Comments on Career Coach: Having a Baby in Grad School

• So True
• Posted by Amy on October 26, 2009 at 5:15am EDT

• I had two babies during graduate school, and it almost meant that I didn't finish. It was very hard to relate to "peers" who were so focused on graduate work, and that alone. Isolation is exactly the word.

  I survived because (1) I had very strong family support and (2) I found a faculty mentor who also was living through the reality of life with very young children. His support and simple understanding made the difference between success and failure in my case.

• And so?
• Posted by Bewildered on October 26, 2009 at 7:30am EDT

• I read the the original piece and now this here. Each seems to imply that somehow it's someone's "fault" that either students don't opt to have children or that grad students who do are isolated. But can I suggest that one reason people choose not to have children in grad school is that even with all the supports in the world and even if grad schools were more attuned to the needs of parents, that having a child still takes a whole lot of time. Granted, it's rewarding and wonderful but it still takes a whole lot of time. And guess what, being a graduate student takes a whole lot of time too. I think many of us just decided that we could only do one thing well at any time -- we're not victims, it's no one's fault. How are grad schools supposed to prevent mothers (as suggested in the piece here) from falling behind because they choose (or are forced) into part-time status --- should the hold the rest of us behind to make sure these mothers have someone to talk to? Why are attending classes, having to hand work in on time, etc., presented here as negative things? Don't we ask our students (grad and undergrad) to do this on a daily basis. I do, and many of my undergrads are also parents. Am I supposed to grant a parental dispensation to all the young women in my classes who are parents? Am I supposed to do that not knowing about all the issues that prevent other students from performing on a schedule that makes sense to manage a class of 200? (students forced to work 40+ hours to stay in school, spouses in the military, illness in their families, job loss, etc --- all the kinds of worries, anxieties and "life-balance" issues that students, single and married, parent or nonparent, face at my university on a daily basis). I realize that this post risks "blaming" other women for not making the choice I made (to remain childless), but I don't mean to do that. I just want to know what the women who write these things think that universities should reasonably do to help and by reasonably, I mean something that is fair to all grad students in a program.

• Easier than while on T-T
• Posted by Laura on October 26, 2009 at 7:45am EDT

• I had my second child in graduate school, having entered graduate school with a 2 year old. I think it very much depends on the program, the support you have, and of course, the personality (and sleeping habits) of the baby. I had my second in June, so that I had the summer with her and we were mostly settled in by the time school began again in the fall. I was definitely exhausted that fall. I found my program, both the faculty and the students, to be very supportive and I didn't feel isolated at all. I also had a very supportive husband who did more than his fair share of child care. When another student decided to have a baby, she came and talked to me about my experience and I was able to mentor her about how I managed having a baby and doing graduate work. Though I never ended up in a t-t position, I can imagine that it must be even harder to juggle a newborn and the load of a new assistant professor. There seems to be so much more pressure than there was in graduate school.

• Posted by Admin-PhD on October 26, 2009 at 10:15am EDT

• I had three children while a PhD graduate student. The first two were born in the summer, the first just after completing my Masters exams and the third one week after finishing a complete final draft of my dissertation. I agree that much of my ability to complete the work had to do with the financial support that my husband provided and fellowship money that I conveniently used to work at home at pivotal junctures of both my work and my children's development. However, where I am very much feeling the crunch is now with a new PhD and a family which is comfortable in their respective schools and a spouse who has worked hard to be where he is in his career. No one in my family would prosper from a move to a small college town where I might find a place in a tenure-track position. Currently, I'm working an admin job that includes some teaching--not my number one choice but it is fine. These are choices that everyone makes balancing a family and a profession but I find there are not many in my same position within the academy. Most have opted out of either children or the profession. As such, I'm finding myself alone in the post-PhD realm as well--would this be mitigated if more people were having babies while graduate students? I'm not sure since early career choices seem to be based on the flexibility required to move to a fellowship or a new position in a small college. And then to move again. I wonder, what is the root of this issue?

• Posted by AdjunctMom on October 26, 2009 at 10:15am EDT

• To "Bewildered" -- Does everything have to be a competition? Or a zero-sum-game? When grad students have babies, why does their every move have to be weighed agains what might be "fair" to childless grad students? The system is a lot more "unfair" to those of us who have kids and we're simply told to deal with it or get rid of the kid (gosh, what a liberating choice). Far more women than men are still unable to finish dissertations or achieve tenure because they have children. And since those of us who have babies (including student parents) are providing you with your future students (and therefore livelihood), I'd think a little more compassion, solidarity and cooperation is in order.

