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

Had my first DS in the 2nd year of uni, on several occasions he attended lectures and tutorials with me due to temporary childcare issues- I asked each time if this was ok and said I would leave if he caused any disturbance, and no one minded. This was almost 20 years ago and DS is a student himself now...

Am I the only person reading the thread who hasn't had a baby that would be quiet enough to do this?

Nope. It would a bloody challenge for DD to make as much noise as humanely possible!

This is rather like the SAHM/WOHM debate or the breast vs. bottle. People are essentially saying that some women should be denied the opportunity to make a choice to take a baby into university with them on the basis that if one person does it we'll all be forced to do it. The issue is that women should have the choice to make arrangements best for them, not that we should all be made to do the exact same thing.

I think the argument 'I like child free places' is justification for nothing at all if the child is making no demand on you whatsoever. Otherwise people who worked in customer facing jobs could refuse to serve people with kids - doctors, opticians, pharmacists etc. They all have to concentrate on complex things in the presence of children.

But that goes back to the individual vs the collective, doesn't it?

I can see how it could be great for the mother to attend with her baby. But it might not be best for the rest of the class, especially if a precedent is set and you end up with multiple babies in the classroom.

Fundamentally people go to school to learn, and as Dusk said, they should be given the best opportunity to do so. The classroom is not the same as the shop or the bus or the cafe -- people should be able to focus as much as possible.

Things like skype seem to offer a good compromise because the mother can still learn and the other students aren't distracted. And there's no reason the mother couldn't participate in the discussion, if the lecturer cares enough to bring her into it.

myitchybeaver, no you are not the only one!

I went to a social meet-up with a 4 month old, there was another woman there with a similar-aged baby. The babies were lovely and very charming and happy, perhaps because there were so many people giving them so many smiles and eye contact. You could not imagine more socially convenient babies (I was very relieved about how mine was behaving).

One of the women, who could not take her eyes off them, said "It is amazing how well they are programmed to get the attention they need". That is what babies do - they will grab onto all eye contact going, force you to coo at them (if you have an ounce of humanity) and if no one is there to do that they will get upset. And they will demand attention.

When I had small babies, I felt happy and supported when I was with other people who were helping to keep my baby going with their social and emotional energy, and drained and exhausted when it was down to me alone for any period of time. We should recognise that this is what is happening, even when people are glad to do it. It's not compatible with heavy theoretical concentration on other stuff. This is why people with babies are always being advised to get out and about - to benefit from other people's social energy. It's not free. It might be willingly given, but it's not like oxygen, that when you breathe it you're not taking it from someone else.

Traditionally men shut themselves away from all that, and women supported each other and each other's children. Much as I love love love having children I don't want to give up my access to the space to think that men have, by being allowed to be without them.

Again, if you cannot find childcare for an examined part of your course- how on earth did you complete it to the best of your ability?

i'm late to this thread, but just wanted to point out that I've chaired a day of talks at a UK university with a baby in my arms, and also given talks at other universities with baby in arms. In each case, I had a stand-by friend who could take baby out if she cried. But she didn't and it all went smoothly.

DuskandShiver, if a student is unable to do theoretical physics due to social limitations that mean they can't deal with social interaction based on facial expressions and seating arrangements, that would be a matter dealt with by the disability office and the lecturer would be able to take that into account when planning how lectures and seminars were organised so that student could be accommodated. But in general, all other students do have to be able to deal with emotional and social needs of others, because university is an inclusive and collective social learning experience! It also is about turning up and meaning well for many students, not about achieving some kind of intellectual greatness, and both are fine. Lecturers cater to a range of needs and abilities.

The baby question is a different matter, but I don't recognise your description of university life.

I would feel awful if I was banished from a university lecture because I had a baby and told "just watch it on skype" - it's not the same, you don't have the same interaction and presumably if the mother wants to come back to university, part of that is the social side? I don't mean drinking and clubbing obviously, but just seeing people and interacting with people and discussing academic ideas. Being able to ask questions to the lecturer and having someone else ask a follow up question you hadn't thought of - you wouldn't get that through email.

