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[pinkmouse]

http://chronicle.com/article/Why-So-Few-Doctoral-Student/48872/

Are you kidding me?

Next week from the "Dog Bites Man" department, "Why do so few graduate students drive Benzes?"

I'll give some suggestions their article didn't cover: most doctoral students are at institutions that don't offer free child care, "family housing" - good heavens these places sound like Club Med (and NOTHING like my doctoral school).

Also, a lot of people would like to actually be settled into a permanent job, rather than still in training for a career that hasn't started yet, when they start a family. The article mentions average PhD graduation age for women is 33, and tenure at 39: how about fixing that? Instead of asking why people in insecure situations (as PhD students) are not having children, look at how academia can change to get people in permanent jobs more quickly.

And the article also seems to be oblivious to the fact that they answer one of their own issues: after saying that pregnant PhD students feel the need to prove themselves committed more than before, the author goes on to note that those (female) students with children tend to be no longer interested in pursuing research careers.
Is it really so strange then that other people would have noticed this phenomenon? And be wondering whether it's worth investing in a pregnant grad student who is (statistically, apparently) likely to decide NOT to pursue research in the field?

Reading this article was like looking at a parallel universe. I was a grad student in expensive city, while working several part-time jobs, living off ramen: not once did I think to myself "you know, with this flexible schedule and all, this would be the best time to HAVE A BABY".

Seriously, CHE?

[inthelab]

Count me in for a huge rant.  I once had 18 cents (not a typo) in the checking account while in grad school.  Pasta and eggs were my friends.  I had the first Labkid after finishing school.  Don't even mention the lack of envirnomental protections for pregnant stuents in the sciences; if your project required with radioactivity and/or teratogens, you did it because you wanted to finish and get the h#ll out already.

[marigolds]

Yep.  It would actually be FINE to be a parenting grad student right now, except that I don't have enough money to pay for enough childcare and/or housecleaning to give me as much time to work as I'd like. 

Duh.

[zuzu_]

I agree. When I read this article, I thought it sounded like something from the Center For Figuring Out Really Obvious Things

[johnr]

Don't even mention the lack of envirnomental protections for pregnant stuents in the sciences; if your project required with radioactivity and/or teratogens, you did it because you wanted to finish and get the h#ll out already.

Very true.  My dissertation required that I consume large amounts of a notorious teratogen almost every weekend, and many weekdays too.  I didn't worry about it so much because, well, I am a guy, but most of women in my grad school cohort seemed to have the same requirement as well.

[inthelab]

Don't even mention the lack of envirnomental protections for pregnant stuents in the sciences; if your project required with radioactivity and/or teratogens, you did it because you wanted to finish and get the h#ll out already.

Very true.  My dissertation required that I consume large amounts of a notorious teratogen almost every weekend, and many weekdays too.  I didn't worry about it so much because, well, I am a guy, but most of women in my grad school cohort seemed to have the same requirement as well.

I sincerely hope this wasn't a snark.  Exposure to teratogens can occur through the air and not everybody has proper fume hoods with ventilation.

[mozman]

Very true.  My dissertation required that I consume large amounts of a notorious teratogen almost every weekend, and many weekdays too.  I didn't worry about it so much because, well, I am a guy, but most of women in my grad school cohort seemed to have the same requirement as well.

I sincerely hope this wasn't a snark.  Exposure to teratogens can occur through the air and not everybody has proper fume hoods with ventilation.

psst - I think he means booze...

[arizona]

I'll bite. I DID have children as a graduate student, as did several of my peers (and this was in an expensive city).
Graduate school was certainly not a time of great wealth for me, but with a working spouse, a fellowship, and student loans, we did fine. Add in pretty decent university health care...

To me, it made INFINITELY more sense to have children in grad school, when I had a great deal of flexibility, than in the first years of a tenure-track job. When I look at junior faculty members with new babies or very young children, I simply can't fathom how they balance the practical and emotional demands of parenting with the practical and emotional demands of the first years on the tenure track. It did take me longer to finish than it would have otherwise, but so what? My tenure clock wasn't running.

[johnr]

Don't even mention the lack of envirnomental protections for pregnant stuents in the sciences; if your project required with radioactivity and/or teratogens, you did it because you wanted to finish and get the h#ll out already.

