The good news: My paper found a home! YAY!!! The bad news: Academic research and writing in a pandemic is a bag of .... A thread. /1

This is a thread about my experience trying to balance my professional life with my personal life in the midst of a global pandemic. TL,DR: It wasn't pretty. There's been a lot of talk about how the pandemic will disproportionately impact women and caregivers. /2

Some have argued that academics with significant caregiving responsibilities (often, though not exclusively, women) will be especially burdened in their professional lives. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7302767/
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This was certainly the case for me. I managed to be productive during the pandemic, but only because I had deadlines that I could not blow off and obligations to collaborators ( @StrictScrutiny_ ) that I needed to meet. But the conditions in which I worked were wildly different /4

from what I was used to, and it made a difference. I didn't appreciate what a luxury it is to have a quiet office with reliable wifi, an industrial printer, and an abundance of caffeine. I took for granted conversations with colleagues that could spark a research breakthrough /5

More importantly, I didn't fully appreciate how my kids' schools were crucial scaffolding that made my work life possible. Until it all came crashing down. When the world began to shelter in place, I, like so many others, began wearing other hats, including classroom teacher /6

We were lucky that one of our kids could manage remote school fairly independently, but for the other, my husband and I traded on and off, with varying amounts of success. We were definitely less productive than we had been. I wasn't really able to fully return to my writing /7

until school let out for the summer. And I was only able to return to my research fully because I decided to let my kids be feral and have the kind of unstructured summer that I used to have bc my parents worked. My kids have watched way too much TV. I've yelled at /8

them to read more books, but they just smile knowingly and ask "how's your paper going?" It works every time. Now, about the paper. I worked like a dog for three weeks to get the paper in shape to send out. It was not a leisurely three weeks. I was stressed and preoccupied and /9

as my husband put it, "not a lot of fun." I worked really long hours and abdicated my share of the household duties. We had Door Dash for weeks on end. I submitted the paper, which made me happy. But I also felt really guilty about all of the things I'd put to the side /10

I also recognize how privileged I was to be able to put things to the side. I have tenure and some professional capital to spend. I don't know how I would have coped with this kind of disruption earlier in my career. I'm privileged that my kids are relatively /11

independent, even if they're not spending their time in ways that I think are especially edifying. This would not have been possible with a baby or toddler. I'm privileged to have a partner, who cheerfully took up the slack. It really does take a village. And a Roku. /12

This is all to say that while I'm happy I got this done, getting it done was ugly and painful. I was only able to do this because I cast off every other responsibility in my life for three weeks. That's not sustainable. When schools start tallying "productivity" for tenure or /13

summer research grants, I hope it is done with a forgiving eye. This was not a traditional summer of research. There were countless faculty meetings, Zoom trainings, and other work to revamp my class--in addition to the home stuff and my research. /14

And I think it's important to be transparent about it. I was productive, but it came with real costs. And the debts I incurred--to my kids, my husband, my colleagues--are now past due, so I'll spend some time paying those off. It's a vicious cycle. /15

So take it easy--on yourselves, on your students, on your colleagues. This is not normal. And if you have managed to maintain a "normal" rate of productivity, please be transparent about it. It's helpful to know how others are coping. Thanks! /16