Erynn Masi de Casanova and Tamara Mose Brown
SEVERAL YEARS AGO the American Sociological Association (2004) published a research brief in response to sociology graduate students’ and early career academics’ commonly asked question, “When is the best time to have a baby?” The answer: there is no “best time” to have a baby because any combination of childbearing/child rearing and academic pursuits involves challenges and sacrifices. Yet given the disproportionate involvement of women in caregiving because of gender roles in our society, women’s careers are more affected by parenthood than are men’s (Hays 1996; Kennelly and Spalter-Roth 2006; Stone 2007a). In terms of the distribution of housework and child-care duties, little has changed since sociologist Arlie Hochschild first wrote about women’s “second shift” (see, e.g., Hochschild and Machung [1989] 2003). As many social scientists now argue, it makes sense to think of “care work” as including care for elderly or disabled family members as well as the raising of children (Folbre 1994; England 2005); this definition becomes especially important as the U.S. population ages. Despite the possibility of viewing “mothering” as a practice rather than a role that only women can perform (Rothman 2005), and despite many academics’ personal commitments to equality and feminist beliefs, in practice it is usually women who take on these caregiving roles in our families (Home 1998; Lynch 2008). The trade-offs required by academic careers are common to all disciplines, though the examples and advice presented in this chapter come from our experience in the social sciences.
This chapter outlines six steps that graduate students can follow in order to negotiate mothering while in school and negotiate school while mothering. Our suggestions also apply to graduate student fathers who are their children’s primary caregivers, although the sexism in academia and unrealistic ideals of motherhood target women more directly (Thierry et al. 2007). We are careful not to generalize from our experience to that of all graduate student mothers and recognize that what worked for us might not work for everyone, given the varying levels of stigma attached to motherhood in different academic institutions (Thierry et al. 2007; Lynch 2008). Yet we feel confident that these strategies can help graduate students manage their studies, research, and roles as mothers despite the negative attitudes and practical obstacles that can make doing it all seem impossible. Before discussing our experiences, we want to make one thing clear. We are in favor of changes in social structures, norms, and institutions that would make graduate student mothers’ lives easier. The advice in this chapter, however, is geared toward working within existing constraints (e.g., expensive or inaccessible child care or both), which can differ somewhat from person to person.
We begin with the following question: How can the demands of parenting and academia be reconciled? Doing coursework and dissertation research and at the same time working to pay the bills in graduate school are difficult even for nonparents. In addition, graduate school is not always a welcoming forum for discussions of parenting, especially for mothers (Kennelly and Spalter-Roth 2006). As recent Ph.D.s and mothers of two young children each, we are often asked—by fellow students, friends, and professors—how we managed to get through our doctoral program in five years. From the beginning of our graduate studies, we saw ourselves as being on a “turbo plan”: with mouths to feed, we didn’t have time, as some students did, to use graduate school to “find ourselves.” We needed to find ourselves some jobs! When one child became two children, the motivation to finish grew even stronger. The logic seems counterintuitive, but having children made us more focused, efficient, and strategic in our approach to the intellectual and practical challenges of graduate school. We describe here some of the lessons we learned through trial and error on the path to the Ph.D.
DON’T MAKE EXCUSES
The ability to make excuses sometimes spares individuals from contending with life’s demands. People make excuses for why something has not been finished on time, why they haven’t achieved more in life, and why they can’t manage both a career and family. Balancing a career in academia (which begins in graduate school) and family is not easy; it is often one of the most challenging aspects of a graduate student mother’s life. After successfully finishing our own graduate program in five years while having children to care for, we feel that the less graduate student mothers turn to making excuses (despite the real challenges they face), the more they will gain the confidence needed to accomplish their goals.
