Being a PhD student is not easy. Navigating the highly competitive world of academia while working hard for little or no pay would be stressful for anyone — but it’s especially challenging for graduate students who are parents.
Featuring contributions from more than forty current and former graduate students raising children, Parenting while PhDing offers valuable advice for both students and administrators. Each short and engaging narrative provides personal insight and practical recommendations for child care and self-care, building supportive networks, or developing new personal and professional identities. The collection also shares thoughtful suggestions for making graduate programs more inclusive and responsive to graduate student parents’ needs.
Recognizing that not all graduate students have similar backgrounds, Parenting while PhDing features a diverse range of viewpoints, including queer, trans, disabled, BIPOC, immigrant, and first-generation college students. The authors represent a variety of disciplines, from the natural and social sciences to the humanities and health-care professions.Together, they put forward fresh perspectives on the experiences of graduate students with children and discuss strategies for managing the dual pressures of parenting and the academy.
Foreword by Caroline Grant
Change the Conversation: An Introduction, Jackie Hoermann-Elliott and Jenna Morton-Aiken
Part 1: Stay Alive
Chapter 1: Embrace the Multiplicities: How Internarrative Identity Theory Transformed My PhD Journey, Judith Chriqui Benchimol
Chapter 2: Leverage Your Assets: How Parenting Shapes (and Benefits) Our Scholarly Identities, Jennifer C. Judd, Whitney Zahar Rich, and Alicia C. Beretta
Chapter 3: Be Your Own Advocate: Prioritizing Self as a Pregnant PhD Student, Elizabeth M. Williams
Chapter 4: This Too Shall Pass: Strategies for Mothering While Studying as a Distance-Learning Graduate Student, Elise A. Green
Chapter 5: Just Be Okay: A Reflection on Pandemic Parenting, Burnout, and Healing, Emily Gresbrink
Chapter 6: Speak Out: Dismantling Master Narratives and Toxic Work Culture, Keith Jackson
Chapter 7: Send Away the Cucuy: One Mom’s Journey Through Graduate School While Battling False Expectations, Karen Tellez-Trujillo
Chapter 8: Orale! Apply and Earn Tu Degree: Parenting While a (Chicana!) Doctoral Student, Dalel Serda
Chapter 9: Stay Alive: A Black Mother’s Responsibility to Ride Grief’s Hills and Live, Lisa E. Wright
Part 2: Your Body Has Other Plans
Chapter 10: “A Lot of Us Can Swim”: One Queer Student’s Advice for Mentoring Pregnant and Parenting Graduate Students, Rachael Jordan
Chapter 11: Expect the Unexpected: Navigating the Early Dilemmas of Becoming a Graduate Student Parent, Laura Fitzwater Gonzalez
Chapter 12: Do Have Kids in Graduate School: Resisting Chilly Advice and Treatment in Graduate School for Prospective Parents, Natasha Trace Robinson
Chapter 13: “Send Those Damned Emails”: Experiences and Advice from My Premature Birth, Tiffani K. Tijerina
Chapter 14: Don’t Divide Yourself: Building Hybrid Work Practices to Reconcile the Competing Identities of Graduate-Student Parents, Jennifer Burke Reifman
Chapter 15: Your Body has Other Plans: Finding Support and Forgiveness for Morning Sickness, Kathryn Lafferty-Danner
Part 3: Juggle What Matters
Chapter 16: “Go to F*cking Disney World”: Establishing a Work/Life Balance and Learning When to Say “No”, James B. Harr, III
Chapter 17: Cobble Together the Village: Securing Childcare as Graduate Student Parents, Calvin Olsen
Chapter 18: The World Won’t Pause: What to Expect When Co-Navigating the Academic and Professional Job Market with a Newborn, Daniel Henke and Erin Henke
Chapter 19: Reframe the Narrative: A Conversation on Navigating Childcare in a PhD Program, Camila Ring, Brita Thielen, and Hayley Verdi
Chapter 20: Know When to Move: Intentionally Choosing When to Share News of Fostering with Your Committee, Aleashia Walton Valentin
Chapter 21: Find Ways to Shift: Reimagining Labor in the Postpartum Period Amidst the PhD, Courney Lund O’Neill
Chapter 22: Give Yourself a Break: Juggling Rugrats, Experiencing Regrets, April Cobos, Daniel L. Hocutt, and Megan McKittrick
Chapter 23: Create a Toolkit: How we Developed Practices of Care to Survive as First-Gen GTA Parents, Danielle M. Koepke and Gitte Frandsen
Chapter 24: Juggle What Matters: An Autoethnography of a Graduate Student Mom, Educator, and Caretaker, Celeste L. Graham
Part 4: Push Back
Chapter 25: You Can be Both: Navigating Complementary not Contradictory Roles as a Conservative Muslim Mother and Academic, Nabila Hijazi
Chapter 26: You Don’t have to Keep Going: Reflections on Navigating Crises and Precarity as an Excluded Scholar, Amie McLean
Chapter 27: Know the Problem Isn’t You: Addressing Systemic Barriers for Parents in PhD Programs, Lourdes Fernandez, Jessica McCaughey, and Rachael Graham Lussos
Chapter 28: Question Normative Tropes: Possibilities for Queer Parenting in Graduate Programs, Beth Buyserie
Chapter 29: Get Rid of the Gauntlet: Redefining a Scientist’s Parenting Experience in Academia, Kristin L. Osborne
Chapter 30: Push Back: Identifying and Handling Retaliation in Order to Stop A Leaky Pipeline, Siham Lekchiri and Barbara A.W. Eversole
Part 5: Leave a Note
Chapter 31: There’s Never a Good Time: Navigating Graduate Medical Education while Pregnant, Stephanie L. Graff, MD
Chapter 32: Things Don’t Always Go According to Plan: Navigating Pregnancy Loss and Challenging the Culture of Silence as a PhD Candidate, Mariya Tseptsura
Chapter 33: Investigate and Invest in Supportive Spaces: Doctoral Programs that Accept and Enhance the Experiences of Graduate Student Parents, Morgan Buchs, Rachel Flynn, Laura Leigh Menard, and Brandie Bohney
Chapter 34: It’s Not All Sunshine and Rainbows: Emotional Labor and Mentoring in the Writing Center, Jennifer Phillips-Denny
Chapter 35: My Place in the Wolfpack: The Importance of Cultivating MyPacks and Providing Student Parents with Opportunities to Belonging, Jacqueline Cerda-Smith
Chapter 36: Race at Your Own Pace: A Story of How Caregiving Sometimes Means Changing Lanes or Start Times in Graduate School, Joan Jiyoung Hwang
Chapter 37: Lean On: Planning for, Insisting On, and Accepting Support, Sara Bartlett Large
Chapter 38: Leave a Note: Powering Through an Academic Job Market as a Breastfeeding Mom, Danielle DeVasto
Closing Thoughts: From Survival to Self-Preservation, Jenna Morton-Aiken
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors
Index
