I'm in a kind of similar situation, mentally anyway. It's not so much that I have to stay in any one place for my partner's job, but at this point I can really not imagine uprooting the family to go around the country doing post-docs and then going anywhere that I can find a job. At the same time I know that's what it takes.
My department recently hired a new faculty member who is about my age and has a similar personal situation in that she has a husband and kid. At first I was thinking that I might spend a lot of time being jealous of her, seeing as how she's already in a position that I'm supposedly wanting to be in someday. However, I have found that I don't really don't admire her life too much, which has led me to seriously reconsider my career goals.
Like you, my major goal is financial independence (or at least knowing that I could be--the concept of independence kind of changes when you have a shared kid), and I can see myself being perfectly happy teaching in a variety of situations. At the same time I do wonder if one day I'll regret not trying to be all that I can be academically and professionally.
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Posted by Salmon Ella to academicsecret at 11/14/2006 07:41:22 PM
