Academia strongly values perseverance; the ability to keep writing, teaching, publishing, and producing even under pressure, uncertainty, and exhaustion. Despite many changes and policies, the culture quietly assumes that life’s disruptions can be managed around the edges of our work, that crises can be compartmentalised, and that any interruption is temporary and productivity can continue. But what happens when life delivers something you cannot simply “work through”? What happens when your child is fighting for their life, or living with a serious, chronic condition that requires significant presence, advocacy, and constant emotional labour? What happens when caring and academia collide? 

For many academics who are also parents-carers, this collision is not an abstract question. It is a lived reality – daily, relentless, and often invisible. I write from that place: I am an academic and a mother of two, one of whom has special needs. My story is not unique. It is one of many that remain hidden behind office doors, muted in meetings, or buried beneath the professional mask we learn to wear in order to cope and survive when life is intense. Yet, these stories matter deeply, because they reveal the human cost of a system that was not originally designed with carers in mind. A system that has been evolving; a system that can do better. 

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