Do I stay in school, or stay at home (dad)?

October 20, 2006 12:59 AM

I am in the first semester of a phd in history at a respected state school, with an M.A. under my belt. My wife and I just had our first baby in May, a beautiful daughter with a smile anyone in their right mind would die for. As my wife has a decent job that pays very well, I'm the stay-at-home-dad, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to juggle parenting with graduate school. I can take a part time job with a record labe where I set my own hours and work from home; the perfect job for a SAHD (stay-at-home-dad). Do I throw away all the hard work to get into this phd program and the (potential) future career of a professorship, or do I sweat this out and stick with the phd program while fathering?

If I stay in school, I have babysitting twice a week from my mom. But I think it's important to also mention that I have an hour-long commute to the university. Right now, I'm working a research job that allows me to work from home but that will change next year when I will probably have to take a teaching assistantship or editorship, which means being at the university more often. The commute also means that it is exponentially harder to plug into a community, particularly when every little event requires procuring a babysitter.

We want to have at least two more kids. That means at 6-10 more years of SAHDing. It is not financially viable for my wife to kid and be the stay-at-home-dad.

I've loved being home with our daughter, watching her change, seeing her smiles. But I also love the university community, and learning, teaching, and writing history. I feel sad when I think that I will not be a professor. I think I'd be good at it, but I think I'd also be a great (if flawed) SAHD.

What am I giving up if I leave phd school now? I'm sure there are plenty of academics who have raised kids while going through a phd program, but just how did they do it? Is it possible to return to a phd program 6-10 years later? Does raising children get easier, or more manageable? What is more fun? What is more important?

posted by beelerspace to work & money (19 comments total)

My mother took 7 years to get her PhD in history. She commuted 2 hours each way to school and had two kids at home. She graduated shortly before her 50th birthday.

Granted, we had started school, so that makes a big difference, but she still made it.

Raising kids does get more managable once they start depending on you less for everything, when they can eat on their own, walk, poop on their own, dress themselves... it gets easier (of course their sweet little personalities get pretty big and demanding too, but that you can handle).
posted by Pollomacho at 1:15 AM on October 20, 2006

- Does your program require coursework?
- Is there a chance of a year or more of fellowship (during which you would not teach, so would not have to be on campus)?
- Do the two of you make enough that you could afford day care for 2 or 3 days a week? (Maybe starting in January?)
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:19 AM on October 20, 2006

I don't think the two are compatible, especially with that hour commute. It's unlikely your attachment and desire to be with your daughter is going to get weaker anytime soon. Most state schools have a time requirement for completion, and whatever fellowships you have aren't likely to be renewable if you take time off.

It sounds to me like you should take time off, ask for a 1-year leave of absence from your studying. I'd imagine a University would have liberal policies regarding taking time off for a new child.

If you do take a leave of absence, don't think of it as giving up. Life is long, situations change, you might have a career or two in between, but it'll be there if your passion and desire for it still are.

Good luck being a Dad!
posted by bluejayk at 1:21 AM on October 20, 2006

- Could you move to be closer to the university? Grad school is hard and isolating enough without also having a huge commute.
Many academics arrange their teaching etc responsibilities so they only have to be on campus 2 days a week. Once you start teaching you may be able to do this.

- Maybe your university has day care for students' kids, that you could take advantage of on those days? If you will have your own office space, your daughter could come with you and you could set up a crib for her there (though of course, it will be hard to get work done very efficiently unless she's a good sleeper).

- As your daughter gets older, it will get a little easier. The first months are so much sleep-deprivation that it's really hard to function normally. But as she starts letting you sleep at night, things will get easier. (My observations from seeing friends go through this.)

