Comments on: So You Want to Be a Grad Student Mama

By: Eleanor Seitz

Eleanor Seitz — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 03:06:34 +0000

Thanks for the comment! I totally agree that our community ought to be exposed to female and male academic parents alike. Looking forward to your parenting post!

By: Jason Mittell

Jason Mittell — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 14:54:04 +0000

Great post (that I’m just getting to, having taken a week off “work” for family time)! I’ll be writing something on academic parenting for Antenna soon, but want to just mention that the advice to make your parenting visible is crucial for both moms & dads, students & faculty. I want my colleagues, students & administrators to know that I have kids, to see that often they’re with me when I’m on campus, and to view me as more rounded as a person than just a professor. Plus me making my kids part of my professional life sends a message to my junior colleagues (and grad students, if I had them) that they should similarly be out as a parent.

By: Erin Copple Smith

Erin Copple Smith — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 21:16:11 +0000

Nora, kudos to you for being loud and proud about being a mom/academic! You’re absolutely right that the only way to change the system is from within–by living our lives, doing the best job we can, and being proud of it. I was just reading in a magazine yesterday about how career moms should probably just not mention that they have kids at the office–keep those baby photos away! Don’t tell anyone why you have to leave work at 5:30 instead of 8! To me, this seems like the worst kind of folly–changing our lives and ourselves to suit a system with mucked-up thinking. It’s certainly hard (if not, it would’ve been accomplished by now!), but it’s something worth fighting for, and definitely worth talking about openly and honestly.

Two thumbs up, a hearty pat on the back, and hugs for you (and Madeleine!)–thanks for a wonderful, thought-provoking, and powerful post.

By: Eleanor Seitz

Eleanor Seitz — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 04:38:02 +0000

Thanks for the comment Sarah, you are such an inspiration to me, and really all grad or academic moms.

By: Sarah Jedd

Sarah Jedd — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 22:08:56 +0000

What a great post!

I had 2 babies while completing my PhD and while I did plan them to arrive after course work and in the summer (because I was studying Planned Parenthood after all), I agree that grad school can be a great time to be a parent. Especially in Madison.

I love that you make your motherhood visible, and you seem to have successfully figured out the ebb and flow of parenting/ academic work.

So great to read such a positive parenting post as I sit here almost full-term with baby boy #3, who will arrive with the beginning of the fall semester– the first fall semester I have sat out since kindergarten.

By: Jonathan Gray

Jonathan Gray — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:41:12 +0000

Three random thoughts about “perfect timing” and such, albeit from a non-parent:
(1) A colleague of mine rightly notes that academia already imposes on our lives a heck of a lot (we usually don’t get to choose where we live, for instance), and thus he defiantly recommends that we all refuse to allow it yet more powers by dictating when we can and can’t have kids.
(2) The fallacy of timing a birth perfectly seems to be wrapped up in two further fallacies of time, one that expects that kids will only need attention for a few months before they magically take care of themselves and let you get back to whatever you were doing before you had them, the other that expects that academic pressure somehow lets up at a magical point in the future (first job? no way. tenure-track? ha! even tenure only really allows one a break if one actively pursues a course of being a deadbeat).
(3) I grew up moving around the world, and people’s most common reaction when I tell them this is to ask if it was really hard on me. There’s an obvious social censure implied against my parents for straying from the supposedly ideal path for parenting. But I loved it and attribute what I’d like to think are many of my better qualities (few and far between though they may be) to this experience. This makes me inherently suspicious of notions of when, where, how, etc. child-bearing and -raising should occur, and makes me think it can be great to have your kids move around a bit, whether from grad school to job, and/or job to job. Yeah, I hated first day in a new school, but I also hated dropping an ice cream, and I dealt with both.

By: Sharon Ross

Sharon Ross — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:39:52 +0000

Nora–loved this post! Whether you’re going “straight through” and having a child during grad school, or end up having a child pre-tenure (my sitch), or returning to grad school as someone with kids–it ain’t easy, right? (Such irony for those of us specializing in issues of gender or labor…)

You are right that most institutions look askance at mom professionals…and still in a way-sorry guy academic dads I love–that is not the same for dad professionals. Referring back to posts on balancing teaching and research from the past few weeks on antenna, one “trick” really is figuring out what you ultimately want from your life. Going through pregnancy while doing tenure and the first book, breastfeeding while doing conferences, dealing with the terrible twos and threes while aiming for audience research–I feel some of your pain! 😀 (and salute you) But what gets me through any given day is my love for my son–and Amanda is right that female profs are discouraged from saying such things (though I find my students respect this more than many colleagues…). But truly, I know my kid wants me to be happy–in work, at home, etc. So you strike the balances you can, and let go of what you can’t manage.