As graduate students, we had to negotiate the everyday monotony of going to classes, attending colloquia and conferences, working as research assistants, teaching courses, completing research papers, and attempting to publish, which became incrementally more challenging once we added pregnancy, feeding, day care, and the time-consuming task of raising children. We are not claiming that all situations are alike; in fact, they are not because some graduate student mothers have partners to help them, whereas others are raising children on their own, but there are definite ways to negotiate completing graduate school and having children, especially for mothers, who have the added challenge of going through pregnancy.
In our sociology department, we heard a variety of excuses from graduate students. Students in our department (at a public university) were not usually fully funded and had to contend with the high cost of living in New York City, so most worked long hours to make ends meet. These graduate students often had to teach each semester to handle their living and academic expenses. In addition to hearing all students’ complaints about the workload, we would hear mothers say: “The baby didn’t sleep last night, so I couldn’t get any work done,” or “I am waiting for my family to come and help me so that I can get back to my work,” or “I will postpone my graduation another year until the baby starts sleeping through the night.” We often felt the same way but soon decided that we were not going to allow ourselves to fall into the trap of making excuses despite visible constraints. We are not proposing a strategy of what Karen Lynch (2008) calls “maternal invisibility”: hiding the fact that we are mothers from professors and fellow students. We are suggesting that being seen as someone who is a mother and also an excellent and diligent student can benefit your reputation in grad school and beyond.
The truth is that no set of excuses will help us as students move forward, so the first suggestion for scaling this obstacle is to prepare ourselves mentally for the challenge during the months of pregnancy or the adoption process. Getting into the mindset of accepting that having children while in graduate school is what we planned for (or not) and that our life must now accommodate this new family structure was one of the first steps we took as graduate students, although we also realize that there are valid financial and social constraints for some student mothers. However, simply understanding this broader context helped us make a commitment that we would not make excuses for why we weren’t getting the academic work done. As a consequence, we began to reshape our goals and outlook, but we didn’t do it alone and sought help from others.
DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK
Many times academics appear to have it all under control. After all, many of us have A-type personalities and feel as if we need to work at an absurd level of competence in solitude. What we didn’t see as graduate students but now see as faculty members is the potential for partnership occurring behind the scenes. Graduate students often feel that they should know how to manage their academic life and parental roles, so they fear asking for help from those who have gone through the same process. However, graduate mothers should understand that others are willing to give advice and many want to help them achieve their goals. In addition, we have resources in our lives that may be able to help us such as other peers, partners, family members, neighbors, professors, and support groups found through university-based psychologists or counselors.
Tamara recalls asking her professors who had children how they navigated their careers, how they timed their children’s births (though she didn’t take their advice; her two children are thirteen and a half months apart), and how they coped with writing and child care. Although their extensive publishing record while raising children set the bar high, they advised her to see the dissertation as a process and not as one’s life’s work. The best advice she received was to wait until getting a tenure-track job to begin her life’s work because at least she would be getting paid well to do it. Simply knowing that the dissertation was a process and an exercise in writing original research made it seem more manageable.
Remember all those times when someone said to you, “Oh, I will babysit for you,” when you were pregnant? Well, now is your chance to take them up on it. Ask a neighbor to take the kids for a couple of hours, or find out if other parents participate in cooperative child care (swapping babysitting duties). If family members are willing to give you some of their time, let them help out. Explain to your partner, if you have one, what needs to happen in order to complete your coursework and dissertation and ask him or her to help you find the time to be productive at school and at home. After Tamara told her husband what she needed in order to complete her dissertation, which included long stretches of silence, he would take both kids to the park, go for a jog with them in the stroller, or take them to a museum. They would be out of the house for six hours on both Saturday and Sunday. For those who may not have weekends to write, there is still an opportunity to carve out blocks of time during which someone can help with child care. Asking for advice, help, or patience from the people in your life will help you complete your goals as an academic and a parent. Explaining clearly what it takes to finish your dissertation or other work is the first step, and then you can ask for what you need. It may not always work in your favor, but as one of our mothers said, “It never hurts to ask.” Plus, once you’re working as a faculty member, there is always the adage that gets repeated constantly: “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.”