• Posted by Anonymous on October 26, 2009 at 10:30am EDT

• I think others have made this point, but it's worth repeating: why should grad school be any easier for a new mom? Of course you have to turn your assignments in on time. Of course being a new mom is time consuming. And of course you won't have time to party as a new mom. That's reality, not some evil grad school dean's plot against motherhood.

• The long-range perspective
• Posted by Margaret , Professor Emerita, Institute of Psychology at Illinois Institute of Technology on October 26, 2009 at 12:00pm EDT

• I had two children while I was in graduate school, a long time ago, in 1963 and 1965. There were no mothers in the program, and I was surprised when they removed my generous financial support when I became pregnant; the assumption was that I would not persist. However, I persisted. I begged, an received, tuition for one course each quarter, and I seriously audited another course so I could learn the content. I really enjoyed my academic work, more than my colleagues who were balancing a full course load (and often paid work). I thought about what I was reading when I was diapering the babies and when we went to the playground. I had time to assimilate the varying perspectives in my multi-disciplinary degree program. What made it possible, and fun, is that my husband was super-supportive and a great, available father; we had part-time household help; I maintained my core study group from the first two years (before I got pregnant); and we continued to live close to campus. I actually finished in the "normal" time (8 years), and started by academic career in 1969. I have been at the same institution, within easy commuting distance (15 min), for 40 years now. The pre-tenure period was much more difficult, and anxiety-producing, than anything in graduate school. I really admire the women who begin their parenting during that time! There is no "convenient" time to have children, but having them early has allowed us to grow up together. I now have the luxury of much more discretionary time to engage only in the research projects that interest me, and to spend time with my granddaughter. I suspect things are more difficult now, with "tighter" program controls in graduate school and in academic career lines. I was a fortunate "deviant" in my era.

• Compassion gap?
• Posted by Bewildered on October 26, 2009 at 12:00pm EDT

• Adjunct mom -- I'm sorry you feel that I am insufficiently compassionate to my peers who have children (Actually, I have one, just didn't do it in grad school). From my perspective, I find many (not all, not even most) of my female friends and my grad students can't articulate what they want, what will help them navigate the difficult process of completing a PhD, landing a job and keeping it with a child or children in tow. For these people universities can never do enough, there's always something more they need that will help more, that will be the magic bullet that makes it "easier" to have a child (never easy) and do their job. What I find among these women is an insufficient appreciation that everyone faces challenges about work/life balance. In grad school, my two friends who did have children had supportive (and well paid) spouses which meant that (despite how hard child rearing is) they didn't have to work a full time job (sometimes adjuncting, sometimes doing other things) when their fellowships ran out and they were still writing. The second income helped them and the colleagues I had at my first TT job who had children, avoid having to teach summer school to make ends meet in a high cost area, whereas my single colleagues mostly couldn't survive on the pittance they paid us so always had to work in the summer. Twenty-five years later, my husband, children and I live in a really nice area of town, whereas my single colleagues have never made enough to jump from condos to houses (and some are still renting). All I'm saying is that everyone has issues and challenges and whereas we parents have huge responsibilites that make it hard to balance work and life, we are being narcissistic to assume that there aren't other life/work balance issues out there that don't revolve around us and our kids. I have always tried, especially when I was dept chair, to find out from the parents in my dept what we could do to help them out, but I also spent a fair amount of time learning about the struggles and difficulties and the different challenges that faced everyone in the dept. Nothing about the jobs we have or indeed about life is easy: institutions should do what they can to help, but we are each of us responsible for being able to articulate what it is that we need in hopes that some accomodation can be made. In my own dept, I think we parents (and it helps that my dept is 60% female) often disregard the issues that face our other colleagues and we put ourselves at the center of things always. I realize that in other institutions it's exactly the opposite, where parents, esp. women, are marginalized and just left to manage on their own. But if we are serious about work/life issues we need to consider everyone. As one of my colleagues said to me once when I was chair --- do you realize how hard it is to be in your 50s facing health issues that involve the need to be ferried back and forth to doctors and not have a family around to help and lean on? Sorry, but I think we should all be more compassionate towards one another, married/single/parents/childless.