I think your post shows we still as feminists (and humanists) need to fight for the right of academics to be actual people. I also think all moms and dads in academia owe it to themselves to consider the connections inherent in choosing to raise a child and choosing to teach other people’s children. We hopefully choose this path (motherhood, career, or both) to make a difference somehow. Be that a book, a class, or a glorious swimming class with your kid, or all of these things-in the end, the most important thing (I believe) is to make your choices based on your best intentions and simply know the consequences and be prepared to handle them.

By: Cynthia Meyers

Cynthia Meyers — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 20:27:08 +0000

Attitudes in academia toward motherhood (and what is an appropriate level of mothering) vary widely, so I decided to take my chances and do what I believe is appropriate at any given time. There is just no way to anticipate how (if at all) you will be penalized by your commitment to your child(ren). I figure it is better to follow one’s own instincts than follow well-intentioned but possibly wrong advice about how to prove one is sufficiently serious as an academic/mother. Here’s sending you good luck!

By: Greeney28

Greeney28 — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:28:27 +0000

Thanks for the post. I have watched my fellow students struggle to get through school with kids-sometimes with partners, sometimes without–and I have NO IDEA how they do it.

A few other thoughts–while a four-five year PhD may be idealized, for a student parent (particularly one that is a single parent), does funding provide flexibility for their schedule, even if that includes a break in the middle or a need to extend their time completing the program? What about priority for summer teaching–should a parent/student who may need the money more than a non-parent/student get any priority treatment? Or heck, with respect to the routine scheduling of course times for teachers, are there explicit or implicit policies to guide these decisions? For instance, depending on child care situations, some parent scholars need to teach during the day and some prefer to do so at night–how accommodating can universities be with these situations? More to the point, how can a department encourage a spirit of generosity among parent and non-parent scholars when implementing these sorts of policies?

I joked with a friend that comps was actually the idea time for her to consider having a baby. With coursework completed, she had a more flexible schedule so a pregnancy in early fall would be ideal (despite the possibility of morning sickness, etc). Then a prospectus could be written in the spring, with a baby born in time for summer break. Then in fall, after struggling through the rough first months with baby over the summer, dissertation work could begin in earnest. The other benefit being that a prospect job candidate would have a child more ready to be in day care should the ideal job be achieved. The more I think about this plan, the more I wonder if it isn’t preferable to having a baby while new on the job or delaying till after tenure. Maybe being a grad student parent is the best possible approach to an always challenging situation?

The truth, of course, is that there is no perfect time to have a baby, but I contemplate these things with my female cohort quite often, and I very much appreciate you sharing your own experience and making motherhood as visible as possible.

By: jennifer

jennifer — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 15:56:27 +0000

Great post with lots of interesting points to consider! I defended my dissertation this spring at 5 1/2 months into my first pregnancy. I had entered grad school in my late 20s, actually hoping that I would feel ready to have a child while I was still in grad school – precisely because, as stressful as grad school is (especially the first few years), beginning a TT post is, from all accounts, that much more time-consuming and stressful. For a range of reasons (including a series of funded research opportunities that took me abroad for various stretches of time), I’m due to have my first child in September, and once I found out I was pregnant, I decided to take the year off from teaching (since I didn’t land a campus visit TT post and my partner has a stable income and insurance, I was in the privileged position to make this decision early this spring – I recognize that not everyone has this option, nor is it a choice that everyone would be comfortable making). It’s interesting, because I still sense that many academics tense up when I tell them that I’ve just defended and I’m planning on taking the year off to be a stay-at-home mom while on the market again. I plan on going to the MLA this year, and frankly I wonder what the reactions will be to my choice.

In sum, it is imperative that we all make decisions based on what works taking the sum total of our individual lives in account, rather than exclusively based on what the academic calendar and clocks try to dictate to us. And choosing mentors and advisors who are supportive of taking personal life into account, whenever possible – this is another way that we can change the atmosphere. Let’s keep talking…