ABSTRACT
When I was thinking about applying to graduate school in women's studies—as opposed to applying to medical school—I considered how my future career as a university professor might fit with my imagined future as a mother. Humanities professors, I thought, have flexible schedules, and while I knew little about motherhood, I did think that flexibility in one's work life might facilitate having a family. At the time, I wasn't thinking about nursing routines, or mother-infant attachment, or even sleep. I was just thinking about hours spent in an office versus hours spent at home. I thought that since a professor can often work at home (and a doctor usually can't), it seemed reasonable to assume that caring for a family would be somewhat easier on an academic schedule. Babies, I fantasized, slept a lot, and otherwise they were happy and played in their cribs.