CULTIVATE A SUPPORT NETWORK
In planning ahead for the changes that will come about with your newly added family members, you should not only ask for help with child care but also cultivate a support network that is career focused. Graduate students and junior faculty can benefit from working with people with similar goals (e.g., completing projects or writing for publication). So many students get stuck in the ABD (all but dissertation) abyss because they attempt to work alone on their dissertations. This experience is not unique to parents, but it’s easier for us to fall into this trap because we have the best reason in the world for not completing the degree: children.
Added support in the form of a writing group that meets regularly to discuss writing, research, and goal setting will help those attempting to complete a degree in a timely fashion. Pamela Richards’s chapter in Howard Becker’s Writing for Social Scientists (2007) helped us understand that all students go through moments of anxiety while writing, which is why it becomes critical to have multiple readers of your work. You simply cannot work in a vacuum. This support network will push you forward and give you the confidence needed to finish the dissertation.
Once ABD, we formed a dissertation writing group with our classmate Andrea Siegel, and we met every two weeks for five months with a low-stakes writing goal of five pages for every meeting. We often would produce a whole chapter, though, because five pages would get us into a writing groove that moved us past the original required number of pages. By the end of five months, we had written entire chapters and complete drafts of dissertations. Thus, we highly recommend finding fellow students on whom you can depend for maintaining consistency and who will actually read your work and give you critical feedback. By doing this, you will make the task of writing much easier. If you need to bring your child/children to a meeting, prepare your writing group ahead of time and negotiate that you go first so that when the children become agitated, you can leave early. If this happens, be sure to write an extensive email or follow up in person with added comments on others’ work.
The support network does not need to end there. Graduate mothers can also find this type of support through campus organizations, parent groups, and even good relationships with faculty who understand the struggles of parenting while being an academic. Students need to surround themselves with people who will be positive, give them critical feedback, and work in a true partnership that will carry them through their career. Just remember that you should return the favor.
MAKE A SCHEDULE AND PLAN AHEAD
During her first semester of grad school, Erynn mapped out how she would progress through the doctorate program in sociology under ideal conditions (passing exams and courses on the first try, funding my research, progressing quickly). She set goals for each year, planning not only the “what” but also the “when.” Below the timeline, she listed five to eight potential dissertation topics. As time went on, she ruled out unfeasible or uninteresting dissertation ideas and added new ones. Nothing was written in stone: if she hit a snag, she would make adjustments. Because of her commitment to finish in a timely fashion, she ultimately had to give up on finding external funding for her dissertation project. This meant dipping into her savings, getting bigger student loans, and spending less time in the research field. Knowing where she was headed, however, was useful, and she felt a sense of accomplishment each time she checked off one of her goals. This is just one way to approach short-and long-term planning. Those of us with children have to be more organized and clearer about our progress through our graduate programs because it is easy to get bogged down in the everyday details of parenting.
Students often enter graduate school with no idea of their interests and no ideas for dissertation topics. Graduate student moms do not have this luxury! It is a good idea to develop a handful of potential topics by at least the second year. As Tamara was advised, the dissertation is a step toward a goal (graduating and obtaining a professional position), and although you should try to make it as good as possible, however “good” is defined in your discipline, you don’t have to think of the dissertation as your life’s work. If the research project develops into a lifelong passion, that is a wonderful by-product of the dissertation process, but not necessary for career success. Likewise, “progress, not perfection” is a great motto for moving forward and not getting stuck as you write your thesis.
BECOME A “CONNECTOR”
In The Tipping Point, author Malcolm Gladwell (2000) describes “connectors,” people who make it their business to know people and who act as the “hubs” of social networks. If you try to become a “connector” while in graduate school, you will learn valuable networking skills and build the foundation for a future professional network. While in graduate school, we organized a range of informal student activities: pub outings, backyard barbeques, study groups, and writing groups. Being seen as an active member of the department can help compensate for times when you have to miss events because of a sick baby or rush out five minutes before class ends to relieve your babysitter. For instance, Tamara introduced Erynn to students who worked on topics similar to Erynn’s, one of whom spoke in a course she was teaching and is now organizing a conference panel with her. Seek out other mothers in your graduate program or those who are students at other schools; you will sometimes find them to be equally motivated and eager to share their experiences and advice.
