy differently than you might if the kids weren't there.  That's a given: when you bring the kids, you're going to have a different experience, period.  No amount of subsidized daycare or restroom signage will change that.  But that doesn't mean we don't want to get the most out of the time, energy, and money we put into going to meetings like the SAAs.  I don't expect that the SAAs will ever be really "family friendly" (and I'm not exactly sure what that would mean, anyway), but I wonder what could be done to make them more inviting and rewarding to those of us who are trying to find some reasonable balance point in the parent-scholar conference polygon.

I don't know how similar our experiences were to those of other families at the SAAs.  It would be useful to know what others experienced and how they handled things.  I met a guy (with children) at breakfast one morning who said there was a talk of organizing a parent forum of some kind for next year.  That sounds like a good start.  Looking at how other disciplines organize their professional meetings might also be fruitful.  

49 Comments
Alexis McBride
5/2/2014 02:09:28 am

As I mentioned on Twitter, I would love to help organize a parents forum for next year (already had some people express interest on Twitter). Let me know!

Reply
Beth Hoag
5/2/2014 04:06:48 am

Interesting perspective. I really commend you and Liz for taking your whole family to the conference, and maintaining a meaningful academic experience (snot and cheerios not withstanding). It made me think about whether I could have done it with my two kids in tow! One thing that I think might be plausible is to enlist the help of local college students to staff a "children's headquarters" for example, or even creating a list of (vetted) local sitters who could watch children in hotel rooms so that folks could go to dinner with their colleagues? I don't know the logistics of how the SAA did it, but would enlisting more volunteer help on the ground have helped the whole experience? I appreciate you creating a dialogue!

Reply
Andy
5/2/2014 04:58:32 am

Some flexible childcare would have been helpful for sure. It also would have been great to have a bounce castle in the book room, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that one.

Reply
Russell Alleen-Willems link
5/2/2014 04:24:27 am

Hi Andy,

I remember talking to you and your wife while our kids rode the escalator up and down the first day of the conference. I'm sorry to hear about the ER visit and extremely rude person in the security line.

I really enjoyed talking with you and have a lot of respect for you and your wife for making the conference work while also parenting the entire time! I would very much enjoy attending a parent's forum if it were held next year.

Cheers!

Reply
Andy
5/2/2014 04:56:31 am

Thanks Russell - I'll put you on the list. I'd be interested to hear how you guys fared during the conference.

Reply
Sarah Surface-Evans
5/3/2014 01:31:57 am

Sign me up! A parenting forum is an excellent idea. If nothing else, we can at least commiserate and possibly mentor others.

Reply
Sarah Kansa
5/3/2014 04:14:27 am

Hi Andy- I really appreciate your reflections on your experience. Eric and I have been in this situation a few times. It gets a bit easier as the kids get older, but I still find it really distracting to have them around. One of the most difficult things to deal with is the evening-time social events. Those are often the times when collaborations are established, important introductions made, etc. They're important events for younger scholars to attend, but that's just the time when you have to be dealing with your kids, dinner, bedtime. This issue came up in the "gender disparities" forum. I would imagine many of those participants would be interested in weighing in on a "parents" forum, as well. I would, too, so please keep me posted on any plans!

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