Impossible to be a Professor Mom?

[Leafytea]

I'm about to go from an MA program to a PhD, having been accepted for the Fall semester. But I keep hearing things such as: women who have kids during their PhD programs never finish; women who have kids when they are junior faculty can't expect to get together in time for tenure review, and will be stuck in a non-tenure spiral forever; no one, regardless of sex or gender, should expect to be a parent--except by adoption--if they are gunning for an academic career.

Sounds very grim, is what I'm saying. Any good news out there at all?

I mean, I've heard the standard lines, about how people who are really good at what they do manage to make things work. How there are women who manage to have it all. But these predictions for my future family life seemed to be largely outshadowed by the grim portents of life-long barrenness or thwarted academic trajectories.

[footestlavie]

I'm about to go from an MA program to a PhD, having been accepted for the Fall semester. But I keep hearing things such as: women who have kids during their PhD programs never finish; women who have kids when they are junior faculty can't expect to get together in time for tenure review, and will be stuck in a non-tenure spiral forever; no one, regardless of sex or gender, should expect to be a parent--except by adoption--if they are gunning for an academic career.

Sounds very grim, is what I'm saying. Any good news out there at all?

I mean, I've heard the standard lines, about how people who are really good at what they do manage to make things work. How there are women who manage to have it all. But these predictions for my future family life seemed to be largely outshadowed by the grim portents of life-long barrenness or thwarted academic trajectories.

My mom is a Prof, and she did just fine. It might be a bit rough while you're in school, or at a time when your life is transitioning a lot. Once you settle down it won't be any more difficult than any other professional career. You'll also be flexible in the summers (eventually), which is a big plus. Many of the profs that I've worked with have children.

[Medievalmaniac]

My mom is a Prof, and she did just fine. It might be a bit rough while you're in school, or at a time when your life is transitioning a lot. Once you settle down it won't be any more difficult than any other professional career. You'll also be flexible in the summers (eventually), which is a big plus. Many of the profs that I've worked with have children.

You know, I'm going to sound really crass here but: SCREW the people who say it can't be done. It most certainly can.

If you want to do it badly enough, then you will get it done. There are plenty of women out there who do actually manage to have a demanding career AND raise a family. They just don't have their faces plastered all over national publications and they aren't getting interviewed in the Chronicle of Higher Ed.

Hey - you got your MA, right? And you got accepted to a PhD program, yes? So, you know you are capable of doing the work required for academic success. There are plenty of extremely single men and women out there who will never achieve what you have already achieved academically.

YES, a decade or more ago, a woman with a child and/or children pre-tenure was in danger of not obtaining it. But the guard is slowly changing. You just have to find a good fit for you and for your family. Having a supportive SO helps. Family in the area to help out with childcare helps. A good, solid daycare program helps - especially if it is on campus. Seeking out supportive professors helps.

My first go around with graduate school, I was married with no children. I had a 3.56 GPA when I had to leave the program because of a very ugly separation and divorce. I didn't finish, despite wanting to, not because of children but because of an adult in my life.

Six years later, I applied for graduate school for a second go-around. I was re-married with a 2 year old. They made me start over from scratch - none of my 21 credit hours transferred. I also had no funding because they went by my undergraduate GPA rather than my graduate GPA, which was significantly higher and from a better school.

Midway through the program, I learned that #2 was on her way. I reluctantly told my professor that I was not going to be able to take the EXTREMELY AWESOME course she was teaching in the fall, due to the excellent excuse of having a baby mid-semester. She looked at me as though I were nuts and said "Why on earth not? You can just come until you have the baby and then either come back when you are up to it, finish by electronic means, or take an incomplete and finish the following term." (My other professor - male - just nodded solemnly and understood why I was going to be missing a term). Guess whose classes I took from that point out....

I loooooved the comment from the (obviously single) fellow lounging outside of the English building one day, when he noticed my very - pregnant bulk: "you know, some people just aren't that serious about graduate school. You'd think they'd wait to have kids." Smug, arrogant know-it-all....he ended up transferring elsewhere, and good riddance.

Long story short, I gave birth mid term, came back the following week (fortunately not a repeat C-section) and finished out the course and the degree with a 4.0. I did not cut corners and did not receive preferential treatment - I busted my butt for those scores. I never took an incomplete for a course, or turned in a late paper. My thesis is also under development as a monograph in cooperation with a publishing house, and I'm already published academically in terms of articles. My children are 5 and 2 now. I find that I am a better scholar with them than I was prior, because I don't waste time. I'm more efficient and more organized because I have to be.

I'm not writing this to brag - although some will certainly say it sounds that way - but to point out that a woman with a child is still an individual with the agency of such. You are still a person with goals, hopes and ambitions, and clearly with the ability to achieve them. The only thing that can hold you back is allowing others to make you doubt that you can do it....you have already proven that you can. You've got the acceptance, remember?

