Mama PhD

News of the unexpected death of a former collaborator has me thinking about my own life and my legacy. Where have I come from, where I am now, and where am I going?

Elizabeth's April 25 post about Nick's uncertain academic future moved me strongly, in part because of the excellent writing and in part because we have had many of those nail-biting moments in Ben's history. He is one of those students who seems destined to give teachers TMJ; a gifted underachiever, as his mother was before him.

One of the topics I teach in my Quantitative Reasoning class is the calculation of a retirement savings goal. It is always shocking to my students how much money they will need to save in order to live comfortably in their retirement. However, as daunting as the goal may seem, I emphasize that it is important to begin to put some of what we earn away into a safe fund so we can draw on it in the future, when we need it. I found myself thinking of this concept recently when I attended a track meet in which my daughter and her young friends competed. I had to laugh when she asked me after her meet "did you like to run when you were a kid, too, mom?"

As the school year winds to an end, many parents of high school seniors are making final decisions with their budding college freshman about where to attend college. Not so in my family. We are waiting with bated breath to see if my son Nick actually graduates. He’s developed an extensive case of high school burnout, and if it were not for the talents of his AP history teacher, Adam Gadnis, and Nick's ability to take some classes online, I don’t know if my son would be walking down the aisle and throwing up a cap in June.

I know I’ve said in the past that I like April, despite all the things that go on during that month. And I still do. But what I like least about April is filling out the college financial aid forms that are always due some time this month. (Well, except for the first time, when they were due on the 1st of February, before I’d even finished doing the taxes.)

Over the past eighteen months, Ben has considered, at various times, attending a university in another country; a marvelous but outrageously expensive arts college in North Carolina; and an equally pricy Florida school where he could play baseball year-round.

When people learn that I am both a full professor of Mathematics and an Economist who studies the economics of nonprofit organizations, they are often confused. “What do you teach?” is the common question that follows, to which there is a quick answer, a short answer and a long answer.

For the last 12 years, I have faithfully monitored the faculty job listings pages in the Chronicle of Higher Ed and IHE even though my husband and I are happily employed. Why? Because we live on the “wrong” coast. We are 3000 miles away from both sets of our aging parents and families, and for us this is a hardship.