i just need to vent to someone who might get it (long)

[readytobedone]

i'm a grad student. i teach and am paid for it, so it really is a job...but it pays crap.

in addition to teaching, i am expected to do my own research and writing. though i've put that on the back burner for this semester (i'm teaching two classes, one for the first time, and it's a lot of work), i still need to do some time-sensitive things, like revise and submit articles to journals (need to try and publish before going on the job market in one year).

right now, between teaching 2 classes and all that goes with that (office hours, class prep, student emails, etc.), i am working probably 35 hours a week. add to that the stuff i am working on with my own work, and it's over 40.

on top of that...for all this work, i only make $1600 a month through teaching. that will end in december (at which point i will be able to focus on my research, but at the cost of not making one red cent ). since i am past my fellowship funding (which used to pay me for research), i only get paid for teaching. i am making approximately 9k less this year and last due to this. our family feels that difference very acutely

so to try to bring in more money (so we don't have to dip as much into savings), i have taken on a job--flexible in the amount of time i spend--through my department. i can do it from home, and i am not committed to a certain number of hours per week, but damn. i'm up to probably 50+ hours a week of work at this point.

and the thing is...that extra income is only worth it if we don't have to pay for childcare for me to work. we have 3 days (~24 hours--could be up to 30 if i got her there at 7:30 am but we both tend to wake up no earlier than 7:30) of childcare per week, whereas i am working over 50 hours a week. you do the math --there are a lot of hours i need outside of child care times--weekends, evenings, you name it.

DH is at least understanding and willing to take care of DD so i can work. that is awesome. i don't know what i would do without it, honestly.

but the thing that is killing me...even with all this, there is still the need for cooking, cleaning, shopping, all of that. i spent most of last saturday shopping for DD's fall clothes (we had nothing and there was a one week consignment sale that started last weekend). our house has been a pig sty. today i spent the whole day i was home with DD, supposedly spending quality time, cleaning our house. she got way more TV time than i would like

but...simply put, i don't make enough for us to hire help. we can't afford more child care, or it defeats the point of my working. we can't hire a housekeeper. at least i don't think we can. i am at my breaking point and don't see how i can get through the next 2.5 months. and even then, sure, the stress of this amount of work will end (i can continue working PT on the project i mentioned for money while i work on my research), but then there's the stress of not having substantial income. and then there's the stress of not knowing when i will (even if i go on the job market in a year, there is no guarantee i'll get a job; in fact, given my field, i probably won't).

i'm doing a more than full-time job with half-time child care. and i can't afford any help with house stuff. (DH does his fair share, i feel, but there is just too much for us.) i feel like i am stuck in some SAH/WOH hell, where i have most of the responsibilities of a SAHM, and also those of a WOHM--but unlike many WOHMs, i don't make enough money to hire help for anything. it SUCKS.

i like the work i am doing. that (and my helpful DH) is the only part that makes it liveable, but i am really really down about this. if i could put DD in FT care, at this point i would, but as i said, i don't know if that would be financially viable. we are saving $140 a month (plus the extra driving/gas) by not having her in FT care.

i just feel like, WOH is hard, yeah, but if i made a decent income i could afford care to cover my work time and maybe even some of the house stuff i don't have time for. and yeah, SAH is hard, but if i didn't work i could at least clean my own house. it's like the worst of both worlds. i know i am whining. i just needed to get it out.

right now i am sitting at a BAR, just finished grading papers, having a drink, and enjoying the only thing i have done today that is not house/work related. it is 11:15.

[Chamomile Girl]

I did the grad school thing, as did my hubbie, so I understand the poverty and unrealistic expectations...but I can't imagine doing it with kids. Hats off to you!

The only advice I have is what got us through...don't forget that you enjoy your field, that you chose the intellectual path out of love for the journey. Don't focus too much on the destination, because therein lies serious resentment.

peace and strength

[Realrellim]

Hang in there. That part of finishing the degree just stinks and there's no way around it. There's never enough $, enough hours in the day, and there are always the competing demands of having to eat and get new clothes for the kids and the fact that the bathroom is a pigsty.

Hope the vent helped you feel somewhat better. I was frantically finishing a draft of my dissertation this time last year, while teaching and dealing with all of life's hassles and it was miserable. Actually, I think all of writing a dissertation while trying to earn enough to eat stinks. But you will get through it and it does get better on the other side.

