“I don’t want a man in the process”

Thoughts On The Absent Academic Father 

Names have been changed.

Creating an academic family is always a bit stressful: you’ve got to organise pre-drinks, dinners, Raisin, and more — all in a modest effort to win over eager first-years. While many of us remember the hazy mayhem and nostalgia of our academic childhoods (though some of us don’t remember a thing), not all academic families are perfect. In fact, many academic marriages mirror the gendered division of domestic labour prevalent in real marriages, especially in ‘heterosexual’ academic partnerships. It’s been three months since Raisin. Let’s hear Mum’s side of the story. 

A recurring theme I saw amongst mum-dad families that didn’t work out was the fault of the academic father — he didn’t pitch in to help with preparations, and, sometimes, he didn’t even show up at all. “My husband loved the idea of kids and the idea of an academic family,” Annabelle, a third-year academic mother, told me. “But I think when it came down to it, he did not know how much work was actually required.” Annabelle told me her husband didn’t want to help plan events or even reach out to the kids. “I had to do most of that work, and he really enjoyed when that came to fruition,” she said. “But he wasn’t willing to partner with me on actually making things happen.” 

Natasha, an academic child, had a similar experience. Her academic dad would “frequently” miss events. “He became busy with work — he was in his final year, so he was also leaving, less dedicated, less there for the long run.” 

Andrea, a first year, had less time for her academic dad’s excuses. Her academic dad tried to justify his absence by gaslighting his kids. “At the start, [his absence] was harder to pick up on […] he would go through all the trouble to convince us that it was actually we, the children, that didn’t want to go through all of the activities and that we just wanted to have chill pub nights every so often rather than bonding activities.” 

For all of the families I interviewed, I noticed the role that academic relatives (mostly aunts) played in picking up Dad’s ‘slack’. They stepped in to organise events, they were the ones who bonded with the children. Second-year siblings Claire, Nina, and Oscar reflected on their relationship with their academic aunt. “Our aunt had to step up and become like our academic mom,” Nina noted. “She probably wouldn’t have done that if it weren’t for the absence of our father.”

For Natasha, her dad was out-and-out ‘replaced’ by her mum’s flatmates. “It became a kind of polyamorous lesbian polycule.”

To lighten their load, overwhelmed academic mothers partnered with other, less dysfunctional families for Raisin. Annabelle took this approach: “Without that, I don’t know what I would’ve done.” She stressed that she and her children eventually had a successful Raisin. “But it didn’t work out in the end because my academic husband stepped up — it worked out because of everyone else.” Does it ‘take a village’ to raise academic kids, just like in real life?

What are the parallels with real relationships? “I guess when I was going through this, I found [...] the parallels between like real relationships with real children, and ‘fabricated’ relationships with academic children,” Annabelle said. “How many similarities there were in women taking control and the men just kind of going along and being the ‘fun dad’? Showing up to do the fun activities and wanting all the fun things, but not realizing the work behind the scenes.”

Is the slacking off of academic dads a fact of life? Or, like in real marriages, is there more going on? How much of a stretch would it be to link the neglect of academic fathers to patriarchal norms? Why can men skip (academic) dad duties because of coursework, but Mum has no excuse? Nina had thoughts about her academic dad. “He definitely got away with it more because of the patriarchy,” she said. “Our aunt at the time had more expectations to participate than our dad, even though she was the aunt, […] partly because she’s a woman.”

Andrea agreed, remembering how her academic dad said her mother was “too much.” In her mind, that was driven by his resentment over the closer relationship his academic kids had with their  academic mum. Andrea’s academic dad told her that her mum was “too overwhelming.” “That’s a [...] classic trope we see over and over again in a patriarchal society — that it’s not the lack or absence of the man, it’s the fact that the woman is too eager and the woman is doing too much and expects too much. He made her feel like this was all her fault,” she added. That blame was undeserved, Andera thought: “At the end of the day, my academic mum just wanted to provide us with a safe and fun experience for everyone. So, yes, I think it caused a lot of stress. It was weird to experience that as an academic child.”

Claire has just wed her academic husband and plans on adopting children next semester. I asked what she hoped for her own ‘heterosexual’ marriage. “I expect something totally equal,” she told me. “I believe he will step up, but being a woman, I wouldn’t be so shocked if I [end up with] most of the responsibilities.” But, unlike her own academic father, she doesn’t think her newlywed husband will “drop out entirely.” The bar, it seems, is in hell. 

Having seen the grim end of her academic parents’ marriage, first-year Andrea feels fairly put off from becoming an academic wife in her third year: “I’m scared it’s going to be a stressful ordeal and it will be hard to find someone I want to form my academic family with […] My first initial thought is I don’t want a man in the process. I don’t want an academic husband.” 

Andrea looked at me. “It shouldn’t be that deep,” she said. “You should want to share responsibilities. Now I’m more aware I have to find somebody that wants to put the work in. It’s made me question whether I even want an academic family, which is upsetting.”

For those of us attracted to men, let us hope the trope of the slack-off academic dad is not an omen for what’s to come in true matrimony. If, however, the famous stat holds true — that one in ten St Andrews students marry another St Andrean — then maybe the ‘absent’ academic father is a red flag worth noting. 

Illustration: Lucy Maitland-Lewis