-This is certainly do-able, although it will take a toll, as you're seeing. Grad school is hard for everyone, and so is parenthood, and you're doing the hard thing of combining them. Women do this, and often end up at a professional disadvantage, and you're seeing exactly why. You're right to seek out connections with other people working in your field. Does anyone else from your program live near you? If nothing else, try to get daycare one day a week so you can go to your department's seminar, meet with your supervisor, talk with other grad students, remember that you're still part of the adult world.
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:28 AM on October 20, 2006

If you are only starting a PhD, you haven't that much investment in academia yet, compared to what you are going to have, if you continue. I doubt you are going to be able to have 2 more kids in the next few years, and do well in a PhD program, while being the primary care giver and homemaker for your family. And I think your wife's attitude about remaining the bread winner might well change over the course of several pregnancies.

The entrance requirements for PhD programs are often supposed to help you inventory yourself, and make sure you have a clear focus towards developing as a professional academic. Clearly, you didn't benefit from this process as it might have been intended, although a first child, especially if unplanned, can be a powerfully distracting force while you are doing it.

But if you are now having second thoughts about an academic life, you'd better serve your institution, not to mention yourself and your family, by being open about your doubts now, rather than tying up your slot for several semesters of medicore work, and then leaving without making a serious attempt at completing your PhD. That serves no one well, and can bring you no sense of being truly the master of your own fate. The idea of "returning" to a PhD program you've barely begun, "6-10 years later" is such a wistfully unrealistic goal as to appear simply grasping at the shredding tails of a dream, as you wake to a different view of reality than you held this past spring.

So, you have some hard choices, and now that you're a dad, you can't "unchoose" that committment, not that you would want to do so. You could still "unchoose" being a dad to 2 more kids for the next 6 to 10 years, and work hard to get along in your PhD program, while exploring day care options and professional opportunities at your university for the child you currently have, which options will be infinitely easier and more affordable to arrange with one child, than ever they would with 3. In a discipline such as history, that is still a pressured route, filled with research, teaching, and the ever present pressure as you near your goal to publish, which you'd also be balancing with child care and homemaking. And doing that means raising your current child essentially as an only child, and changing your wife's opinion on the importance of siblings to your family, plus asking her (and your future children) to incur higher risks to their health, by waiting later to have more children.

I'd say, practically, your "decision" is already made, and it's just working its way into your frontal lobes a little more slowly than you'll realize until much later. The "record labe" job sounds perfect.
posted by paulsc at 1:59 AM on October 20, 2006

Do you know of any other grad students who have young children who might be in a similar predicament? Friends of mine in grad school set up a sort of cooperative childcare arrangement in our student lounge--a few of them would bring their infants and toddlers in, and when one had to go teach a class, the others would watch them all (or enlist other students who were hanging around to play with babies). They also would take care watching each other's babies for a few hours on a given day so they could work on their research, etc. Sometimes they would hire master's students (who needed money) to watch one or two of the babies if no one else could.

If your university doesn't have childcare--or grad students aren't eligible to use it--working out some sort of arrangement with other students might be an option.
posted by leesh at 5:00 AM on October 20, 2006

Wow, and people wonder why there aren't more women doing PhDs. Surely you know female professors or other female grad students with kids. I would get a coffee with them and ask them how the hell they do it. Maybe they know about on-campus daycare or other things that get them through the week.

The problem, of course, is that doing a PhD is a full-time job and being a SAHD is a full-time job. Not only that, but the professors I've talked to about the process of becoming a professor always say that they wish they had more time to spend with their kids. Until you've got tenure, there's pressure to be on every committee, teach a lot, all while publishing like crazy. Things don't settle down at all after you get the PhD if you want to become a professor.
posted by heatherann at 5:03 AM on October 20, 2006

First, talk to the graduate advisor, and some other professors and advanced graduate students. They know your program, we do not.

Can you go part time, while you work on your coursework? That seems the only practical option. Writing your dissertation from home is very doable, the coursework is the challenge.

Also--are you informed and realistic about the academic history job market? It is awful and NOT getting better. At the end of this, are you (and your wife) willing to move absolutely anywhere for a tenure track job? If not, you may as well bail right now.

