What would you do if a university student wanted to bring her newborn to class?

Lectures though tend to be going on constantly in various subjects rather than being all at a set time, and there will be fewer students needing childcare in each individual one, whereas a conference is attended over a longer period by a higher concentration of people.

I haven't read all the responses, but wouldn't it be reasonable to tell the woman she can bring the baby in for classes, but to please leave if the baby makes noise?

When the woman then has to make her presentations, ask if it's possible she finds someone to look after the baby for those times. It's not like it's every class, every day, so I would think she should be able to find someone for a few hours to help her out.

I think it's terrible that people think that a newborn is a reason for someone not to continue with their education!! If it's not disturbing other students, it's not up to you to decide if the mother can cope. I've certainly sat next to people in children who managed to be a total disturbance to the class without having a child in tow.

Cross post.

I like it, conference crashing.

You can - but then, you can have creches at lectures. I don't know how common this is, but I know a couple of universities where it's near-impossible for students to get a place at the university nursery/creche.

Feminist conferences are awesome.

Actually, it's them that make me think of all the different ways we could be doing things. Though the ones I've been to do fall under the lentil-weavery category dusk points out can have its own drawbacks.

I guess what I've seen is conferences (same with undergrad seminars) where the men speak more of the time than the women, but it's perceived to be equal. I would be really interested to see how differently an online chat forum worked for a class.

It's interesting - a lot of the alternatives to bums on seats teaching are seen as informal or lowbrow, as if it's automatically trivializing.

Oh, I haven't seen that. But then the only one I've been to was a feminist conference, so obviously different.

But you can have creches at conferences :)

I hate conferences. With a fiery passion.

I also think they tend to thrive on precisely the kind of subtle gendered discrimination that is unhelpful. Not always, but often.

But is that intrinsic to lectures?

IME, a lecture is when the academic stands at the front of class and speaks. If you are networking during that time you will be required to be quiet or leave the room. Seminars and classes, OTOH, you might network in.

I have just thought, though. Our lectures are 3 x a week, 3 hours each time (and I'm final year). The rest is directed and dissertation time. Is there really not a possibility of her having some-one to watch the little one for such a short time, and bring where necessary? I only take mine in when absolutely necessary because I like my head space.

Yes, I pretty much agree. I mean, I understand that if you lecture you can judge the feeling in the room and adapt to a live audience, but it's a fairly small 'pro' outweighed by lots of cons. And if you are having to fund/organise a babysitter I guess it's one more you have to work with.

Hi I've not read all of these. We are allowed to take our children in. I always try to minimise this. I think you should allow her up until the time when a child minder will be able to take the baby. I wouldn't really see an issue. But perhaps you could see what the other students think, too?

It is, after all, their learning that is effected as well.

I think lectures are outdated now. Surely the only reason to turn up at a physical place with other people is for a practical, a seminar, a supervision, or something like that. The idea of tons of people crammed into a room while someone talks at them is pointless - surely they should just read wikipedia or watch youtube videos and then turn up when they are prepared to discuss it ;) (I am kind of serious but not about youtube and wikipedia)

YY, that's a huge one.

But I was meaning the sorts of things I posted about upthread. I don't know if there are more distance-learning degree courses than there were ten years ago, but it certainly feels as if there are. But things like recording lectures, using the internet as a means of communicating with students.

Obviously, mental health issues and disabilities are not the same as having a small child who is dependent on you, and I wouldn't want to suggest it is. But I think more flexibility in general is what's needed, so it doesn't feel as if people are saying 'here is a special allowance for that woman with a baby' but 'here is a standard, routine way of adapting to people'.

Cynically, I suspect that when it's easier to get an education while caring for a small child, that men will do it in greater numbers.

Obviously there needs to be far more of it.

LRD, what are the barriers to education and how are they being lifted?

the fact that it is so desperately expensive, yet still being carried on mostly full time and in the day, must surely be a huge barrier.

I see the point dusk. TBH, personally, this is an issue (to me) that is very similar to all sorts of other issues about how you make education more accessible to people who might otherwise not be able to get it. I know that's just me. But I think it is important not to treat bringing babies into class as some kind of unique lentil-weavery concession, but as similar to all sorts of other ways education is changing.

And being a student is not entirely like being at work. It's similar in a lot of ways, but basically, your boss pays you for doing well. She might nurture your skills along the way, but basically, you're meant to be good already.

True. Perhaps I'm seeing it in some kind of idealistic unrealistic way.

"Ive also found it quite interesting how so many people here have just assumed that the mother in question will be breastfeeding and using a sling."
"Well I would imagine that's the way the baby would be least conspicuous - it wouldn't really be practical to do it another way."

I know, right? It is tying into this very crunchy earth mothery thing very uncritically. (I was the baby-wearing breastfeeder, btw. I don't mean any denigration of slings and breastfeeding. It was the only way to get by really, for me)

I just think there is a sort of background noise here of glorification of a hunter-gathery community kind of vibe, which I always find a bit threatening, as I always imagine these sorts of communities to be very oppressively nosy and prescriptive when you are in them, with your MIL always all up in your face and nowhere to go and listen to Beethoven on your uninvented ipod and read the unwritten Nietzsche. We have swapped privacy and autonomy for practical help. In my case, it was a good deal.

If you think I am going to rush out with my baby when it squeaks, then you think I only conditionally have the right to be there.

This is what I was trying to say, just much more eloquently, thank you!

Well I would imagine that's the way the baby would be least conspicuous - it wouldn't really be practical to do it another way.

I suppose this ties into the conditional point above. It just stood out to me for some reason.

That's interesting Dusk. I have said to parents on planes that their babies/small children were good, not because the baby/small child would be unwelcome if they wouldn't (they have to travel somehow!) but because it's nice to hear, sometimes, that you're doing a good job as a parent.

In fact that's made me think and I think I'm going to start saying it to parents of cranky babies and children instead

" personally feel it's very unfair to say 'baby is welcome but not if they're crying/fussing'. It's a baby. It cries, not just in a worse case scenario but regularly!"

Yes, this.

One of the things that I don't really like at church (although it is meant well) is when people congratulate me at the end of a service on the behaviour of my children. It is a C of E church which has a Sunday school (which dd1 doesn't want to go to right now and I don't want to force her - dd2 is too little) and a creche (which is, erm, a bit dodgy, in the nicest possible way). So I keep my children with me and they are, so far, good. I was brought up RC where all the children, however fiendishly naughty, all go to Mass and no one made any comment on it. I don't like hearing that my children have been "good" in church because I hear, perhaps paranoiacally, that they are not welcome unless they are quiet.

Going to university, or work, with a baby that I would rush out of the room with if it fusses, would feel like that (except justified - I don't think the people in church do have a right to say children can't be there unless they are "good")

So with church I am on the opposite side of the fence - of course they belong there, they are part of our community. but I don't like having their quietness drawn attention to because it seems (if you are paranoid) to cast doubt on that.
If you think I am going to rush out with my baby when it squeaks, then you think I only conditionally have the right to be there.

Well I would imagine that's the way the baby would be least conspicuous - it wouldn't really be practical to do it another way.

But going to work is not like going to friends' houses. You go to work to do a job. The care of a baby interrupts that.

I personally feel it's very unfair to say 'baby is welcome but not if they're crying/fussing'. It's a baby. It cries, not just in a worse case scenario but regularly!

I've also found it quite interesting how so many people here have just assumed that the mother in question will be breastfeeding and using a sling.