Question:
Do you have any advice about shutting down negative responses to having a baby from your academic community? I'm realizing I might have to deal with some of this, even from my advisor, in the form of assumptions that I'm not as serious about my work, etc.
Answer:
As a PhD student, I think I probably headed that off by being very open and up front
about my plans for a family -- screening potential advisors by saying I
was planning to have children during grad school and judging their
reaction.
Then, when I told my advisor I was pregnant, I also told him what my
plans were -- I would not do any lab-related work for 8 weeks, then I
would work from home on necessary projects (not full-time) for 4 weeks,
then I would be full-time effort but my "face-time" would be phased back into
the lab to full-time over the next 4 weeks. I would be breastfeeding,
so I would need time, space and breaks to pump.
We had another meeting just before the babe was born to re-hash this plan,
and then another meeting at the 16-week juncture. At this point, he
said "get back to work", but in nice gentle terms, and I think I needed
the push.
I did have a few faculty who would
only ask about the baby after she was born, and no longer ask about my
academic progress. I would counter that with -- "Oh, she's doing great,
and I'm really back to business as normal... (then insert great
achievement or work in progress here).
Give frequent and detailed
"progress notes" to your advisor/committee if you are working from
home....and have a committee meeting, if you can, right before you
start to show, then 8-12 weeks after the baby is born...You may not
even have to tell them about the pregnancy if you want them to focus
on your progress instead. (You'll obviously be showing them your progress
from the last trimester, but they won't know that...just make sure you
write it up before you deliver or it will get stale).
So, basically, just kill them with your stellar performance (as usual),
but also stand up for being a mother, too, when you need to. I had to
do this for breastfeeding; I told my advisor at that painful 16-week meeting that the pumping schedule was killing my productivity but making milk was my #1 job. That's when he suggested I
write down all the things that I had to do to pump and share that list
with my partner (and that's how he inherited dropping the baby at daycare, as well as all the bottle and part
cleaning/sterilizing duties).
I found my advisor to be a tremendous help to
me when I could bring him a mixed work/home problem, because he was an
academic parent, too. So, identify an academic parent mentor in
your department if your advisor is not supportive.
When you are pregnant, everyone has something to
say.
You can always fall back on the very simple, "You think so?"
and just ignore the negative vibe.
