Quiet please! We're moving.

Quiet please! But I find this sign too loud!

Waiting books

Vertiginous reading

Imparting knowledge

Low profile

Background reading

These photos were taken at the University of Bielefeld Library in Germany. We moved to Bielefeld, a small town in the North of Germany, over four years ago because my partner got a job at the university. Academic contracts tend to be limited so a great deal of flexibility is called on the family. Having moved once from Berlin to Bielefeld, now that my partner's contract is up we are facing the challenge of relocation again.

In academia, you are expected to move around at the drop of a hat, indeed it is a requirement of a good CV in today's academic market. This is not something that goes together with having a stable family life. As a trailing spouse of an academic you may have to make sacrifices in your career, or build your career around a highly mobile lifestyle. For children, it means sacrificing long term friendships, and a familiarity brought about by putting down roots . Sometimes families in these situation face very hard decisions. Should the family be temporarily separated, while the academic partner takes up 1 year contracts abroad which have no guarantee of extension? Or should the family move and ride the course of uncertainty together. There is no way of knowing quite when a permanent contract or a professorship will finally arrive. Should the child's environmental/cultural stability take precedence over daily contact with the academic parent?

"Pendeln" in Germany is not uncommon, and describes the act travelling  back and forth from your family home to your place of work, usually over long distances. I know of an academic family in Germany where one partner is an professor and works during the week in Berlin and the other partner, also a professor, is based in Munich with the children. This involves "Pendeln" every weekend, a journey of around 6 hours each way by train. As Germany is a more federal country than the UK, i.e. centres of industries, media, banks are more evenly distributed amongst its cities, it means that people here are more used to the idea of "Pendeln". In Frankfurt, for example, there is the banking industry, in Hamburg the media industry. Everyone wants to live in Berlin, but there are not so many jobs available there. I know of many other examples of people living this lifestyle of "Pendeln".

Of course these are personal decisions and also depend on the individual child. Financially though, these short term contracts, like the one we have just been offered, are not automatically offered relocation support from the universities. These, rather, are awarded to Professorial or longer term posts, which doesn't mean that there isn't a spouse and children to consider and all the costs involved as in any other major move.

At the moment, I am negotiating this situation our family is facing step by step. We still haven't reached a decision. I found a moment of peace in the university library, despite the very loud "Quiet Please" sign. There are 2.2 million books in this library but I am afraid none of them can help with the decisions academic families like us are facing at the moment.

I am indebted to The Trailing Spouses Art group that Piia Rossi founded here in Bielefeld a few years ago. These meetings continue to inspire me in dealing with the ongoing challenges of being a trailing spouse in questions such as identity, language and career,  but in a supportive and creative environment.

Here you can see on youtube a Pechakucha presentation of the Trailing Spouses Art group by Piia and myself in English and German.

SkypeMe!

I am going to a meeting tonight of the Trailing Spouses' Art Group where the theme is "Sacrifice and Gains" in reference to career sacrifices , which are often a necessity when relocating one's life according to another person's career trajectory. Cheryl, who is leading the meeting, asked us to make a word cloud using sourced material on this theme.

As my husband has just had to go to America for work reasons, for three months leaving me and the two boys behind in Germany, there are obvious sacrifices that we are all having to make. As we are relying on Skype to communicate as a family I decided to source my word cloud from instructions on Skype from the internet (see above). I can identify some of the sacrifices and gains in communication that Skype offers us in words like "mishaps", "private/public", "support", "clearly" that appear in the cloud.

The first attempt to Skype with my husband newly arrived in Washington DC was a disaster. I could see my husband but I couldn't hear anything. It was so frustrating. So I was holding up this sign, which said :

My husband's face was pixelated and kept on freezing. The freezing thing when your Skyping bugs me. You can be rambling on thinking the other person's lack of movement means they are being extremely attentive but in reality the screen has just got stuck and it will be only a couple of mins before the connection is lost altogether. It still can give you the feeling that their digital alter ego is being rather rude by ignoring you.

Not having a smart phone or ipad hasn't stopped me going to greater lengths to integrate Skype into our normal family life. I lugged my 19 inch computer to the dining table the other day so that we could all have dinner together, sort of.