[srs]

Couldn't read and not post. Feel free to drop your DD off here anytime. Seriously. It keeps my DD entertained. Or bring your laptop and work. It's nice to have the company.

[*MamaJen*]

My best friend is finishing her dissertation in a super-competitive program. She says literally everyone who has made it this far is on some form of anti-depressants. It sucks, it's a meat grinder, you're impoverished at an age when most of your friends are making a reasonable income, and yeah, it just sucks. The funny thing is, whenever she talks about her phd program, all I can think is how difficult it would be if you had kids.
You're shouldering through it. At least you're in your last year. Don't feel guilty about grading papers and venting on MDC at a bar. That's what I'd do.
I'm planning on a two-year grad school program next year and I assume I will still be a single mom, but it's a professional program rather than an academic one, so I'm crossing my fingers it won't be too brutal.

[lillacfaerie]

I'm sorry you are going through this! I remember grad school....that was a dark time in my life! I can't imagine working on my dissertation with a LO in the house. My apartment was a DISASTER when I was in school. I hardly ever cooked. Remember that you are in a temporary situation.
I am a sahm/wahm. I'm an opera singer, so sometimes I have a ton of music to learn, and rehearsals, performances etc. Something I do to keep my sanity is hire a friend to walk my baby around the neighborhood for an hour. Then I get all my house work done. I work as fast as possible. You'd be shocked at how much cleaning you can do in an hour. I give my friend ten bucks or so (she would do it for free). Can you hire one of your students to do that for you? I babysat for my profs all the time. Hang in there mama!

[Carita]

instead of working yourself to the bone to make ends meet, why not consider taking out a student loan? Its not ideal, but if it accelerates your time to degree, gives you time to and reduces your stress, then I think it is worth it. You really don't want to burn out before you graduate. You are saving maybe $200 by only haveing PT child care. x 9 months = $1800. I think a $2000 loan is not outrageous.

[lolar2]

Have you applied for a child care subsidy from your county/ state?

[kcparker]

The only thing I can imagine that would be more stressful than grad school is having a chronically ill, demented, incontinent parent who is living at your house. Seriously.

I second just taking out some student loans. If you keep up this stress load, it will wreak havoc on your immune system, your marriage, and your sanity (BTDT on all three counts). We somehow made it through my MFA program AND DH writing his dissertation 2000 miles from his home institution and support network (me aside), and if I hadn't taken out extra loans my last year of school to support two of us finishing our studies, we would not have made it. If you get a decent job, you can pay it back pretty fast, and if you don't, you can go on the income-based repayment plan or the income-contingent repayment plan, and you'll be absolved of any balance after 25 years. Hopefully you are not in the humanities, which seems to be an utter wasteland in terms of jobs right now.

Our house was messy, we ate a lot of pasta and sauce (I HATE pasta and sauce, and I don't think I've eaten it once since DH finally got that bleeping diss. done) and quesadillas and frozen veggies, we still never see each other because we tag-team childcare now that he's adjuncting - if I am home, he is out working on lectures or grading instead of the diss., so it was basically out of the frying pan, into the fire. This is only to say that I commiserate most deeply with you.

One thing that helps us keep (sort of) on top of the housework is to do one small chore a day - it's manageable if you say, today, I am going to clean the toilet and the sink in the bathroom, rather than thinking you will clean the tub and the floor too. Save those for the next day. DH can usually get one load of laundry done and hung out on the line, and then we bring it in the next day (though folding it...there is still clean stuff in the hamper, there for three days now, but hopefully he will get it put away while he's home today). It's a Sisyphean task, housework, especially when there's also a ton of research materials, grading, and other academic detritus stacked feet high in half the house.

Can DD help you at all, at least with tidying her toys and books? Other stuff that helps a little - we do a play-date trade with a friend for about 3-4 hours a week. DH is the sole beneficiary of that (supposedly it was for date night, but it never works out that way), but at least he's got a little extra time for academic stuff. Maybe you could do the same with a friend of yours/DD.