No one can tell me what I am and am not capable of doing. My limits are defined by me. There ARE professors out there who will not hold it against you that you are a mother, and there are professors who will even be sympathetic. Then there are professors who will resent you for it and professors who will dismiss you for it - it's the same in the regular population. You are going to have to just figure out who is in what corner and plan accordingly.

You won't get to hang out and party with the other grad students. You won't have a lot of free time. You'll always be busy and have too much to do. But - you most certainly CAN get your PhD. Courage, Woman!!!

Feel free to pm me if you want to talk.

Edited February 19, 2010 by Medievalmaniac

[UnlikelyGrad]

I'm about to go from an MA program to a PhD, having been accepted for the Fall semester. But I keep hearing things such as: women who have kids during their PhD programs never finish; women who have kids when they are junior faculty can't expect to get together in time for tenure review, and will be stuck in a non-tenure spiral forever; no one, regardless of sex or gender, should expect to be a parent--except by adoption--if they are gunning for an academic career.

Sounds very grim, is what I'm saying. Any good news out there at all?

As I've mentioned before, my sister had both of her girls in grad school. (Note that she wasn't young either--I think 32 when #1 was born.) She went on to do a post-doc at a government institution, then landed a TT job at a R1 university. She just got tenure.

My advisor waited to have a child until after she got tenure. But she did end up having one.

So no, there's no guarantee of either barrenness or ostracism from academia. Hang in there.

[Genomic Repairman]

Impossible to be a professor mom?

I'm calling bullshit on that right away. I work in a department that has like 6 profs who are mothers. They rock at what they do and from what I have seem are great moms. I think if you are going to juggle it you must have tremendous time management skills. Is it more difficult to balance the two things, oh yeah, but it can be done. And I have 6 perfect examples down the hall from me.

[red_crayons]

All of these academia and motherhood threads ignore the fact that having children while holding a 9-5 job (which is really more like 8-7, in my experience, with extra work and lunch and commute, etc etc) wouldn't work very well, either. Working sucks. You have no control over your time. This is a big issue for me these days: how do I fit in doctor's appointments and schedule around health concerns when I'm expected to be a butt in a chair certain hours of the day?

At least in academia you get more flexibility with the hours you work, and choose whether you work from home or the office or somewhere else some of the time. I'm going to grad school partially with the intention of having more flexibility so that I can resolve some lingering health issues. No joke. I'm super psyched to be able to work from 7am-11am, take the afternoon to go to class/gym/lunch/socialize/run errands, and then work again into the night. A regular work schedule doesn't let me work when I'm actually productive, early morning and late evening.

My parents owned a business when I was growing up. My sister and I learned how to cook, do laundry, and amuse each other early on, and got good at leveraging friends' houses and parents for getting around to after school activities. And when we were little, there were neighbors and family friends who took care of us if our parents needed to get extra work done or be away until late in the evening. You need a support system to make this work - but a lot of academia is about building networks anyway, right? Colleagues and cohorts and blah blah?

I suspect a lot of the tricks used in my family to enable parents to work at home would translate well to taking care of children as an academic. I guess having seen how it worked for us, I'm not so scared of trying it myself when the time comes.

I also have a tendency to not care about what people think of me and do what I want for my own reasons; aiming to have kids by 30 probably falls into this category. That personality trait may mean I'm screwed in academia ANYWAY, so...

[fuzzylogician]

All of these academia and motherhood threads ignore the fact that having children while holding a 9-5 job (which is really more like 8-7, in my experience, with extra work and lunch and commute, etc etc) wouldn't work very well, either. Working sucks. You have no control over your time. This is a big issue for me these days: how do I fit in doctor's appointments and schedule around health concerns when I'm expected to be a butt in a chair certain hours of the day?

At least in academia you get more flexibility with the hours you work, and choose whether you work from home or the office or somewhere else some of the time. I'm going to grad school partially with the intention of having more flexibility so that I can resolve some lingering health issues. No joke. I'm super psyched to be able to work from 7am-11am, take the afternoon to go to class/gym/lunch/socialize/run errands, and then work again into the night. A regular work schedule doesn't let me work when I'm actually productive, early morning and late evening.

My parents owned a business when I was growing up. My sister and I learned how to cook, do laundry, and amuse each other early on, and got good at leveraging friends' houses and parents for getting around to after school activities. And when we were little, there were neighbors and family friends who took care of us if our parents needed to get extra work done or be away until late in the evening. You need a support system to make this work - but a lot of academia is about building networks anyway, right? Colleagues and cohorts and blah blah?

