I'm back from a bit of travel, including a conference at which I gave a talk. At the conference I saw something that I'd never witnessed at a conference before. I've attended, oh, somewhere in the ballpark of 18 regional and national conferences while I've been in graduate school, but I've never seen this:
Children at a conference.
Okay, so the reason I haven't encountered rugrats at science conferences previous could be because
1. People in my field don't have kids.
2. People in my field that have kids have supportive spouses.
3. People in my field that have kids have 100% reliable childcare.
Now one child I could understand. If a female was stuck with them, I would have felt sorry for her. But, double-standard applier as I am, I was mildly horrified that it was the father that brought the little tykes along. Yes, plural: two kids. To an 8 am session.
So if I was only mildly horrified by the morning munchkins, you can imagine my reaction when the numbers increased to a total of SIX kids by the end of the afternoon. We were in a largeish room with about 80 chairs for the 50-odd people in our session, but the noises of the kids-- slamming the water pitchers up and down, crumpling papers, chasing one another about, opening the door, shutting the door, opening the door-- was grating on the nerves.
Now perhaps I'm being insensitive. After all, isn't one of the challenges I am likely, as a soon-to-be female professor, to be faced with is finding reliable childcare?
