I really hoped she didn’t wake anyone. It was 3am, and Tamsin was up, again, howling. She’s a good baby, very smiley and chilled out, but at eight months she still wakes up. A lot. Sometimes every two hours. Consequently I have done things during the very depths of sleep deprivation that I did not believe possible…and now we are in the field.
Of all the things I thought about when I planned to bring her with us to Qatar on archaeological fieldwork, somehow I didn’t really think about the fact that she might be going through a rough patch and keeping people up at night. Our fellow dighouse dwellers have insisted that it is fine though, and have been exceedingly sweet about the whole thing.
Probably everything about our experience so far has been exceptional; we are lucky to be here with the Origins of Doha & Qatar Project, with Rob Carter, the project director who is not only one of the best people I’ve ever met, but who also loves babies. It’s a gift, really. I’ve inconvenienced just about everybody at York (staff, students, admin…sorry y’all) by going into the field, but they’ve all been incredibly supportive of me trying to make research work while having a baby (especially Claire & Nicky). And most of all, my husband who also works hard to make room for my research. It also helps that we have all the modcons here in Qatar. Living in the “field” in Doha is basically like living in Dallas. Except that the people are nicer. hah.
So, that laundry list of “lucky” is to say that we have a huge amount of support and we take none of it for granted. The opposite of this support is not, as you’d think, people telling us “no, not with a baby” (though there is some of that) but the silent omission, getting passed over for work. When a field season or a lecture comes up, a quiet conversation about how “she’s too busy right now.” Let us decide. I’ve turned down over a dozen opportunities in the past year, and each one ate at me a bit, but I decided. I don’t know how many opportunities were not offered, and I’ll never know. But thank you to the people who gave me the choice.
Anyway, it has been going well, but it has been flat out. Digital archaeological work often means (to my chagrin) not going out into the field, but being behind a keyboard, and that has also worked in our favor. Also our permit has been slow to come this year, so I’ve been managing archaeologists doing heritage work. It’s great but I get stretched pretty thin.
And there’s been awkward moments–there’s never really a great time to dry out a breast pump in the dig house dish rack. Having a baby in field archaeology is incredibly difficult, and impossible for many who can’t be away and might not be able to afford childcare, or who do not have a supportive employer, department, colleagues, husband. Not to mention the super secret cabal of archaeologist parents who offer help, coffee, find cots & pushchairs for you to use in the field (thank you, Paula!) and who know.
But there is support out there, and a cadre of archaeologist parents who are working hammer and tongs to make it better for the rest of us. So, though I’m still a bit shy of putting Tamsin up on social media, I wanted to follow up on my series of posts about Archaeologists-who-happen-to-be-mothers–role models and who handled it much better than I could ever hope for.
And now…I think I hear the baby, up from her nap. God I’m tired. But still here.
Colleen Morgan 