Thanks to everyone for the well-wishes attached to my last post. And I am happy to see that some bloggers I really enjoy reading are also reading me. Bonus.
So the frequent question of WHEN??? to have children in an academic career has come up again lately. I know a lot of bloggers have addressed this but I recently got an email about it, and my handy dandy tracker tells me that someone surfed in from Google using the search terms "timing + motherhood + phd." The conversation has no end. And it is enormously important to many people.
There is a baby boom coming in my department--the halls of this floor will be downright comical in the fall. Several are in my class, which makes sense--we were a large class and many of us were married or in stable relationships when we arrived. Now we are approaching ABD status, and that seems like a good time for a baby--out of course work, flexible schedule and deadlines. I took job search into consideration with my planning. We wanted two kids, and while it was complicated caring for a newborn baby while still taking three classes and teaching one, it seemed more difficult to go on the job market with a nursing baby. Now's the time to "complete" the family, so the second child will be weaned by the time the job search begins.
The decision to have children as a student was based partially on advice from professors who said it's easier to deal with a new baby in grad school than when you're trying to make tenure. Makes sense. But age was also a factor--my husband had a fear of being an "old dad"--he was 31 when RB was born.
The reality is that there's just not a good time. Having children is monumentally inconvenient. You have to learn to make hard choices, and career cannot always come first anymore. That seems obvious, but when, like many grad students, you have single-mindedly pursued something for so long, it's not always easy to accept that. You come to a new understanding of your own limitations, which can also be hard to take. After all, we've been told since we were born that we could have it all, right?
This is getting long, so I'll add more tomorrow. Here's a link to some articles on the effect of having children on academic careers. And I feel like I should add since I'm dropping this on a negative tone--I love being a mom and I'm pretty darn satisfied with my life--obviously, or I wouldn't be having another child.
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3 comments:
I had both my kids in the summer. The first was born when I had a corporate job. The second while in grad school, though I was in my first year of Ph.D. coursework. In some ways, that was a good plan. In other ways, not. If I had it to do over again, I'd have taken a semester off. But hey, you do what you think is right at the time.
Frankly, having a kid in any kind of job is difficult. Just wait till they get in school and there are a million inservice days you have to juggle. Good times. :)
The reality is that there's just not a good time. Having children is monumentally inconvenient. You have to learn to make hard choices, and career cannot always come first anymore.
Sometimes it's just a matter of saying, "What the heck? Will this really change things that much?" If your answer is "YES!!!", you know you're not ready. But career can't dictate. Because when you come down to it, a life is the sum of its parts, not a slave to any one part. And this is coming from a moderately ambitious Ph.D. student.
Thanks for posting - this in an important topic
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