The fulls are all married to high school teachers and there is a certain feeling of comfort and ease they exude at work when they are in the company of secretaries and MA instructors only. The happiness and control, the air of intimacy, the feeling that now all is right with the world, the teenagers are off at college or camp, the adults are in charge again and both authority and nostalgia can be felt with full tenderness.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I think this post is profound.
I add to it:
Fathers, deans and department chairs, limiting the growth of everyone else and gathering resources to themselves by telling everyone else to help “their poor mothers.”
That old racket. I’ve told my daughters to stick me in Shady Pines Rest Home when it gets to that point.
Fathers, deans and department chairs start saying that to children, assistant professors, and women not their wives as soon as said people appear on the scene. Your husband if he is going to say it would have started in on your daughters as soon as they were born.
Nope. My family is not like that. We think parents are obligated to look after their children, but we don’t think children ought to look after their parents. Even though we have done it, took care of my husband’s mother, we did not really like it and would have gotten out of doing it if we could have.
Don’t wait till your daughters stick you in. I am already here and I love it. Please just join!. It is all about timing!
The post, though, isn’t about families or about taking care of aging parents. It’s about gender dynamics.