Kids don't interact in the same way as adults so we have to be creative in getting them to sit in front of a screen. My son draws during our conversations and then shows his pictures to my husband while we talk.

In terms of the theme of the TS meeting "sacrifice and gains", while getting used to the new situation of being a temporary single mum, I am not really focusing on thinking about a career.  It is hard to imagine or plan one when we don't know where will be living in one year. And as for my husband, he has obviously had to sacrifice a lot to continue along his path in academia by not seeing his family.  Unfortunately the academic world is highly competitive. You have to take the chances you are given, or else you are out of it.  Being an academic today, as my friend once pointed out, is a bit like being a Diplomat (i.e. highly mobile) but without any of the perks!

 We can only hope that our present sacrifice is serving our future gain.

Forget Me Not

Ceramic Bottles by Ian Marshall

One early May morning, my brothers and I gathered at my father’s flat. We had just a few hours to decide what to keep and what to leave.

Belongings once private were now laid bare because of practicalities. We had to sort through papers and find important documents. It seemed strange that we could simply take an object off a shelf, open up a book, and all without asking the owner's permission. I felt like a trespasser, despite the fact that the person who used and loved these objects was no longer here. 

Objects now turned over in our hands, scrutinised. Objects in limbo and with an uncertain future. 

I took an odd array of objects that day. Some of practical use: a cheese grater, a metal spatula, a coffee maker, an omelette saucepan. When I use them I feel closer to my father as he was an avid cook and I know that he valued such practical things. On the other hand, the omelette pan has since given up the ghost of its non-stick surface after four years, and burnt and sticking eggs are hardly a fitting tribute to my dad. But still, I cannot bring myself to throw it away. 


Other, more precious, objects have also suffered. In transit to Germany, a nail had made its way into one of my father's paintings, puncturing the canvas. While mourning at its imperfection, I was forgetting that I had literally saved it when I chose it that day. 


Then a few weeks ago, I heard a crash in the bedroom and instinctively I knew what it was before I went to see the damage, as if the thud and crash had happened within me. The kids had been racing around the flat on bobby cars. A piece of sculpture that my dad had made was lying on the floor in two pieces. It had been on my dressing room table for want of a "home". Tall and thin, I had deemed my dressing place the safest place. I was wrong. 


I have to admit, though, that as much as I felt devastated, I felt some kind of release. As if I had been given some kind of permission to let go of this one.  I had taken all these objects with me to remember my dad by, but if I was honest, some of them were not really to my taste and others I had no idea where to put them in my home.

Luckily, I still have other objects of his that are intact and I hope to be a better caretaker of these, though I will never know what they meant to him exactly.

Still,  the memories of a home brewed cup of strong coffee, in those days quite exotic and grown up to me as a teenager, brought to me in a ceramic cup, and thai meals lovingly prepared by him bring me nearer to my father than any of these objects did.

And they, like other memories of him,  cannot be so easily broken.

Ceramic Bottle with signature stamp(underside) by Ian Marshall

Old bag with school bag

Last Thursday I took part in a self-portrait workshop run by Grace at the 'Trailing Spouses' Art Group. I had brought along my own props: a medium format camera and my son’s schoolbag, as I had an idea about how I wanted to portray myself. The camera represented my college days, and the dreams aspired to since that time towards some sort of career in photography. The school bag sums up my life as a mum, especially as I now carry it everyday for my son. Called a “Tornister”, nearly all German school kids have one. They are squarish, large and robust enough to sit on and you can choose from various themed designs. The thing is, it is so heavy, I end up carrying it for him. I always feel slightly preposterous walking down the road sporting a magenta striped rucksack emblazoned with footballers in mid-action, the straps squeezing my shoulders.

  

I merged the two portraits, to show that I find it hard to draw the line between these two images that reflect myself. Also, this lack of separation often leaves me feeling that I fall short in both respects, firstly as a mother and secondly as a creative and /or professional person.

