Do Archaeologist Make Terrible Parents? Reflections from Finnish Children Books and from Real Life

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Women’s Work: Archaeology and Mothering" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In contemporary Finnish children books researchers, quite often archaeologists, are described as distant parents who travel constantly or are so absorbed by their work that they hardly notice their children. As archaeologists and parents, we wonder if an absent-minded researcher parent is just practical plot device for allowing the children to partake in all sorts of adventures? Or do these stereotypes in fact reflect the working life that persons combining parenthood and career must face? In this paper, we compare the presentations from children books with our own experiences as mothers in a Finnish university. A Nordic welfare state offers possibilities for long maternity leaves and childcare but at the same time there is a demand from the work life for constant publishing, mobility, and fieldwork. Is it possible to combine the demands of motherhood and academia or are we doomed to be the child-neglecting parents of the children books?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• Women’s Work: Archaeology and Mothering

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 376