A new human being
I was always postponing creating a new human being. I feel that many women in academia can relate. Over the years in academia, I've heard so many stories of women being scared to have children, to take maternity leave, or have gaps in the cv due to new childcare responsibilities.
When I was doing my PhD, I thought: of course I cannot have a child now. I had a 3-year contract with the university, and I had to finish my PhD within that timeframe. I had very little support from my supervisors, and in the end of that journey my supervisor plagiarised my work. Removing him from my supervision took a year. It was incredibly stressful too. After I finished my PhD in England, I moved to northern Sweden. My contract was a 2 year one. I thought: of course I cannot have a child now. I'm on a temporary contract. There is no end of short-term contracts and constant relocations in sight. I promised myself that when I get a permanent position, I would finally have a child. After Sweden, I moved to Finland. It was yet another short-term contract. In the middle of it, the manager asked me to choose between my work and my relationship. Her supervisor tried to replace her so I could have another line manager who would empathise with the fact that some (perhaps even most) humans want to have both, a job and a relationship. But he failed. I moved to Denmark and moved in with my partner. We decided to have a child without waiting for the perfect time. Ideally, both of us would have stable, secure jobs. I would have a long-term residence permit in Denmark. Yet, life unfolds in its own way, and it felt wrong to wait. In the end of my life, I would not want to look back and think that I missed an opportunity to have a child because of the state of academia. No one should choose between having meaningful work and a family. Unfortunately, academia is often not a good place to fulfil one's diverse callings.
In the past 15 years, I've been on the path of practising a sustainable mode of living (that is best described as a constellation of various zero-waste, slow living, simple living, and minimalist practices). In the past few years, I've been studying my lifestyle formally via a method called autoethnography (self-ethnography). These notes are my autoethnographic data. I've always known that I would continue to work on my autoethnography throughout my pregnancy and our life as a family. It's been my dream to write another autoethnographic work dedicated to this new chapter of my life, and a book, together with my partner, about slow and minimalist parenting.
It was easy to practise extreme minimalism when I lived on my own. I lived without furniture, with less than 50 personal possessions. Inviting a new human being into our lives comes with big changes. When we first mentioned our desire to have a child to a fellow human, a family member, the first thing we heard was that we needed so many new things. Indeed, when I looked, out of curiosity, at what is marketed to pregnant persons and then to new mothers and young humans, I was overwhelmed. I understand that whatever humans buy for themselves and for their children is because they want the best outcomes for their children and themselves. It is not because they want to destroy nature or contribute to overconsumption. And yet, I've felt that I wanted to relate with my body, my yet unborn baby, and then my child very differently. I want to base these relationships on the same principles that I base my lifestyle on. Enough-ness. Slowness. Simplicity. And I want to write about it.
In the first 6 weeks, I didn't invite anything new into my life, apart from a large glass jar. The jar came with food. I removed the label, washed it, and began to use it for tap water that I drink more of these days. I infuse peppermint tea in another upcycled glass jar and sip this tea throughout the day.