Once again, I am proud to be a part of the Mama, PhD community.

As I read the review The Ivory Ceiling by Jo Keroes over at Mommy Track'd, I thought back to when I left my tenure-track job because I couldn't get the maternity leave I requested. I considered the two years I later spent on the job market trying to find one of those mythical on ramps that would lead me back into a tenure-track job. I remembered choosing instead a job as a high school English teacher so that I could care for both my young daughter and my cancer-battling mother.

Don't get me wrong. I love my job, and I teach some of the best students imaginable. My work is rewarding, and I know that I made a good choice for both me and my family. However, when I started on the tenure-track at Marshall University in 1995, I was hired with two amazing women, who are still my friends. When they became full professors, I cried. And cried. While I gain much from my experience now, I also long for what might have been.

I see more women teachers than men teachers in my K-12 school -- because teaching younger children is traditionally considered women's work. When I go to a technical college, I see about half and half women and men. However, in larger universities, we start to see fewer women. Studies show that the number of tenured full professors who are women is going down rather than going up. And we can see why.

The review reminds us:

women who have at least one child within five years of getting their doctorate are less likely to achieve tenure than men who have children early in their careers. Climbing that ladder to tenure requires a full time commitment – not just to teaching, but to university service, scholarship and publication– that simply doesn’t leave much room for caring for a family, despite those summers “off,” often the only time faculty members can find any time at all to write. As anyone who has tried to study or write with young children around, this time is hardly one’s own. Academic women often feel compelled to choose between having a child and getting tenure.

So, this review, and this book, matters to me. I had the same experience reading the review that I had reading the book itself -- this happened to other mothers. I am not crazy. I am not lazy or a failure or someone not committed enough. I am not alone.

When I wrote about my experiences in my column, Mothering in the Ivory Tower, I broke the code. I talked about what had happened to me in public, and at that point in time, I had not heard any other academic mother do so. But now, years later, we have Mama, PhD. We have mothers in academia who report that the academy is becoming less unfriendly to mothers. We can see that our voices are having an effect. Hopefully, we are moving toward a change that will remind people that all academics are also part of family systems, and that they can be better professors if they can live full, rounded lives.

Continue reading this review . . .