I suspect a lot of the tricks used in my family to enable parents to work at home would translate well to taking care of children as an academic. I guess having seen how it worked for us, I'm not so scared of trying it myself when the time comes.

I also have a tendency to not care about what people think of me and do what I want for my own reasons; aiming to have kids by 30 probably falls into this category. That personality trait may mean I'm screwed in academia ANYWAY, so...

This. All of it.

[tarski]

One of the female professors at my school (PhD not too long ago) has 4 children and tons of publications, and her husband is a prof, too.

[gsams]

One of my thesis advisors and closest faculty contacts is a very young tenured prof. I have known her since she first came here (4 years ago) and she had only one child then (he was two, I think). Two years in, she had baby number 2 and still intends on having a third, I guess. She said the same thing that MOST of my female friends who have kids here and teach say - childcare is hard. If you can pin that down, you are golden. The other tenured faculty member I know who is a mom just adopted a little boy. She had to sort out child care months in advance, but other than that was fine. Child care here is outrageous. It isn't that expensive, but good places have mile-long waiting lists.

If your partner is supportive or you have another support system and a place to stash the kids, you will be fine. Plenty of women do it. Our university is actually actively looking for ways to make things EASIER for female grad students and faculty members. They are recruiting women left and right and trying to impress them with the family-friendly environment.

[Lillian]

Hi Everyone –

This is a topic I desperately needed to see on the boards! Parenting in Grad school! As a mom of two children and a non-trad student (I finished my undergrad in my late 30s and now am in my first year of the doctoral program)

My opinion is that any work conflicts with family responsibilities and joys. Time management and balance are crucial- our relationships with our children (and their own development as persons) and with our partners (if that be the case) should NOT suffer neglect from this process. I’ve gotten to the point that if I hear one more person and especially other women without children tell me one more time my family/personal life is interferes with academics I will scream!!! I work hard live apart from my family 4 days a week- and am committed to my studies. However, 50 years from now my academic contributions (if there are any) will only matter to academics. My family will be there to wipe the pureed soup off my chin!!

The real crazy thing is that everyone sees this ie childcare post- birth family life as a woman’s issue. What about the fathers? Dual incomes ect. I know grad men who often leave work to care for their children, are heartbroken at the loss of time with their children, and are receiving the same comments- “you don’t appear to want this bad enough or not ambitious” or “your studies should come first” or so help… the worst “can’t your spouse take care of that?”

Parenting and work do go together- the key I think (contrary to the popular/dominate opinion) is that life does not interfere with academics- academics interferes with our lives……

Lillian

[far_to_go]

I am a 25-yr-old female, starting my PhD in the fall. I'm hoping that the academic-career and the having-a-family gig aren't totally incompatible, because I really want to do both. One thing that recently gave me some good cheer in this regard was a weekend visit to the department while I'll be studying in the fall. Most of the female profs in the department (and that's about 50% of the faculty, since it's an anthropology program ) have kids of their own, including the department chair. In fact, one of the junior profs was unable to meet with me and the other prospective students because she was in the process of giving birth that day; many of the other profs commented that they were happy for her, excited for a new "addition to the family," etc. Two of the faculty are a husband-wife duo who are raising three kids while both being tenured profs. I'm definitely looking forward to having these people as mentors and role models.

It is possible! Yay for academia and yay for having kids!

[grammercie]

I'm a single mother of 2, just finished a 3 year masters program, and will be starting my PhD in the fall. Just avoid people who discourage you--they are not helpful. And possibly have their own motives for discouraging you.

[geochic]

I'm a single mother of 2, just finished a 3 year masters program, and will be starting my PhD in the fall. Just avoid people who discourage you--they are not helpful. And possibly have their own motives for discouraging you.

Good Job! I am also a single mother of 2 little guys and I'm starting my Masters this Fall! I love seeing this!

Re: the topic-I know plenty of profs at varying stages of their careers w/ children of all ages and being a mother has not prevented them from achieving academic success-

[grammercie]

Thanks! I took a year in between to work & apply for programs. I'm so excited to be back in school, I don't even have words! The kids just laugh at me, "Mom, WHY do you like school again?"

[captiv8ed]

My favorite professor was a single mom who has written several books and is quite famous in her field. She actually found teaching to be a more parenting friendly field because she could do so much of the work from her. Her son is now getting a Master's degree and it has all worked out really well. Plus she had great access to reasonable child care.

[ursprache]

A very relevant article from today's Chronicle:

http://chronicle.com/article/Women-Tenurethe-Law/64646/?sid=oh&utm_source=oh&utm_medium=en

[mae]

my parents are both professors, my mother had me her last year of grad school. They both have tenure, and my mom actually has to commute to work--they're at diff. universities--hers is two hours away from where we live so she has a little house up there. its worked out really well, i wouldn't be concerned