Finally, head over to the Chronicle of Higher Education forums to talk to a bunch of other academics who have faced the same issues. Good luck!
posted by LarryC at 6:29 AM on October 20, 2006

My mother took 7 years to get her PhD in history

Actually, that's better than average.

The bottom line is that doing the PhD and pursuing an academic career is a risky, longshot, utterly ferociously competitive pursuit. If the point is to launch a solid career in the professoriate, keep in mind you are competing with folks who don't have kids, who have juicy multi-year fellowships with entire years of "unencumbered" support, and people who are single and can live anywhere -- including the library, or later in life, a cornfield in the midwest where they happened to put a university.

Be honest about your actual career prospects as you figure this out. You should be as devoted to your PhD research as you would be to the early stages of any professional career -- 60-70 hours a week of solid work time -- or your odds are not good, because you're competing with people who are. You are not an unemployed stay at home dad; you're a poorly paid professional in the apprentice phase of a career. Either you and your wife figure out some other child care solution, or you put your dream aside for now (and for quite a while if you plan to have two more kids). Look at the employment stats for history PhDs. Are you in a top, top program on full fellowship? If not, you'd better work double hard.
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:32 AM on October 20, 2006

Here's a link to the Chronicle forums LarryC mentioned. I think you could get some good advice there too.
posted by jessicak at 6:34 AM on October 20, 2006

My father got his doctoral work done by having my mother and I sleep in the smaller bedroom by the kitchen when I was a baby. They were divorced by the time I was seven.

He is an emeritus professor.

He did not see his grandson until his grandson was nine years old.

For my own experience, the job I lined up after I got my M.S. vaporized. My wife had steady, well-paid work as a nurse, and so we decided I would be the primary parent. My mother moved to town to offer support, and my susequent work included night shift at the hospital, interactive theater in state prisons, and finally part-time in a job using my M.S.

In each case, job flexibility was a primary concern. Even with my mother in town, I needed to be able to get my son from school on short days, etc. My career path could be described as sketchy.

My son spent less than thirty days in day-care. He can take no for an answer because he has had to a lot, and has a good sense of boundaries. We have had other kids ask if they could be part of our family. He is doing well in school, has been in no fights, is good with electronics and chemistry, and is healthy and expressive. Which is different than my childhood.

I learned more from him than in any jobs or academic settings.

I got lucky and have a great wife. Our relationship is unique.

Yours probably is, too. What that means is something for you to decide for yourselves. It helped us to really discuss our priorities.

Good luck.
posted by dragonsi55 at 6:38 AM on October 20, 2006

My father was a stay at home Dad while he completed his PhD, while my mother worked. I was about 2 or 3 while he was doing the PhD and staying at home. Money was tight in our family during that time, but the experience (in my memory) was wonderful and all the success my family has had and the subsequent options that has given me in my own academic career all stem from my father pursuing his PhD. Stick it out.
posted by modernnomad at 7:36 AM on October 20, 2006

I spend 14 hour days in the office, trying to finish the dissertation. I am always dumbfounded at the skills and ability of grad student parents. On the other hand, it might help you focus. The SAHD problem is that it may not offer you long periods of concentration which you may need. You need to honestly assess whether you can work with the regular interruptions of parenting.

4Cheese is also very, very on-the-money: the academic job market is brutal. Think about how many history PhD's are minted each year, and then look at how many good positions are available. The flip-side is the consider what kind of career you want: if you desire tenure at a good school (where do the best in your program go?) then the publish/perish dynamic probably won't allow you to look after children. If you don't mind teaching at smaller schools, less publications opportunities and a smaller salary, then you can set your sites lower.
posted by allan at 8:49 AM on October 20, 2006

Wow, these are some great responses. It's like having a roundtable of longtime friends all in the same place, only without having ever talked to any of you.

Thank you.