 I read on the ‘used to be somebody’ by the journalist, Gaby Hinsliff, that she felt a kind of lifting of guilt associated with being a working mum when her child started primary school. She says “…. it is the first time the choice - that terrible, double-edged choice - about whether to be home or not has been completely taken away from me.” In Germany, or at least where I live, there is still very much a choice about how long you leave your child in school. In the school where my son goes to, for example, the lessons start at 8:05 and sometimes finish as early as 11.50am. Then, some of the children are picked up for the day before lunch by their mums(or Dads perhaps), whilst others stay on in the after school care centre, which was founded just seven years ago, until 4.30pm at the latest. So that feeling of guilt is still in the air, when there are still two systems for the stay at home and working mums. This school system is changing in Germany, but there still isn’t one school here in Bielefeld offering the same school hours to all children, starting and finishing at the same time.

On occasion, I have picked up Eric before lunch and we have both really enjoyed the extra time together with my younger son Henry for the rest of the day. I am not actually supposed to pick him up before 2pm. Most of the time I pick him up between 3:00 and 4:00pm, like in the British system. Being self-employed, my workload is fragmented and I need to be able to work through to the afternoon on some days.

I do feel though it is strange, that in Germany you have to book a minimum of 45 hours a week of childcare for the under 3s in a kindergarten (9hrs a day!), which seems a lot, whereas when they go to school at the age of six, you may find the same child only being entitled to attend school for 4 hours a day. After school care is not free. It costs me 130 Euros a month including lunch, although if you have two or more children in a nursery or school, you just pay for the one child with the highest fees, which is good. 

Nevertheless, I do think it would be nice for the atmosphere of the school and the children if they could all be at school at the same time, and all enjoy the Karate, football or cooking clubs etc that are on offer  in the after school care centre. Socially, the school is also divided, for the parents and the children. Children who finish school before lunch are not allowed to use the playground in the afternoon because of insurance reasons. I obviously have more contact with parents whose children are in the after school care because I see them when I pick up my son. 

My experience is that many parents here don’t like the idea of comprehensive education, where lessons take place in the afternoon, because they believe it would be too inflexible and strenuous for the children. They prefer the model of lessons in the morning and an option of after school care in the afternoon, perhaps because of their own educational experience. My husband, for example, was at school from Mondays to Saturdays in the morning, but then he could run around unsupervised with siblings and friends for the rest of the day. I can’t imagine that happening these days. 

So I suppose I will have to get used to that portrait of myself for a while, and the choices associated with it.  In the meantime,  here is a picture of the "Tonni" in its full glory.  

The Anti Menu Menu Planner

I wonder if any of you who are in the family way, have tried menu-planning? That is, making a list of meals for the week in advance, the idea being to save money by buying only the necessary ingredients. Sounds like an excellent idea doesn’t it?
Well, this week in my blog I am going to offer you a kind of reverse meal plan; that is, the meals that we have ended up making when, for whatever reason, the meal plan has gone belly up:


Klaus’ Bread Schnitzel                Cooking time: 10 minutes

1. Ignore all the healthy produce in your fridge that you bought as part of your menu plan.
2. Cut some slices of bread.
3. Grab a couple of eggs and beat,
4. Sprinkle packet breadcrumbs on a saucer.
5. Dip bread in egg.
6. Dip egg covered bread in breadcrumbs
7. Fry at a moderate heat.
8. Serve with tomato ketchup and leftovers from last night’s dinner.


Catherine’s peanut butter butties       Preparation time: 3 Minutes


1. Scrape the remains of child´s untouched planned menu meal into bin.
2. Cut one slice of bread…
3. ..whack on some peanut butter
4. Cut in half.
5. Serve by placing one half in each hand.


Eric’s it is not a sandwich sausage sandwich     Preparation time: 20 minutes

1. Ignore the meal plan.
2. Get one slice of bread
3. Get mini frankfurter out of fridge.
4. Slice lengthways, crossways, anyways.
5. Place chopped up sausage on bread
6. Place another slice of bread on top
7. Serve by eating just the sausage and leaving the bread untouched.



Henry´s Just Desserts     Preparation time : 2.5 minutes

1. Fall asleep just before your menu planned lunch.    
2. Wake up 5 minutes before having to leave house to pick up brother.
3. Eat a bowl of yoghurt.


So, don´t be too disappointed if your menu planning doesn't pan out.  You may find that what you and your family come up with may be the best thing since sliced bread, if it isn´t sliced bread that is.