Nov. 23

Career Coach: Riding the Waves

By Tedra Osell

I am a senior at the undergraduate level, and would very much like to be a professor someday. The difficulties involved in trying to balance motherhood with graduate studies or accomplishing tenure as a professor seem excessive. I was wondering about the feasibility of the idea of taking a few years off to raise children after completing a PhD but before applying for a professorship. Did you review any information in your research concerning that situation? Do you think it would be advantageous for me to be able to devote myself completely to school until I get the PhD, then devote myself completely to children until they are old enough to be in school, and then be able to enter a professorship without having to take maternity leave or be physically exhausted from childbirth? I am not sure if taking a few years off would be damaging to my chances of being accepted as a professor. I would hope that they would consider me in a positive light, as I would no longer have to take maternity leave, but I am afraid they would view my years of childrearing as inactive and wasteful at a time when I could have been publishing papers and conducting research.

Even so, family would be an extremely important part of my life. I do very much want to have children, and am trying to figure out the best way to balance being a good mother, a good student, having time with my children when they are very young (I would like to avoid child care if possible), being able to devote time and energy to my career to have a good chance at tenure, but still having children young enough so that I won’t risk infertility. I would be very interested in the stories of people who chose to take time off after achieving a PhD to raise children but before becoming professors — whether this is a positive or negative choice upon their careers.

Thank you very much,

This is certainly going to fall under “pointless advice” because inevitably the best laid plans of mice and ambitious young women gang aft agley. I speak from experience: many were my plans, as an ambitious young woman, about how I was going to combine marriage and a PhD and children and so on. Some of the planning was helpful and some of it turned out well, but a lot of things—including me!—didn’t quite turn out According to Plan.

That said. My advice to ambitious young women? DON’T OVERPLAN. Do whatchalike. Life will happen, and you will ride the waves. Really. You can tie yourself in knots planning and second-guessing and being a perfectionist, and all that will do is tie you in knots and waste a lot of time and brain power. You can drown doing that shit. So stop it.

Other pieces of advice:

1. If you’re going to grad school, get a good therapist. I know this sounds bitter, or snarky, or tongue-in-cheek, but it’s actually straight up advice. A good therapist is a good thing to have, especially for those who spend too much time in their heads.

2. Don’t ever devote yourself “completely” to anything. A better recipe for neurosis and disappointment, I cannot imagine. It is good for scholars to have non-scholarly interests and activities. It is good for mamas to have non-mama interests and activities. It is good for children to have mamas who are Doing Things.

3. No, you can’t just “take time off” between a PhD and applying for academic jobs. If you’re going to apply for research-based positions, you will need to have, up-to-date research activity going on. Period. If you’re going to apply for teaching-based positions, you will need to have some sound teaching experience and up-to-date knowledge of pedagogical methods and trends. In the latter case, you can probably get away with dicking around a bit and then picking up the occasional part-time course — which is a fine thing to do — but recognize that that’s what you’re doing and don’t “plan” that somehow this is going to magically turn itself into a full-time tenure-track teaching job.

4. Yes, yes, there will always be people who will be the exceptions to one or more of these rules. Nonetheless. And a lot of those people are crazier and/or unhappier than they will let on.

5. Yes, combining children and an academic career is hard. No, it is not impossible. Let go of the idea that you’re going to be “good” (by which, with the language about “completely” devoting yourself to things, really means being “perfect") at everything. You won’t be perfect at anything. That’s okay.

If you for sure really want kids, then freaking go ahead and have them. You will love them, they will love you, and no, they won’t be Your Entire Life. If you for sure really want to go to grad school (and for god’s sake, are you *sure* you want to do this? Can you imagine doing another job? If so, go do that job for a while before you apply for grad school. Please.), then apply for graduate school and go. You will enjoy it (and if you don’t, then YOU ARE ALLOWED TO LEAVE). If you for sure want to teach, then you will end up teaching. If you for sure want all of these things, then go for it—but give up the idea that you can do them all perfectly.

Get some freaking day care: the kids will enjoy playing with other kids. Do the research that interests you instead of Keeping Up Because You’re Supposed To. Stop worrying about what’s “advantageous.” Stop worrying. You are already one of the luckiest young women in history, with birth control, the potential for money and a room of your own, and the ability to do what you want to do with your life rather than what’s “advantageous” or what you’re “supposed” to do. Honor your feminist foremothers and take advantage of your freedom. Please.