• Posted by Always Amazed on October 26, 2009 at 2:15pm EDT

• I'm getting my PhD in Clinical Psychology with a husband and toddler in tow. I think that we're missing the point to an extent. To people who feel as Bewildered and Anonymous do, why is the assumption always that parents want something more? More from the Graduate School, more time, easier work... I don't want any of these things. What I do want is a warmer environment. I want a friendly smile. I want someone to ask "How are you?" and mean it. I want us to stop being cruel to each other. Having a more supportive emotional environment would make the difference for me and several of my friends going through assorted grad programs with kids. As it is, I have to shore myself up for the emotional battering I take every day on campus in a program that likes to pretend it isn't competitive and the students aren't undermining each other at every turn and attracts mostly (though not all) professors who don't give a flip because you'll be gone in a few years anyway. Performance increases when students aren't highly anxious and feel safe enough to push themselves.

• It's Doable!
• Posted by Tailormade on October 26, 2009 at 3:45pm EDT

• I started the doctoral program with a 19 month old and was newly pregnant with kid #2 when I took my comprehensive exams. Gave birth later on that summer and was able to take a semester leave in the Fall. During my semester off, I worked with my chair- who herself made it through a Ph.D. program with 3 kids- on my dissertation. I would come to campus once per week to meet with my chair for about a half hour or so, basically to just talk about my topic, look up some papers, and socialize with my classmates. My husband and my mother made this possible. I tried to really use the time I took off to advance my dissertation work. After all, during the day it was just baby and me at home. I took advantage of her nap times and quiet times to read. You just have to accept your limitations and try to work around them. After a certain time in the afternoon, I knew that I wasn't going to get much else done because I had to pick up the oldest and then start the evening routine. But just by staying as active as possible, by the time I returned to school in February, I was ready to hit the ground running. The key is good child care and a supportive department. I was blessed to have a "been there/done that" chair who's only requirement was progress. It didn't matter to her if you were sitting at home working or in your office working. When she asked to see your introduction, Chapter 1 or whatever she just wanted to see it. She is a great taskmaster and it kept me progressing. I think she fully understood the pitfalls of trying to writing a dissertation while parenting and always kept me moving forward. The key to success here seems to be a supportive and financially able partner and a good suppport. It's not ideal to proceed through a doctoral program with small children, but it's clearly been done. I think you have to make up in your mind that you'll just push through it and perservere. I know that sounds simplistic, but that's what it boils down to.

• things are better now
• Posted by grad school mom , advisor on October 26, 2009 at 6:00pm EDT

• Those of you just finished school don't realize what it was like for women in the 70's. I was one of only 2 women accepted to my graduate program, and when I found out I was pregnant I was promptly told to quit and "give the position to a man who would use the education". I refused, but was told I couldn't take any time off from the program. I had my son Sat. night and returned to school Monday morning. I managed to bring him to the dorms and nurse him in between classes. I was the first in my class to complete my internship and receive a psych license. At least women now have the option to decide if they want to pursue both endeavors - it wasn't long ago that we were denied access.

• Posted on October 27, 2009 at 5:15am EDT

• I didn't have my child until the same year I got tenure and wouldn't have had the courage to do so in grad school. However, I will add that I think campus/faculty/family housing is extremely important in this picture -- in the places where it exists. At my midwestern university, that housing was only open to married couples and families, and more of the latter tended to take advantage of it. It created an alternative kind of community not matched in the singles& group apartments and houses typical of my grad school experience. Mothers spotted each other, formed dinner clubs (where they took turns cooking for the group of them) and so on.

  For what it's worth I don't think there's any reason to pick fights here. Mason seems interested, in much of her work, in the chasm between women's stated family goals (for example, I would love to have had more children) and the setting(s) -- grad school, jobs, etc. -- where they frequently fail to reach them. It's completely reasonable to ask which factors seem to be important in this dynamic.

  I'm optimistic that things have and are changing. When i started grad school 20 years ago, I hadn't had as an undergrad any female mentors with children. When I see my students go off to grad school now, the majority of women who've taught them have families, of whatever size. I think many of us strive consciously to make our families visible to our students. Then, when they grow up to be deans and make decisions about childcare, etc., they won't be such ignorant a&&hats.

• Grad. student
• Posted by Kay on October 27, 2009 at 9:30am EDT

• I am a 5th year PhD student with 2 kids. I had my first at the end of my second year and then took the summer off. I came back and took my second set of quals (my dept. has 2 sets). I had my second son this summer at the end of my 4th year, right after proposing. I should finish either Summer 2010 or Fall 2010, which is mostly on track for a 5 year PhD.

