successful academics publish good papers and teach "good" classes - that requires *time* to read, think deeply, calculate, write, collect data (if necessary), concentrate on cleaning/analyzing said data, write, revise, and deal w/ rejection, and construct/prep/grade/teach. 1/n

there are not enough hours in the day to carve out enough of the requisite *time* to be a successful academic if you are also a fulltime homeschool teacher/caregiver. full stop.

and we haven't even talked about the time devoted to mentoring/service/networking/emails/reviews. 2/n

but the real problem is not the time it takes to do good research. parent academics are really good at making up the time. we sleep less. we manage.

the real problem is that time doesn't stop. others are continuing to be productive (which is great). but we will fall behind. 3/n

we will fall behind bc there is *literally* not enough time to make up for 9+mo of lost productivity. that's what not having schools open in the fall means: 9 mos of operating at a fraction of your 100% productivity. and start up costs are real when you do get back to it. 4/n

I say this after I've had 3 days of having the kiddos in daycare, not even for full days. I've gotten a lot done but I still have 4 months to catch up on. so no matter how efficient or productive your time, there will not be enough time if schools are closed in the fall. 5/n

ultimately though the lost time isn't immediately problematic for most. it will be in 2-6 years, when we come up for promotion/tenure. when we are judged by our successful academic peers, when they anonymously write their letters, will they remember? 6/n

ultimately, if schools are closed in the fall, parent academics will have to choose btwn their kids, their research, their teaching, and their health (yes, I've left partners out).

that's the choice because there just isn't enough time to do it all. we don't live on mars. 7/7