Very true.  My dissertation required that I consume large amounts of a notorious teratogen almost every weekend, and many weekdays too.  I didn't worry about it so much because, well, I am a guy, but most of women in my grad school cohort seemed to have the same requirement as well.

I sincerely hope this wasn't a snark.  Exposure to teratogens can occur through the air and not everybody has proper fume hoods with ventilation.

No snark, I was making a joke (obviously a bad one) about alcohol.  I just finished the section on teratogens in the intro to tox. class that I'm teaching, where we consider, among other things, "If the human body bio-accumulated alcohol, would that be a good thing or a bad thing?"  

On a more serious note,  every University that I've studied or worked at took chem. safety very, very seriously. If someone around here tried to work with airborne teratogens/mutagens/carcinogens without a fume hood...heads would roll!  Where in the heck were you studying???

[inthelab]

Don't even mention the lack of envirnomental protections for pregnant stuents in the sciences; if your project required with radioactivity and/or teratogens, you did it because you wanted to finish and get the h#ll out already.

Very true.  My dissertation required that I consume large amounts of a notorious teratogen almost every weekend, and many weekdays too.  I didn't worry about it so much because, well, I am a guy, but most of women in my grad school cohort seemed to have the same requirement as well.

I sincerely hope this wasn't a snark.  Exposure to teratogens can occur through the air and not everybody has proper fume hoods with ventilation.

No snark, I was making a joke (obviously a bad one) about alcohol.  I just finished the section on teratogens in the intro to tox. class that I'm teaching, where we consider, among other things, "If the human body bio-accumulated alcohol, would that be a good thing or a bad thing?"  

On a more serious note,  every University that I've studied or worked at took chem. safety very, very seriously. If someone around here tried to work with airborne teratogens/mutagens/carcinogens without a fume hood...heads would roll!  Where in the heck were you studying???

Sorry for misunderstanding.  It really was ridiculously dangerous back then to be involved in retinoid research, etc.
And your eyes would definitely roll were I to tell you where the places were without hoods.  The standards when I was in school were not what they are now.  And consider this:  a considerable amount of organogenesis occurs before a woman misses a first menses.

[d_f_b]

I'll bite. I DID have children as a graduate student, as did several of my peers (and this was in an expensive city).
Graduate school was certainly not a time of great wealth for me, but with a working spouse, a fellowship, and student loans, we did fine. Add in pretty decent university health care...

To me, it made INFINITELY more sense to have children in grad school, when I had a great deal of flexibility, than in the first years of a tenure-track job. When I look at junior faculty members with new babies or very young children, I simply can't fathom how they balance the practical and emotional demands of parenting with the practical and emotional demands of the first years on the tenure track. It did take me longer to finish than it would have otherwise, but so what? My tenure clock wasn't running.

I had a child in grad school, but the working spouse bit was crucial--in particular, she had health insurance that covered childbirth.

My own experience: At my ridiculously-hugely-endowed graduate institution, grad students were required to have health insurance that covered a lot of things most health insurances didn't--and what a shock, the university had partnered with a specific insurance company to offer such insurance for only about 10% of the average stipend of the time, so we could purchase it from the school. Interestingly, though, this health insurance with all sorts of arcane coverages didn't include coverage for pre-natal care or childbirth--and the average stipend was over 133% of the poverty level for one-person households at the time (which means Medicaid was out), so a single female grad student who found herself pregnant and wished to keep the baby basically had the option of relying on wealthy relatives or bankruptcy. (It also didn't cover prescription medications, so birth control pills were more expensive than they needed to be. It covered abortions, though.)

This sort of institutionalized craziness does not lend itself to people having children in grad school.

(From what I understand, things have gotten better regarding this sort of thing at that institution, though they're still not what I'd call pleasant.)

[concordancia]

I'll bite. I DID have children as a graduate student, as did several of my peers (and this was in an expensive city).
Graduate school was certainly not a time of great wealth for me, but with a working spouse, a fellowship, and student loans, we did fine. Add in pretty decent university health care...

To me, it made INFINITELY more sense to have children in grad school, when I had a great deal of flexibility, than in the first years of a tenure-track job. When I look at junior faculty members with new babies or very young children, I simply can't fathom how they balance the practical and emotional demands of parenting with the practical and emotional demands of the first years on the tenure track. It did take me longer to finish than it would have otherwise, but so what? My tenure clock wasn't running.

