美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Mommy, You Can Do That': Navigating Work-Life Balance Thousands Of Miles From Home

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

It's time now for StoryCorps. Zoe Courville and Lora Koenig first met in the middle of an ice sheet in Greenland. They are scientists, and their work takes them to the most remote parts of the world. They spend weeks at a time studying the impact 1 of climate change. At StoryCorps, they talked about their friendship and balancing work and family.

LORA KOENIG: I remember the first time my son said, Mom, are you taking your big bag or your little bag? And that was his question of, how long are you going to be gone for?

ZOE COURVILLE: Yeah.

KOENIG: I had gotten my first grant 2. I went to the field. I cried the whole plane ride when I left. And I missed his first Christmas. But when I got back, he snuggled right in.

COURVILLE: I had my son in 2011. So you were the pioneer, and I had to ask you a lot of questions. The biggest question I had was if your son remembered you when you came back after being gone.

KOENIG: When you asked me that, I remember thinking I didn't necessarily 3 have good advice. We're scientists. We want data. And we don't have that.

COURVILLE: When I did get back home, my son didn't recognize me. He sort of recoiled 4 when I went to go have my imagined moment of us running into each other's arms. You know, I wondered if I had done the right thing.

KOENIG: Yeah.

COURVILLE: I had one instance 5 that I still sort of struggle with. Someone I respect as a scientist immensely - unsolicited, he said to me, you know, I was in the field a lot. And I was always grateful that my wife stayed home with the kids because kids need their mothers. He very pointedly 6 wanted to let me know that he felt that that was very important. But kids also need their fathers. And you don't hear that a lot.

KOENIG: Yeah. I think I'm a better scientist because I'm a mother because I work harder in the field. If I'm away from my children, there is an extra weight that I have to do even better.

COURVILLE: Just recently, I wanted to do an extra trip to the South Pole. And the way I had phrased it to my husband was, you know, honey, they might need someone to go to the South Pole to drill some ice cores 7. And my son actually piped up and he said, Mommy, you can do that. And so there was a moment where I felt like things would be OK, that my son actually understands what I do is important and is kind of proud of me.

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MARTIN: That was Dr. Zoe Courville and Dr. Lora Koenig at StoryCorps. Their conversation will be archived along with the quarter million other StoryCorps interviews at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress 8.