Honing those “connecting skills” can also be beneficial beyond your department and institution. If you see someone whose work interests you, send that person an email message or introduce acquaintances who work on the same issues. This is how academics find coauthors and create meaningful intellectual dialogue. It can also help once you enter the job market. And being a mother in academia can make you a special kind of “connector”: seeking the wisdom of other mothers who have made it work (or are trying to do so) in your quest to create fulfilling career and home lives is helpful and a great way to build community as well.
THINK OF CREATIVE WAYS TO COMBINE RESEARCH AND PARENTING
This piece of advice is related to our experience as graduate students doing qualitative research in sociology; it would certainly be more difficult to incorporate children into research on nuclear physics or infectious diseases. But in the social sciences, mothers (and increasingly fathers) sometimes combine research and parenting: anthropologists take their children into fieldwork settings, linguists study their children’s speech development, and psychologists gain insights into child development through spending time with their children. We were able to find ways to make research and parenting simultaneous and compatible, resulting in publishable work (de Casanova 2007, 2011; Brown and de Casanova 2009; T. Brown 2011).
For example, after countless hours of trying to ignore her son’s favorite television shows (so she could get some work done already!), Erynn realized that she could put that time to good use. She noticed that children’s programs that featured Spanish-speaking characters were an unexplored goldmine of data about different versions of multiculturalism in the media. She was soon taking notes on the ways the Spanish language was used and tied to ethnicity, and the result was a peer-reviewed article (de Casanova 2007). This form of research and publication is not always possible, but if there are ways to overlap aspects of our home lives with our academic lives, then we should identify these opportunities.
Trying to get out of the house with her fussy baby, Tamara discovered parks near her Brooklyn home and stumbled onto a fascinating social world. As she got to know some of the babysitters who visited the parks with the children they cared for, Tamara became interested in the work that these women—many of them immigrants—did and the ways their caregiving took place in both public and private spaces. She was able to gain access to this group and ended up combining caring for her child with fieldwork for her dissertation-turned-book about West Indian childcare providers in Brooklyn, New York (Brown 2011).
Becoming parents opened us up to new social settings and cultural products, which can become the source of research topics in the social sciences. We need to learn to take advantage of opportunities to combine parenting and research. Parenting can often produce insights that help us understand our world, which we can then share with others through our teaching, service, and research.
There are no perfect strategies and no “best” time to have a baby (although some do intentionally time the births of children), but, in reflecting on our experiences, we have identified some steps that graduate student mothers can use to “make it work.” Despite the prevalence of negative attitudes toward students with children and the practical challenges of managing studies and research, graduate parents can devise useful strategies that they can continue to use throughout an academic career. Going against the odds outlined in the literature (Kennelly and Spalter-Roth 2006), both of us obtained tenure-track faculty positions straight out of graduate school, one at a doctorate-granting program and the other at a four-year institution. Our strategies have expanded beyond graduate school, and on the path toward tenure we now coauthor some of our work, such as this essay, taking turns on first authorship. This approach works because our research interests are related, and we know each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and work ethic. We organize conference panels together instead of tackling such tasks alone, and we regularly read and comment on each other’s writing.
It shouldn’t be surprising that two mothers would bond over the shared experience of having children, but academic work tends to be seen as a solitary pursuit. Mothers have often organized collectively to improve their daily lives at home and work (Stephen 1997; Pardo 1998), and they can bring this sociability into the academic workplace. Strategies for success do not have to end with the suggestions made in this chapter. These six steps are only the beginning of what might easily be a hundred-point list; our aim here is to give graduate student mothers the confidence to make it work in graduate school and beyond.
