A few weeks have passed by, a new life has left my womb and come
to bless our family and the remainder of my small family unit has arrived
(post-birth) to join me I the field. Theoretically it is my planned break in
work activities and time to spend recovering from pregnancy and birth and
bonding with my loved ones. I have longed for two months to see my husband and
son again yet at the same time was apprehensive about how it would make me
feel.
We are now a family group of 5 in the field site, I am two
weeks postpartum and myself and new baby have not left the house since the
birth. She is 100% healthy, feeds and sleeps well and therefore leaves me with
time to reflect (and worry) about my work and period in the field, especially
when the school run is taking place and everyone else is out of the house for a
few hours. One could almost say I have too much time think, or in fact that I
just think too much..fin!
I became so engrossed in my data collection during those
first couple of months partly because it was going so well since our move to
this house and partly because I was worried about not functioning well
postpartum and everything generally going a bit wobbly. I also looked forward
to taking a month off and being absorbed by family. Needless to say this has
not happened. I had a very quick and simple (and exhilarating) birth leaving me
physically in excellent condition and really I should know myself better by
now! The truth is I can’t switch off completely no matter how hard I try, so I
figure it is better not to try. Instead I’m worrying about the data I’m missing
out on whilst in the house and the practicalities of what need to be achieved
whilst I have some help around and also afterwards.
Whilst I’m doing my usual and unavoidable ‘getting on with
it’ I’m managing an interesting emotional state – a combination of postpartum
hormone cocktail and the closeness of having the family back together again. I
had no idea actually how much I had missed the boys until they arrived and now
it feels very clear just how much I have, do and will miss them. I also had no
idea how much I missed my home and daily life. The old saying ‘out of sight,
out of mind’ appears to ring true here and now these emotions are coming back
to bite me on the bottom! I am also fighting at the same time with a will to carry
on working and not neglecting my data collection. It feels very much like the struggle between
family/work/study/life balance that I face at home, only here there’s the added
bonus of sunshine and exaggerated hormones.
I was helped very much yesterday by reading THIS article published
a couple of years ago in Anthropology Matters. The paper consists of a
discussion of the problems faced by Phd students who were carrying out anthropological
fieldwork for extended periods (generally around 1yr). It definitely made me
feel better about my own situation (taking comfort in other people’s misery!)
and made me realise that I’m not doing too bad. I have been struggling with a
decision about cutting my fieldwork period short and trying to figure out just
how much data is enough for my thesis. This kind of thinking is based purely on
my emotional reaction to the family being together again, though I don’t think
there’s anything wrong in that. My Phd at the end of the day is a purely
individual goal that admittedly is all about me and what I can achieve in my
student and academic career. My family is about our collective unit and love,
not too difficult to figure out what should take precedent! Or is it? Like many
a ‘modern lady’ (sarcasm italics) I
would actually like to have it all, though this appears to come with a price
that leaves me in a constant state of emotional, psychological and physical
compromise – very close to what I’m actually here to study in other women.
I have a deep concern about how much data is enough and what
kind of quality it needs to be in order to achieve a fabulous doctorate thesis,
but I am just as concerned about the ongoing affect this is having on my family
unit and the overwhelming feeling that I just want to be at home curled up on
the sofa with my babies reading their favourite stories and just being
together.