  I personally have had a hard time with grad school. I think the fact that grad school is very isolating contributes to that. In my program and lab, after classes are done (after about the first 2 years), we sit at a computer all day, pretty much never conversing with anyone else. So, after I had kids, I just did all my work at home. I meet with my advisor weekly and that is pretty much my only contact with people besides playdates and such. I don't know if there is any way the department could improve that - in fact, being able to work from home and do my research is a huge boon to being a mom. And if I were going to be a professor, there is no way my schedule could be as flexible as it is now. In my field, Electrical Engineering, this really seems to be the best time to have a baby. And my advisor is the most understanding person I know, so this really helps things. The university is also helpful to graduate students with children and has seminars and monthly events for graduate student families. Of course, motivation is hard to come by when you are working completely on your own, but it seems to be much the case for all graduate students.

  Being a mom makes graduate school harder, but I agree it's mostly a time issue. Kids take a lot of time. The hardest part for me is trying to balance how I want to parent with doing grad school. I had honestly planned on being a stay-at-home parent, but figured I had a great setup and should at least try out grad school. Could I do that with any other job? No, probably not. On the other hand, trying to be essentially a full time parent with almost no child care (by my own choice) while trying to finish a degree is not the best for my sanity.

  Of course, one issue in academia that can make it more difficult is the severe lack of women. My department has almost no women faculty and the ones I know do not have children. Of course, this is engineering. So, a lot of people just don't get it. I could imagine with a different advisor, this being a HUGE problem. And I do feel like a pariah in the department, but the only person I really have significant content with is my advisor, so it's not a big deal. But the environment in a department like mine with faculty mostly made up of men in their 50's and 60's and with only 20% women students, most of whom are not American (and are often shocked that I would have more than one child), would have a very different vibe than the kind of departments a lot of other people are in.

• Do-able?
• Posted by Wombat on October 27, 2009 at 2:30pm EDT

• Oh, it has been so hard. I was pregnant with my first at my undergrad graduation, husband was in grad school. Stayed home with him for 2 years, colicky, difficult. Moved really far away, started grad school, and had my second at the end of my first year, took a summer off and went back full-time in the fall. Husband is a post-doc/adjunct, we don't make much money. Our older son had a lot of behavior problems this year and that was a huge source of stress. We just switched to half-day care and juggle our work schedules to stay home afternoons. It's been good for our family, but harder to squeeze in work.

  Having kids in grad school has been really hard for us. If I had it to do over again, I would have waited, especially since we don't want t-t jobs. We didn't wait because we didn't want to risk infertility. There was no way of knowing that I would get pregnant so easily. On one hand it's nice because the vasectomy has been done, and it's all downhill from here, but it has been a long and hard uphill battle for the last 5 years.

  I felt like a fool when I announced my second pregnancy. I waited as long as possible and I was so nervous, but everyone at least acted excited for me. I'm in biomedicine and I had what I thought was an understanding PI, but I ended up switching labs and projects at the beginning of my third year because I was getting chewed out for not making research more of a priority (I was at the bench 7 days a week). I switched to an advisor who I know well, he and his wife are both profs, with 4 little ones. That has made all the difference. Switching labs was stressful, but my salvation, even though my research project is not my favorite topic anymore. You never know when someone is going to be supportive or not, no matter what lip service they pay to pretend they're supportive, or maybe my old PI really thought she was motivating and supporting me.

  People comment to me all the time about how much they admire me and think I've got it so together and I'm "doing it all" but I wear no masks and I'm probably more brutally honest than folks would like about how tough it is. I don't know why they still think I have it together. Our lives feel like they're falling apart about 50% of the time. In fact, I haven't been to work in 4 days because my toddler and I are both sick and husband is teaching. Thank God my boss is great. I feel like I'm about to lose it constantly. I don't know why people see me as Supermom, but maybe this is what being Supermom is all about. I sure don't feel super.

  On the topic of special concessions for parents, I have never thought I deserved anything special because of my parent status, but that doesn't mean that I don't think it should be available. I took one summer of unpaid leave after my second was born. I have NEVER asked for special treatment in any of my classes for any reason, including kids. I guess I didn't think it was fair to my classmates or profs to be treated differently because I'm a mom. Every student has a life and has problems, and I think it is best not to burden profs with those problems unless it's a real emergency. I think I get that from my undergrad classes having 200+ students, and feeling bad that the profs had to deal with everyone's personal issues. My peers/profs would have never known I had kids except for knowing me personally. I've had sick kids during exams (husband covered) but I've never had to take a kid to the ER during an exam. That would have required special treatment, for sure. That said, I took loads of classes while pregnant, to the point of major anxiety, just so I wouldn't have to take classes my first semester after leave. I had easy pregnancies though, and bedrest would have required special treatment. However, I did set up my breast pump in a storage room in the lab where I darn well pleased without asking permission and no one bugged me about it. For some reason, no one bothered me when they saw me emerge from the back of the lab with bags full of breastmilk every day.