I had a child in grad school, but the working spouse bit was crucial--in particular, she had health insurance that covered childbirth.

My own experience: At my ridiculously-hugely-endowed graduate institution, grad students were required to have health insurance that covered a lot of things most health insurances didn't--and what a shock, the university had partnered with a specific insurance company to offer such insurance for only about 10% of the average stipend of the time, so we could purchase it from the school. Interestingly, though, this health insurance with all sorts of arcane coverages didn't include coverage for pre-natal care or childbirth--and the average stipend was over 133% of the poverty level for one-person households at the time (which means Medicaid was out), so a single female grad student who found herself pregnant and wished to keep the baby basically had the option of relying on wealthy relatives or bankruptcy. (It also didn't cover prescription medications, so birth control pills were more expensive than they needed to be. It covered abortions, though.)

This sort of institutionalized craziness does not lend itself to people having children in grad school.

(From what I understand, things have gotten better regarding this sort of thing at that institution, though they're still not what I'd call pleasant.)

Most insurance does not cover birth control pills. There are plenty of examples of plans that cover Viagra, but not birth control.

[al_wallace]

Ah yes, I remember having each of my children during my time in graduate school. I used each of their births to commemorate one year closer to my defense and dissertation. Of course the last year was when the triplets came along. Regrettably it was at that time that my wife divorced me to start a career in women's studies. During my first year of graduate work I bought a 15 unit rental property in downtown Newark, rented it out while renovating it, then flipped it. I used the profits for my dreamy summer home in the Alps. Christmases were filled with ski instruction. My second year of grad school I adopted two abused pitbulls, some feral kittens, a sugar glider, and a llama. The llama had head trauma from a farm accident and needed to be kept awake 23 hours a day and two of the kittens were diabetic but I remember them fondly still. During my comps, I decided to kick my food hoarding compulsion and cut down on my missionary work so that my dissertation committee could see that I was a serious student. Prior to my defense, I recall setting up my a business selling hand-painted Russian nesting dolls while handcrafting wooden canoes for friends and family.  I completed my first post doc during a peace corp stint in Ghana. Pre-tenure, my time commitments prevented me from actively managing a childrens discovery museum I founded but once tenure came, I completed my memoirs and traveled the world serving as an advocate for the World Health Organization (during sabbatical of course). After promotion to full professor, I decided to run a community garden and babysitting club. Now my evenings are empty since I've finished hand chiseling my dream cliff house in an Anasazi motif. Sure, I could have used power tools, but that wouldn't have been as satisfying. My electrician license I collected during a slow summer really paid off. Now when I build homes for habitat for humanity, I can do more. Some day after retirement, I hope to return to my first love of making hurdy gurdies on an industrial scale. What is my point? Clearly the take home message is one should always be mindful of the time commitment of children if you are considering starting a family during grad school.

[macaroon]

Don't even mention the lack of envirnomental protections for pregnant stuents in the sciences; if your project required with radioactivity and/or teratogens, you did it because you wanted to finish and get the h#ll out already.

No, I had two babies while doing extensive benchwork, and I had plenty of protection.  My biggest protection was my own initiative to READ THE FLIPPIN MSDS forms and not leave it to others.  At one of the institutions, we had a health and safety expert come in (prior to my pregnancy - during someone else's pregnancy) and evaluate the lab for potential problems.  We got a thumbs up!   I was a declared pregnant radiation worker during both pregnancies and turned in a total of 18 fetal monitor badges.  This program is confidential, so my advisors never knew I was turning in the badges during my first trimesters.

The problem I had with being a pregnant student, and I've shared this many times on this forum, was that my department tried to terminate my candidacy to "make an example out of me".  Blatant harassment and discrimination.

[d_f_b]

<snip>

The problem I had with being a pregnant student, and I've shared this many times on this forum, was that my department tried to terminate my candidacy to "make an example out of me".  Blatant harassment and discrimination.

I've missed the previous tellings of the story, so apologies for retreading, but I have to ask: Did the members of the department who tried to terminate your candidacy have children themselves?

In my observation, the worst offenders in this sort of thing were faculty members who had children themselves--there was sort of a "I did it without any help, so you can do it with extra obstruction" mentality going on. I don't know if this matches what others have experienced, though.