Not so clever

I had a rather brilliant thought (at the time) that I would drop my luggage off in my apartment and go straight to the supermarket to stock up for the week. What better way to keep myself awake than to run errands? Seems highly unlikely that I would actually fall asleep walking around the streets of New York. And I didn't fall asleep mid-street. But I did buy some of the oddest collection of groceries ...

Well, I survived three-quarters of a week of restaurant food, in a country I don't speak the language, with relatively few disasters. I caved and had a pastry yesterday. And 1 coffee this week. And tuna twice. Otherwise, not so awful. But I'm going back on the really strict part of the diet to gear up for this cycle.

You might assume that my lethargy comes from jet lag, but I am happy to admit that I practically never get jetlag, even when flying to the upside-down part of the world. Nope, my post-shabbos dinner didn't start till about 10:30 pm (drinks started at 7 pm, but I successfully nursed a bottle of water for more than 2 hours) and lasted till almost 3 am. I'm not repeating this to make you jealous in any way, but rather because I am trying to figure out what exactly is going on with my peers in Europe ...

It turns out that 4 of the 5 women I am friends with and will hopefully work with have little kids at home (like ages 1 and 3 or 7 year old twins or 2 and 4 ...). They're all a few years older than me, say around 30. In fact, the only one without kids is exactly my age. And here's what so odd: I didn't know they had kids. The only one who I was sure had kids invited me over to her house and I have met and played with her kids. But the rest, it just never came up. It's not that these women are negligent or uninvolved - it just seems like kids are really not a source of stress in their lives. We were all at this 5 day conference, and none of them seem to have had a problem leaving the kids with their partners. They all gave birth at home (it's what they do there, they also get 6 weeks of 'light housework' for the new mother provided by the state, but moving on ...) and have full-time daycare and free schools and medical care, and it truly seems like children have interfered with their careers.

They were shocked when I explained that almost every graduate student I know has claimed to the school and their advisors that their pregnancy "was a complete surprise/accident" (which is particularly funny when I know that it's an IVF baby - it's hard to imagine how much amnesia it would take to be 'surprised' by a pregnancy following all those procedures ...). It's just that children are still used as an indicator that women in my profession are not that serious, or at least have a much higher chance of dropping out. And it's true, far more American women in my particular well-educated upper-middle class to upper class socio-economic bracket decide to either pursue non-career jobs or drop out of the work force for a while than the parallel group in Europe.

The contrast was striking. I want kids and I will enjoy them a lot but it will be a major change in my life. I don't expect to be able to stay out dancing till 4 am (Friday night for most of them, I went to bed) and attend 5 day conferences abroad when my kids are still in diapers. I am well aware that I will have to cut back my working hours and spend hours coordinating the minutiae of daycare. But apparently these women don't and I have to admit to being pretty jealous this weekend. I hope the lack of stress rubs off on me this spring and next fall, even if I won't get all the systemic benefits they seem to have.