What is interesting is that I have also polled friends and family around me. Save my wife, nearly everyone cringed at the idea of me quitting the phd. Maybe it's because they know how many @#(@#* times I took the GRE to get in, or how many schools I applied to, etc etc. But it's interesting that a less biased response here is overwhelming opposite to my friends. That's very helpful.

To many: while I am not an anti-daycare nazi - I think there are really great daycares out there - it's not really an option for us, for all the reasons people usually don't want their kids in daycare.

Lobster: unfortunately moving isn't an option. My wife works downtown and from the university she'd have to commute 1.5hr there and back, 5 days a week. blaaaaa. The program does unfortunately require coursework, and the fellowships are (of course) highly competitive and usually only given to first-years....which means I'm already out for that.

LarryC: Placement from the phd program has been 85% over the last 5 years - unusually high, and with a variety in collegiate and public history setings - but, yes, you're right. Things are tight. That in part is why I'm rethinking the future. I'm quite certain there'll be diapers to change, and smiles as payment. Much less certain about money for teaching.

Modernnomad: I liked your response, if only because it showed a different response. Did you have any siblings?
posted by beelerspace at 10:17 AM on October 20, 2006

A lot of my classmates in my PhD program have young kids. They all say that since the first few years of working as a professor after a PhD program is so tough that they'd rather have the kids now. If you're looking at going into academic later, this may be a factor for you as well.
posted by k8t at 11:29 AM on October 20, 2006

Undergrad filter - I'm a senior graduating in history this next May. The Grand Old Man (in his late 60s) of the department has told many of us many times not to get a PhD in History and expect to become professors, because it's because of people like him that we will not be able to get jobs as history professors.

I have asked my best professors why they ended up here, and the best answer I got was - 'Because they hired me. I got three interviews, and those are three more than a lot of people get. Just because the place is a good fit for me does not necessarily mean that I get to pick and choose where I go.'

I had a point here, and I think that if I was in your shoes, I would look and see what else you can do with that degree. A PhD is a doctorate, and all sort of crazy literature can come out of people with doctorates. Like writing a book on how to get your doctorate and have kids at the same time.
posted by lilithim at 3:25 PM on October 20, 2006

Both my grandfathers had kids, about the same numbers of 'em that you're talking about, while completing Ph.Ds. One was an ABD (all but dissertation) for a long time. They made it.

I agree wholeheartedly that your kids deserve to have a real parent raise them. They deserve to be fed, of course, too, and you have to balance those. But with a properly truncated sense of entitlement and some ingenuity, you can find ways to need less money. And I'm not just talking about buying powdered milk in bulk and suchlike (although I was raised on powdered milk till I was 8 or so, and without cable TV, and no harm done by either). Remember that the stay-at-home can do some pretty useful, cash-saving things while keeping an eye on the kids. My palate is pretty familiar with garden produce and home-preserved foods on account of my stay-at-home mom. To say nothing of all the other stuff like baked beans and yoghurt and soup stock that you can make for a tenth of the cost of buying it, if you can be home to pay attention to them for a couple minutes out of each hour.

I realize that this doesn't directly address the quit-or-keep-going question. But it might provide some more flexibility in the way you see the pressures.

Additional flexibility: Can you scale back the demands of the doctorate for a year or two, by spreading out the coursework and getting a jump on things you can do at home like read literature for a dissertation? Can you concentrate the tougher parts of the doctorate into the easier spaces of parenting (times when the youngest kid is relatively easier to handle)? Now or later, can you trade off childcare with a friend whose days on campus are complementary to your own?

What do your guts say about it? How about your god?

IANAPh.D, and IANADad. But I envy you your dilemma and plan to get myself into one like it. I'll be back here when I do.
posted by eritain at 1:12 AM on October 21, 2006

One more thing--do not feel guilty about being busy with school and raising kids at the same time. Think about the message you are sending you kids when they see you always learning, always studying, valuing education.

