BlogU

  • ABCs and PhDs

    By Liz Stockwell May 6, 2008 9:04 pm

    This is the first posting from Susan Bassow, Dana Campbell, and Liz Stockwell. We are three biology PhDs who deviated from an academic track to care for our children full-time. We’ll take turns posting or sometimes write together. Liz starts us off…

    On the recent International Women's Day, the CBC radio broadcaster asked, "Have women achieved equality?" This had me thinking about our situations. Anyone looking at the career paths we've chosen might say: "Look! The system has failed. These three women should have academic jobs and be productive contributors to the scientific community. Obviously something is wrong here." Yes, perhaps this is true, and although great strides have been made in gender representation in the academy, there are still disproportionate numbers of women like us who leave. In our cases having married fellow graduate students who were further along in their careers, economic concerns meant that we followed them when they got the first jobs. We were at points in our burgeoning careers where we were unable to negotiate for quality positions of our own. Eventually we carved out satisfying teaching or research opportunities at nearby institutions or in our spouses' departments, joining the ranks of women in untenured lecturer and research associate positions.

    But let's look at our situations from a different angle. When our children entered the picture, our priorities changed. How would continuing to teach or do research even part-time affect our family lives? We faced worries about childcare, a more hectic home life, and less time with our children. We no longer wanted better academic positions; we simply wanted to be with our kids. Even if the best, affordable childcare were available to us, we still wouldn't give up this time with our pre-school and school-aged children. This is not to say that we are opposed to daycare or feel that all mothers should give up their careers. We simply made the choices that felt best for us, and we recognize that we’re fortunate to have had the option to be home full-time. Our goal is to increase awareness that there are many others like us, and we have managed to lead very fulfilling lives, putting our biology backgrounds to use in writing projects, in science education at our children's schools, and in community involvement. We may someday get back into teaching or research (or something entirely different). But right now we're not willing to trade the time we have with our children for our careers.

    Perhaps the circumstances that led to our leaving were rooted in gender inequalities in academia. However, making the decision to be full-time mothers was our own choice, and an empowering choice at that. Leaving our career tracks has opened our eyes to new possibilities. And for now, it’s off to toddler gymnastics with my 3-year-old.

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Comments on ABCs and PhDs

  • Posted by Caroline , Coeditor, Mama, PhD on May 7, 2008 at 5:25am EDT

  • Thanks for contributing your voice to this conversation! I think you make such an important point, and I'm glad that you and your fellow biologist bloggers are finding ways to put your education to work without sacrificing time with your families. I look forward to the day when it's less an either/or, however, when the academy offers more flexible ways for parents to contribute (without having to work at exploitative adjunct terms). Your post reminds me of Miriam Peskowitz's, The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars, in which she writes "It's not a politically retrograde choice to leave a workplace that squeezes you too tight, that can't organize its expectations around your family responsibilities. That's called resistance, but it needs a voice, and it needs a path." Kudos to you and your colleagues for demonstrating one truly viable path.

  • Posted by jcl , lecturer on May 7, 2008 at 9:05am EDT

  • Why is this blog described as being about "mothers attempting to balance parenthood and academics" when the majority of the contributors have completely left academic careers? If IHE wants to have a blog about stay-at-home moms with PhDs, that's one thing, but call it what it is.

  • right on...
  • Posted by Physiology Mama PhD on May 7, 2008 at 9:15am EDT

  • Your comments are right on. Until universities offer part-time tenure track positions, job sharing and other flexible work arrangements, women will continue to choose family over a 60 to 80 hour a week work week for a career and a "chance" at tenure. Also, I think increasing numbers of men are going to start demanding flexibility too. I hope the higher ed workplace figures out how to innovate it's structure. Higher ed is already losing lots of women talent due to it's strict structure and men of generation X and Y are likely to start following. I choose a career in higher ed administration because I decided I wanted work-life balance more than I wanted tenure. Of course I miss doing research, but the tenure-track faculty position requires too much sacrifice and I have decided it isn't worth missing time with my family and I want to have a life outside work.

  • resistance or opting out?
  • Posted by Libby on May 7, 2008 at 9:50am EDT

  • I think we need to recognize that there are all sorts of academic careers besides the traditional tenure-track ones. Some of the bloggers are tenured professors (I'm one), but others continue to make their mark in the academy outside that structure. As Caroline and Physiology Mama note, that structure isn't always supportive to academic parents; Liz and her colleagues represent an important voice in this discussion.

  • Posted by Papa PhD on May 7, 2008 at 12:40pm EDT

  • I'm part of the same pool, just the other side of the gender line. I have my PhD, and followed my spouse while I was a graduate student when she got a good corporate position. As I write, my one-year old daughter is sitting on my lap. I am slowly working on publications so the work I have done makes it into the pool of knowledge, and have a lecturer position coming up for the fall to satisfy my desire to teach. I think there is a double problem: more PhDs are granted than there are full time positions available each year, and there is no mechanism to manage this excess supply in academia other than underpaid adjuncts, lecturers, or research associates.

