June 23, 2011 by blue milk
DR. HIRSCH: The great discovery for me was the middle of the night. It’s all done, and everybody has gone to bed. You can go to your computer and sit down and work. The middle of the night has been what saved my life as a scientist.
Hey, the middle of the night, yes me too.
We need more women to talk like this in newspapers – about how they really manage to combine motherhood with incredibly successful careers. From Women Atop Their Fields Discuss the Scientific Life in The New York Times.
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Yes! I read that article when it came out and that very line has been bouncing around in my head ever since. Because it’s so true for me too, as a scientist with kids who finally sleep all night long.
Thanks for posting that, I hadn’t seen it. I remember a fellow academic saying to me in the first few months after my son was born that she did her PhD between the hours of 8pm and 1am or something similar. I remember thinking there is no way I could do that…and yet here I am, writing, it’s 11.25pm and I’ve already resettled my toddler 3 times… It is kind of comforting knowing I’m not the only one.
That was an interesting article.
My kids aren’t both sleeping through the night yet, so I don’t use the middle of the night to work right now. But I do use the time spent on bedtime routines- rocking, snuggling, just being there to help settle them- to think things through. I have a lot of really great ideas while rocking my baby to sleep. The challenge is to remember them until I can get to a piece of paper to write them down!
Cloud, when I first had my baby I put a whiteboard in his room, and attached the marker with a string (that part is crucial). Seriously.
I got my degree during school hours and between 4am-6am.
I am absolutely gobsmacked, and impressed by all of you. My kid has been sleeping through the night for months and even with 8.30 bedtimes (for myself) I barely have enough stamina to negotiate the vagaries of everyday parenting and life. Do men have to stay up all night to get ahead in life? I’m sure some men do, but it feels so unfair.
In fairness, my husband does the same thing I do- squeeze some extra work in after the kids are in bed, when necessary. Or during nap times on weekends. Or we trade off with each other and one person does some work while the other gives the kids their baths… etc, etc.
But neither of us have super high power careers, and we don’t have to squeeze extra work in every week. We’re both reasonably successful mid-career types. I am a middle manager at a biotech company. He is a lead engineer at a software development company.
Oh gawd I’m so run off my feet from dawn till sundown. Now I need to get up in the middle of the night to WORK? I would die.
Ditto!
Though I did actually get up in the middle of the night to work when I was pregnant. My sleep cycles were all funky though. Lots of sleeping in. No more of that!
I’m about to read it, but holy crap it’s in the science section not the style section.
*laughs and laughs*
Hmm
I guess this is why I will never get ahead.
Similar to how I once went to a series of breakfast lectures aimed at career building and networking for women. Held at the crack of dawn in mid-winter canberra. I decided my career could just wait a while.
But all power to those who press ahead.
Loved your comment – I am half-joking with the title of this post, and I would think similarly to you if a series of lectures were held at crack of dawn in mid-winter. If the early bird catches the worm it can keep it, I like warm beds instead.
Bluemilk, the key here is that it was the crack of dawn :in mid-winter Canberra:. They don’t call it Canbrrrrra for nothing.
Seepi! I just escaped Canberra for Lismore. Lovely place. Couldn’t hack the cold anymore.
The crack of dawn in mid-winter would suit me better than the middle of the night! I’ve always been an up-early person and did much of the work for my masters thesis between 5 and 7 am (pre-kid, but while working full time & with a husband who was working & studying too. He was an up-late studier, so this also avoided conflict over who needed the computer more). This pattern is even more entrenched since having a baby. He does the shift til midnight or 1am, I get to bed early! Then, as we have a sleeper-in, I can get up & go out to do stuff in the morning while he sleeps in until she wakes up.
I am finishing my PhD thesis, Cloud, and do the same as you – write it in my head when I am putting my daughter to sleep. My husband laughs because I always rush out of her bedroom and start writing furiously. Have you read this poem by Mary Sheiner called “I write in the laudromat”:
I write in the laundromat.
I am a woman
and between wash & dry cycles
I write.
I write while the beans soak
and with children’s voices
in my ear. I spell out words
for scrabble while I am writing.
I write as I drive to the office
where I type a man’s letters
and when he goes to lunch
I write.
When the kids go out the door
on Saturday I write
and while the frozen dinners thaw
I write.
I write on the toilet
and in the bathtub
and when I appear
to be talking
I am often writing.
I write in the laundromat
while the kids soak
with scrabbled ears
and beans in the office
and frozen toilets
and in the car
between wash & dry.
And your words
and my words
and her words
and their words
and I am a woman
and I write in the laundromat.
LOVE this poem. Thanks for sharing it!
So that’s how you do it bluemilk? I have long been wondering what your secret is. I’m constantly in awe of how frequently you post. This is one more reason I can’t wait for bub to sleep through the night. And jane thanks so much for that wonderful poem. I totally do the same thing and write in my head as I try to get bub to fall asleep.