My wife was a single mom for years, raising two kids without any child support and going to school as many hours as she could. She felt terrible sometimes that she wasn't always there for her kids. Those kids are both on the honor roles in college now. My stepson once told me how he remembers being in the library with his mom when he was little, and having to color and be quiet because "everyone around me was dong very important things. Well, now I am the one in the library doing very important things. It is so cool!"

Seriously, talk with the graduate advisor and others ans see what options there are for grad student parents. Look into moving closer to campus, that is a GREAT idea. And talk to your wife about moving after you complete your degree. If you guys are not willing to move almost anywhere when you get that tenure track job offer, you really should drop out now. If she is game to live in Tuscaloosa or Dubuque or Corvallis, stick it out.

My emails is in my profile, feel free to contact me.
posted by LarryC at 1:56 PM on October 21, 2006

Don't think the reactions here are "unbiased"! They aren't biased by the same things as your friends and family, but each of us is coming to this from our own perspective. Don't worry that daycare will ruin your child. (Daycare kid talking here.)

But -- it will be a hard road as you know and as everyone has said. I do think it will be easier when she's a bit older, and I know many women who have done this very thing you're planning on. Most of them say that with kids, they are much more productive when they do get time to work.

If you take the hard words here about the difficult PhD job market to heart, there are still options! Maybe you can get a master's that would allow you to do museum or local-historical-society work (or to go, later, to library or archival school), or to teach history in high schools or write textbooks. If history has been your dream profession for a long time, you might seriously regret giving it up totally -- maybe you can adjust in a way that prepares you for work in a field you love, but work that can be more part-time and can begin in 10 years when the youngest is in school. Also there are a lot more job opportunities of this kind than of the tenured-professor-at-good-school kind, so you will have more ability to move around the country.

Don't listen to paulsc about your "obligation" to the university to make a decision that's "fair to them", and not to "take up a valuable spot" in the program. Absolutely do not think about that! This is a case where you have to think of your own interests because there's nobody else to look out for them. The university will do just fine. (I don't mean that you should be stealing office supplies or otherwise acting unethically. I just mean, the university admits people and offers them support knowing that some of them will not make it. The university is not a friend of yours that you have to tell everything to.) If you flounder for a few years, continually going on leave and not taking any teaching duties, you are not taking up a spot or wasting any resources. If you teach for your money, you're working for them. It is counterproductive and wrong-headed to think that you have "duties" to the university that compel you to drop out as soon as you have doubts. Every grad student has hard times and doubts. Most PhD programs have only a 50% completion rate (I'm making up that exact number, although it's about average among several fields in several universities that I know about).

So what to do?
-Now, if you think realistically that you won't finish a PhD, then you are just causing yourself unnecessary misery by dragging it out. It's hard to know this now, of course, because you're just going through the hugely demanding first months with your daughter. Things will change. (Of course, if you want to have two more kids in quick succession, things will change so that you have more demands on your time.)

-If you think you can't possibly work on it now, but might be able to in the spring, or next fall, then take a leave of some kind. (Your DGS should have the details about the options available to you. Unless your DGS is very, very sympathetic, talk to him/her only once you have decided that you need to take some time off. The university's policies may also be posted on the registrar's website, so you can look up the pros and cons of "in absentia" vs. "leave of absence".) You will not be the first in your department to take a little time off. Try to maintain some connections during that time, though, because it can be hard to come back.

-If you are serious about finishing, or giving it your best for the time being, then take the suggestions above about connecting with people who have been through this -- other grad students, profs in your department. Really, really, one of the hardest things about grad school is the isolation, and if you're going to make it you have to actively build a network of people you can talk to. (And even better if you actually see them once a week or so) Or... is there another school in the town where you're living? Maybe you could connect with some of their history dept? Maybe you can build an electronic relationship with your faculty advisor? etc.
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:51 PM on October 22, 2006