Tag: PARENTING

When Caring and Academia Collide: The Silent Struggles of Academic Parents with Extra Caring Responsibilities by Barbora Jedličková

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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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Losing Belonging, Value, and Financial Safety to Motherhood: An International Student’s PhD Story by Joyce Vromen 

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In the early stages of my PhD, I felt like I belonged. With not just hard work and passion carrying me through, but the sense of fitting the system being like cycling with the wind in your back. I arrived as a motivated international PhD student on the other side of the world, full of ambition and excitement, eager to prove myself, contribute, and learn. 

I had grown up in The Netherlands with a keen interest in human behaviour and cognition. I completed my bachelor degree at the Radboud University Nijmegen and then went on to complete a highly competitive 2-year research master degree cum laude at the University of Amsterdam. As part of this latter program, I first ended up in Australia, interning in a university research lab. Looking back now, I would describe my young self as bright, ambitious, and adventurous. These days, being a mother to two teenage daughters, I can’t help but feel quite fond of and protective towards this young woman.  

What I didn’t imagine was becoming a mother of twins in the middle of my PhD – and how quickly that would unravel my academic identity, financial independence, and mental wellbeing. I eventually developed depression in the aftermath of my PhD, psychotic depression to be precise. The main signs were extreme tiredness, low energy levels, cynicism, feelings of excessive self-doubt, impostor feelings, and for short bursts during periods of depression, experiences of delusions and hallucinations centring around not being good enough. It all felt very confusing and overwhelming and I initially experienced intense shame over my mental health status. Especially around my psychotic symptoms. I had internalized society its strong stigma still associated with such mental health challenges and it compounded my feelings of being an outsider and failure.

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PhD Work-life Balance in Hindsight: Lessons from Parenting by Lauren Saunders

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I’m writing this blog post while my toddler watches a cartoon in the background, and I feel drained by the constant need to multitask. This morning, I peeled clementines for her while leading a Zoom meeting, trying to keep my hands out of frame and appease her without needing to mute my audio. I’m currently five years post-PhD graduation, and have worked remotely ever since: through my husband’s process of immigrating to the U.S., COVID-19, and parenthood. I think often about the lessons I’ve learned since finishing my doctorate about work-life balance. Because my life was so much less complicated during graduate school, I had the luxury of “winging it” when it came to work-life balance, and I didn’t achieve it very effectively. Now that I have to actively grapple for work-life balance as I change diapers while returning phone calls, I have a much different appreciation for what I could have done differently during graduate school.

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Return of the Mummy: The trials and triumphs of a life post-maternity leave by Jennifer Z. Paxton

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There are frequent conversations focused on the impact that having children can have on a woman’s career progression, especially in academia. That is not what this blog post is about. On the other hand, there is also much positive discussion claiming that women can ‘have it all’ and that children should not, and are not, a barrier to women ‘making it’ in their career. This is also not what this blog post is about. Instead, this post is about me and my own personal battles with motherhood, my career and my own sometimes destructive mind. Some of this may be applicable to others and some of it may not, but I hope at the very least that it helps to open the doors of communication for anyone who ever felt like I did and to let them know that things can, and do, get better.

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