Back from the vault -
An Academic Librarian-Mother in Six Stories by Alexandra Gallin-Parisi who found that, "Mothers were curiously and conspicuously absent" from library literature.
#LeadPipeRetrospective
I copied this sentence ‘Sharing the stories of parenting activities in our literature would reveal the messiness and humanity of the women who are mother-librarians’. I’m sure there is more literature in this topic now, but the messiness of my life working and parenting is definitely something.
I was thinking how it would be interesting if I had blogged (as I do now) when my children were younger - it would be interesting if I had a record of how my librarianship work was affected by having children, and how my parenting was affected by working. I think kind of know-but not completely.
But there’s a reason I didn’t write about work, or read academic literature, when my children were young. I was reading parenting blogs, late at night. And volunteering on parenting things. But mainly I was busy all the time with the two+ jobs of being a librarian and being a parent.
I’ve got to the section of the article about breastfeeding, and pumping at work. I could write about this (though it was different for me, being in the UK, having good maternity leave, and going back to work when my children were older).
I will read the rest of the article. Maybe some of the sources referred to. Maybe I will write about some of the thoughts and memories it inspires in me.
Wow. This is powerful. Despite the sisterhood of support I felt as a librarian mom, I also am aware of how academic librarianship is different for someone who a) physically gestates and nurses a child and/or b) is the primary caregiver for a small child.