  • Leaving the tenure track
  • Posted by Megan on May 7, 2008 at 1:00pm EDT

  • I don't have any doubt that many women leave a traditional academic career track in favor of staying home with their kids for very good reasons, but I also think the decision is usually influenced by bad reasons as well--the fact that gender equality has not been achieved in society at large or academia in particular. Progress, which I do see, is not the same as equity. I left my tenured job nearly six years ago to stay home with my children. This year I'm back in a new job trudging up the tenure ladder again. I love my job (and my kids), and I deeply appreciate my new university's willingness to hire me "mid-career," but I do think a system which forces me to choose between full-time work and full-time childcare is in need of further revision. I paid a stiff penalty in terms of rank and salary when I left my job. Having choices is great; those of us who can afford to leave the tenure track (or any other job) are surely among the most fortunate; but the fact remains that our work in the home raising the next generation of cancer researchers and police officers and airline pilots is not recognized financially, and, in fact, is punished when we do return to the labor force in many ways.

  • Posted by JAY , Instructor at in the Pacific Northwest on May 7, 2008 at 5:15pm EDT

  • I agree that progress is not the same as equity. Only when we see the majority of men writing blogs like this or talking about how to balance work and family will we have achieved true equity. Far too often still, men either take themselves or are let (or pushed) off the hook when it comes to maintaining the relationship or raising the children.

  • Posted by Dana , co-blogger, ABCs and PhDs on May 8, 2008 at 5:00am EDT

  • I just wanted to reply to jcl’s earlier post with a comment on the diversity of parents out there balancing parenthood and academics. There is a full continuum of approaches to balancing academia and family. On one end there are those who sacrifice in time spent with their family to develop intensive careers. On the other end are those who choose to make sacrifices to their career, and fit in what intellectual persuits they can around working as primary caretakers for their children. Of course there are all sorts of other strategies in between. The primary caretaker option is where Liz, Susan, and myself fit in. We still have the passions that drove us to get our PhDs and do post docs; we think as academic scienists, we write, we publish, we teach, and despite the fact that academia is limited in its flexibility so that our contributions are not financially supported by any academic institution, we do not feel that we have “completely left academic careers”. We are committed to connecting people in similar situations (and we know you are out there!) in order to work out creative strategies to make academia (and academics) more inclusive in recognizing the potential contributions of full-time parents with doctorates.

  • Mama PhD
  • Posted by Phoebe Leboy , President, Assn for Women in Science on May 8, 2008 at 8:45am EDT

  • Seems like there is truth in all of the comments; the problem is indeed due to the inappropriate practices of academic institutions created by men for men with stay-at-home wives, and to fathers who won't assume half of the responsibilities, and to a society that is not recognizing the need for change. The difficulties are particular acute in the sciences, where a researcher cannot set up a lab at home. Is there a potential role for a network of women researchers who are being marginalized? Would it do anything but bemoan the status quo?
    Phoebe Leboy, President, Association for Women in Science

  • Expanding Definitions
  • Posted by Megan Pincus Kajitani , Mama, PhD Contributor on May 9, 2008 at 5:05am EDT

  • I think one of the issues common among all of the Mama, PhD contributors is the realization that our definitions of many things change and evolve over time. Our definitions of our top priorities, of success, of career, of time itself...

    Rigid labels and ideas about what constitutes being "an academic" don't serve any of us well. (Remember, as someone else pointed out, the traditional definition of an academic was a male professor, period.) There are now women and men who have earned top degrees at top institutions who want flexibility to have academic-related careers that go in phases (time off, supported re-entry), and don't follow the restrictive all-or-nothing path. (And, as someone else pointed out, there aren't enough "all" jobs to go around to all the PhDs anyway!)

    Opening our collective minds to allow academic work to take on different forms, different phases, and different definitions can change policies, structures, attitudes, and a culture of academe that excludes too many. We can work together (not rail against each other) to help this opening occur.

  • Posted by Physiology Mama PhD on May 9, 2008 at 8:10am EDT

  • I'd love to see a post about this: http://chronicle.com/news/article/4457/congressional-panel-considers-call-for-more-female-science-professors?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

    When will they get that the work life balance is just as big of an issue. Also, the last sentence made me want to scream!

  • The Myth of Balance
  • Posted by Mary , Professor and Academic/Life Coach at Powerful Mind Coaching, LLC on May 18, 2008 at 9:30am EDT

  • Thank you for your post! I agree with the other respondents about the complexity of the choices we face as women in science. I had my first child the year I went through comprehesive review and my second the year I tenured; the timing could not have been worse! Those experiences, along with my work as a mentor and coach to many parents in academia, have convinced me that balance is a myth- the fact is that at certain times we have to make choices, as you have, to prioritize one thing over another, and the other thing is on hold or gets less attention. The trick is to look at the whole tapestry of academic and family growth as a marathon, not a sprint; sacrificing effort in one sphere to favor another from time to time creates a gestalt that *is* balanced in the long run. Good for you, and enjoy the time with your kids- it goes fast.

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