Thursday, April 22, 2004
Follow-up on Cry Me A River
Oops, I made the mistake I tell my students not to. I commented on someone else's comments without reading what they were commenting on. Here's a link to the now free version of the Chronicle artice on single professors.
I read the article this morning and the comments are really only about 1 of the many "examples" they discussed - including single professors who have made the most of the situation. My best friend and I were at lunch recently and in discussing children, she quite clearly stated that she doesn't care that much for other people's children despite the fact that she has four of her own. That's why our friendship has survived one having children and one not. (And, believe me, that is more difficult than most realize - I'm finding in many cases, that friendship only works if you also consider yourself not only the parent's friend but free babysitter and willing to arrange your whole outing according to the child that is old enough to learn how to go along with adults - obviously babies are a different story.) Anyway, I've seen the same thing - "I have to leave to go pick up my children" - instead of just slipping out without a loud announcement - of course, I used to (key words "used to") have a friend who was always using her children as an excuse for not doing something instead of just saying she didn't want to. That worked until I ran into her husband who had the child in question with him. (We live in a small town - in fact, in the same neighborhood). So, singles and marrieds may never see eye to eye. Marrieds see us as spoiled rotten and self-centered and we watch them sometimes let children become the center of the entire universe - especially as they foist their children on people who really don't want to interact with them in professional situations. They want to save that for the friends.
I read the article this morning and the comments are really only about 1 of the many "examples" they discussed - including single professors who have made the most of the situation. My best friend and I were at lunch recently and in discussing children, she quite clearly stated that she doesn't care that much for other people's children despite the fact that she has four of her own. That's why our friendship has survived one having children and one not. (And, believe me, that is more difficult than most realize - I'm finding in many cases, that friendship only works if you also consider yourself not only the parent's friend but free babysitter and willing to arrange your whole outing according to the child that is old enough to learn how to go along with adults - obviously babies are a different story.) Anyway, I've seen the same thing - "I have to leave to go pick up my children" - instead of just slipping out without a loud announcement - of course, I used to (key words "used to") have a friend who was always using her children as an excuse for not doing something instead of just saying she didn't want to. That worked until I ran into her husband who had the child in question with him. (We live in a small town - in fact, in the same neighborhood). So, singles and marrieds may never see eye to eye. Marrieds see us as spoiled rotten and self-centered and we watch them sometimes let children become the center of the entire universe - especially as they foist their children on people who really don't want to interact with them in professional situations. They want to save that for the friends.
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