I am, finally. Even if it is in the half-assed way described in (3), above. I was an ambitious young woman who married a young man who adored me, on the condition that he would support my plans. (I do recommend not marrying any young man who doesn’t agree to do that, by the way.) Our plans, therefore, were for me to a full-time professor, to have three kids, and for him to be a househusband. Those plans changed. The changes cost me a lot of angst because I was so hung up on the idea that I Must Follow The Plan. But now I live in a nice sunny locale, and I have one child, who I adore, and I gave up the t-t job, and I have a mental illness I didn’t plan for, and my husband is the primary wage-earner, and he loves his job and I never clean the house and love teaching my one class and writing various things as the mood grabs me and spending a lot of time volunteering in my kid’s classroom. And I am, actually, thinking about learning to surf.

I have it all. But I have to tell you: it doesn’t look anything like I had planned.

Have a question? E-mail Mama PhD.

Comments

Amen to that

Wow. The voice of experience. From someone else who “had a plan,” I cannot but completely endorse everything you so candidly laid out.

I can only laugh, shake my head, and muse about all the places I intended to go, where I actually (and never dreamed I) went, and how it all worked itself out. I am not a cabinet secretary, as I had sort of planned, but I’m in higher education administration and providing a daily role model for my three strong, smart, silly daughters that if you want something—then go get it. No one but you will stand in your way. It is a darn good idea to lay out your “plan” to the significant other in your life so that know what they’re getting themselves in for. My husband, like the writer’s, bought into my career/mommy track plans, which is critical for your communication as a couple at the outset. That’s the best unvarnished piece of advice (along with everything else she said) in the piece.

Live your life; it may turn out somewhat like you planned, but if it does, you probably didn’t learn much. That’s why the rollercoaster is the best ride at the park.

Sista from anotha motha, at 12:55 pm EST on November 24, 2008

plans plans plans

Thank you for the insights. I’m in a similar boat in many ways, in between the letter writer and Ms. Osell: I’m in grad school (for an elementary teaching degree), and I have three daughters at home. The youngest is only 2, and I had some qualms about “leaving” her (as if I would be completely gone... well, some days that’s true, but definitely not all days!). I’d been a stay-at-home mom for 10 years when I started this graduate program, so not doing likewise with the youngest was tricky, but my husband stays home with her the majority of the time (yay for stay at home dads!! and who needs all that extra money anyway?!). Occasionally she goes to a day care lady, has a ball, and resists leaving when we pick her up. My daughters are definitely getting the message that women can achieve, can be intellectuals, and can be very busy and still be involved mothers. I volunteer in the older girls’ classes while I still can, and may end up teaching in their elementary school next year (but then, that’s one of those Plans that may or may not pan out...but it’s ok.) Like Ms. Osell, I’m a hard working imperfect person, grateful for the opportunities in front of me, and raising this family with a forgiving and involved partner one day at a time. It sounds cliche, but it’s the truth. I see the possibility of a PhD in my future, once the youngest is older, but who knows where these plans will take us?

terra, at 9:20 am EST on November 25, 2008

When to have a child

Many of the women academics I coach wonder whether they should plan for the ‘perfect’ time to have a child. In terms of a career, there is no ‘perfect’ time but combining a career with motherhood is always possible.

Mary McKinney, Academic Coach at Successful Academic Consulting, at 7:55 am EST on December 1, 2008

Clock starts ticking with date of PhD

I don’t mean to negate the helpful advice of those writing above others, but there is a very specific answer to the specific question the letter writer was asking, and that is “No” The letter writer asked if an optimal solution to balancing career and children is to take a break after getting a PhD and before beginning her career as a college professor. I am thus seconding Tedra Osell’s point #3.

There is a concept in academia called “time since PhD.” In the sciences, your eligibility for being called a “new investigator” and receiving special consideration in receiving grant money depends on being only a small number of years since receiving your PhD (way back they called it “young investigator", ageism was eliminated with th label “new investigator"; the time period used to be 5 years, more recently its considered to be 9 or 10 years since PhD).

Even outside of vying for grants and awards, reviewers of your CV will want to know what you accomplished since getting your PhD. If there is a period of absence from academia, or a period of low productivity, conclusions can be quickly and automatically drawn (as Tedra noted), especially if only minutes are being devoted to each of a stack of applications.

But evaluators do not draw any conclusions about how long you took to get your PhD, because there can be reasons of funding and direction and having a bad advisor that are not under your control.

Given that the clock starts with award of the PhD, young women today, especially in the sciences, are raising their children while they write their dissertations, and even artificially extending the time of receiving the PhD in order to have more childrearing time.

Finally, there is no high-powered career that is as accepting of child reading as academia. You can do a lot of work from home, and many universities give an entire semester maternity leave. It may be possible for you to not take a break from career, but simply do what men have always done, and combine your career and mothering at the same time.

This is abstract advice of course — my personal story here: http://cogsciandtheworld.blogspot...007/06/lets-start-life-together.html

Psychology Prof, at 11:20 am EST on December 15, 2008