  I do think it's possible most of the time to keep up with coursework and not need special treatment as a parent (if partner can be with sick kiddos), but if you're doing research, there is no way around the fact that kids will interfere with your work. I don't even bother filling my advisor in on most of the kid stuff because he deals with it himself every day and he needs no explanation or excuses from me. Having an understanding advisor is THE most important thing as a grad parent. It's the difference between life being utter hell and not quite as hellish. Unfortunately, you never know how your advisor is REALLY going to treat you until you're in the thick of it. I would advise against trying to get around paid childcare. There's no way to have both partners working full-time and no childcare and doing well at work and avoiding divorce. Also, having a partner that does at least half of the parenting duties is crucial. I am in awe of single parent grad students. They really should get some major awards or money or something.

  It sure would have been nice to have paid leave, and all the other stuff that people are talking about, but at my school, hardly any grad students are married, let alone parents, so I wouldn't even think to ask. I definitely feel alone. It is hard to feel so alone. Thanks to everyone who has written in about their experiences, it helps me realize that I'm not alone and that there's other people who feel just like I do. When people ask me, I recommend against having kids in grad school. If you asked alternate future me, if I was childless and 38 and infertile, however, I would give you a much different answer.

• It depends on a lot of things...
• Posted by menubia on October 27, 2009 at 4:00pm EDT

• Like everything in life, being successful as a graduate student and a mom depends on many factors. It depends on the stamina of the mother, the support structure that she is able to put together, and the culture of the program that houses the doctoral program. My faculty advisor had her child one month after defending her dissertation, took her 4 m/o daughter to an AERA presentation she was doing, while there she interviewed for a tenure-track faculty position with her daughter present! When the university's hiring committee didn't even hesitate to have her four-month-old daughter in the room during the interview, she knew things were going to go well. And sure enough, they did. She was hired on the spot. I am currently a student at the same institution where my faculty advisor is working and is currently going up for tenure. I can attest to the child-friendly environment of the school that extends up to the faculty and down to the grad students. I brought my two children (2 and 4) to the Dean's Reception where the Dean of the school himself warmly welcomed them. And let me tell you, the expectations of the graduate students rival any graduate program with high expectations and exceptional rigor. I feel confident that I will receive a PhD from a first rate institution that is progressive enough to know that the PhDs they produce are successful because they are people with lives first and not just a product of their institution.

• You can do it if you want to.
• Posted by Twinspiration , PhD student/Agricultural Economics at University of Missouri on October 28, 2009 at 5:45pm EDT

• I am a single mother of twin 14-month-olds and a full-time doctoral student in Agricultural Economics and a major research university. I started my program four days after giving birth (although I didn't actually go to class until two weeks later). Not only have I kept up with my peers, I'm doing extremely well in the program. It has not been easy, but graduate school, single motherhood, and motherhood of twin infants is not supposed to be easy. It has been rewarding, both personally and professionally. I find being in graduate school on a fellowship much more flexible than having a full-time career would be right now. How many other single mothers of twins got to spend 3-4 days a week at home with them for the entire first year, plus are looking forward to 5 weeks at home with them over winter break, at the same time enjoying an intellectually stimulating "career" and environment, plus fellowship money and benefits. I may be in the minority, and perhaps crazy, but you can find a way to have kids in graduate school if you want to. You may even find you like it.

• Posted by On-the-job-market-right-now on October 30, 2009 at 11:00pm EDT

• Thank you so much to everybody who posted here, there are so many grad student mothers out there! I got pregnant during my first year in a Ph.D. program. My son is now 6 years old, I am working on my dissertation and applying for jobs. One thing I know is that it could have been impossible for me to have a child and progress in the program without all the help I received from my parents and husband. My husband and I have decided that we are not having any more children. He is a medical student, and I cannot imagine having a kid again with a resident who is not at home most of the time! I was very scared when I got pregnant---I thought they would kick me out. Surprisingly, everybody was so supportive and understanding. On my part, after my son was born, I was back in the lab one week later. Sometimes I think that I was a very lucky person. Yes, it was extremely hard when he was born and I had to juggle studying for research methods and feeding him at night, but it is much easier now when he is in school 8-4. He will be in college when I am 40, and hopefully I will have many productive research years ahead:)
  Good luck to all mothers, graduate students and professors!