[GoestoShow]

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Edited by GoestoShow - 12/17/10 at 8:50am

[readytobedone]

thanks for all the supportive responses

i could look into subsidies for childcare, but i highly doubt we would qualify. our income on paper is pretty decent, but since we have a mortgage that is roughly 50% of DH's take-home pay, a lot of it is tied up each month.

loans--due to household income/assets, i do not qualify for federal, only private, which i used my first year here since neither DH nor i was making much, and we were maintaining two households (pre-DD) while he finished school in another state --i will never do private loans again; that floating interest rate plus capitalization will KILL you. (on the plus side, we already paid that off and just have DH's federal loan plus a small private loan of his left.)

really, the best solution is probably either a) suck it up and FT child care for the rest of the term, regardless of what it does to our savings, or b) suck it up like it is for the rest of the semester. i know when i am not teaching, i don't work nearly this much--and i'm still able to stay on track.

i'll give it another week or so, and if i'm feeling like b) is impossible, i'll ask DD's daycare about moving to full-time. we have about 4 full months of expenses in savings, which seems like a substantial cushion, but being that i don't know when i will take a job, we really have to be as conservative as we can be about spending it down. (yes, kcparker, i AM in the dismal humanities...and my other degree is an MFA which i already got, and you of all people should know how practical a degree THAT is! --at least i got it sans loans.)

i suppose in the worst case scenario (we're here for years more with me having little income), we could get a home equity loan, or cash out some retirement and pay penalties...or something. also i could always get a "real" job not in academia while i am waiting on my academic shangrila to come through...but we are also planning to TTC at the end of next summer, right before i go on the market.

i really appreciate all the commiseration. it's nice just to know people have been here and, in various ways, gotten through it

[Alyantavid]

Right now, dh's in school, working very part time. I work full time, we have 2 kids, one in full time daycare (dh keeps him home one day a week to save some) and one in school full time. It does suck, but I have to remind myself that it won't last forever and we will survive this.

Does your college have any childcare that might be cheaper? I like the playdate idea too

[txbikegrrl]

I can't imagaine doing my dissertation with a LO as I barely finished while working FT at a real job but never published anything and DH assisted with data analysis and formatting, etc. So definitely hats off to you!

DH and I both work FT but "regular" hours of course more than 40 but not all the juggling you are doing and we could not survive without a cleaner weekly. We went almost a year with minimal cooking after DS was born we ordered food from a company that premeasures healthy fresh meals and went out at least 2X per week just to get out of the house. So I don't know how you are doing it. Of course we could sort of afford it but not really because it was more expensive so we saved less. It sounds like you aren't too bad off financially for a grad student so I say so what you need to for the next few months in terms of reducing stress. Just finish your degree then see what the future holds. Good luck!

[Geofizz]

Eeeek. You sound like you're in a tight spot.

Since the care is tough to increase, and the money is scarce, can you find ways to decrease the amount of time you spend on your job(s)?

*Teaching: What do the students really need? I know it's a huge time suck to do a new prep, but there are efficiencies you can employ. I save gobs of time grading by writing out a very careful grading rubric. That means that if something is worth 5 points, I write out what is required to get 5 points, what gets 4, etc... I then just score the assignment and hand it back with the rubric. Can you get by with less prep? Presenting less material? To figure this out, I look at how the course is used as a prereq. If content I'm presenting isn't necessary for a subsequent course, then I nix it and teach something I already have prepared. Instead of a rough draft I grade, I have students do peer review (with the rubric provided). This cuts my grading in half right there. If you're interested in hearing more, there's more.

*Writing: You will save time in the long run if you don't neglect your research. You have a few things that need to get out, so dedicate 15 minutes every day even on those intense teaching days. Plan for it. If you do it every day, then the information stays fresh in your head and you don't spend reminding yourself what you were doing before when you do make time for it.

*Pasta and sauce. It's been said before. Embrace the 2 minute meal that makes leftovers for lunch the next day. Reduce your household duties to those that keep things marginally sanitary and ensures everyone has clean underwear.

[Penelope]

Off the top of my head: could you swap some care with a mama friend? Even a few hours a week might make a difference.

Could you visit your dean of students and tell him/her that you are struggling and could use some advice? (Some departments this might not be wise; others, it could be super-helpful.)

Could you juggle your hours and your dh's hours a bit? I get up at 5 most days (f/t teaching, which is its own interesting set of problems) so that I can work 5-7 before the kids are up. If you were up early, or late, you might be able to carve out some more time.

I'd take the option of f/t care if you need to. Don't beat yourself up over it. I got by with very little childcare during my Ph.D but the price I paid in terms of marriage and general emotional health was high.

This, too, shall pass. You can do it.