I think options are important. I also think society is terrified of babies and especially of breastfeeding, when it should be a normal thing for small babies to be part of everyday life. Mothers do need time to recover from birth, but not everyone wants to be shut away at home, and if you want to go out and be part of things it should be an option.

I mean, it does effect people beyond the parent (if the baby is present).
I feel it, I really do, and I like being in child-free places.
And that is why (apart from night wakings) I was always knackered when I had a small baby attached to me. It is not nearly as tiring being near the baby as being the parent. but it is there.

The person with the wheelchair hasn't brought anyone with them, is what I mean. The baby is a person, who hasn't been through a university admissions procedure or even basic social conditioning

Am I the only person reading the thread who hasn't had a baby that would be quiet enough to do this?

I've had 3DCs and they've all been noisy, unsettled little buggers.

You lucky people with quiet, snuggly new-borns!

Dusk, again I really agree with everything you're saying.

I do wonder how much of the divide on this thread is due to different subjects and fields. My particular field is, well, very serious and intense, lots of pondering and philosophising, wrestling with complex problems, etc. At times we're talking about very horrible things. It just seems inappropriate to bring a baby and its possible distractions into that. I might feel differently if the subject was more jolly and informal.

And I do think one needs to think about the unintended consequences -- if it does become completely normal to bring your baby to school and to work, how long before maternity leave becomes seen as something for people 'too weak' to manage work and childcare at the same time? Or as some kind of luxury that clearly isn't necessary because hey, look at all these women doing without it?

Buffy, I genuinely don't understand your comparisons, can you expand a little bit more?

For example- the student in the wheelchair and the student with tourettes both have to be there. The baby simply doesn't.

I wonder whether our idea of a student is of a young, unattached person who has lots of free time to study. And whether we should reconsider?

I think further education naturally demands time, because it's about specialisation and dedication.

For me, the 'feminist thing to do' is not to force women back into a degree just after having a baby. I think we would have far more women in universities with children if the system was more flexible and encouraged/ allowed women to take a semester off, physically and mentally recover, come back and dedicate themselves to their subject.

I mean that the babies aren't well organised or considerate. The mothers are, but the babies just NEED, and it does affect people around behind the mother

But the childcare isn't available now so it is irrelevant to the OP's situation.

In terms of making childcare more easily available, I agree that is important. But it wouldn't have been preferable for me. I didn't want to pushed in a situation of isolation and made to work from home, or have my children in childcare more often when they don't really like it. It has been of benefit to me and them that they have been allowed into the university, and that I like that other people do the same. People bringing children in creates a better working environment because it increases the range of people who contribute to collective work and studying experiences. It isn't an either/or. Most people if they can will use both childcare and taking children along to things. Most people will be sensible about it. Having worked abroad in countries with better childcare, this only increases the extent to which children are brought in to work places (in my experience) because it reflects a cultural shift that values families, children and carers.

Buffy, I struggle with the "I wonder whether the idea that it requires a total change in a mother's life has to be everyone's reality". Not with the wondering, but where it would lead in a capitalist world. The tone kind of reminds me of the "blue sky thinking" you hear in the workplace that usually leads to about a third of your team getting sacked. "So where is it written that we actually need a whole separate contracts admin team?" you know the sort of thing.

It depends on changing from what. I would happily take a no-longer-quite-newborn baby on my back into certain kinds of work situation (chatty, informal, I know everyone reasonably well, not too intellectually demanding, a certain amount of routine work done with the hands, no strict timetabling that will stop me pottering off to change a nappy or stopping to bf when needed) but not others (negotiating something tough, designing something, creating systems, working to tight deadlines, doing things in real time which are irrevocable should I want to change them later). It's a long time since I was at university but that second group of things looks a lot like what university used to be like.

And I think it should be. I think people at university should be able to work to the best of their intellectual ability, not just show up and mean well and put the hours in.

I am a feminist and I think that looking after a newborn baby is bloody hard work. I welcome the idea that I don't have to do that and much else, for a little while.

I find babies knackering. I am introvert, and a baby is another person, and having that demand on me all the time is a significant drain on my mental and emotional resources. Some people are all "the more the merrier" about every situation - and if they are studying to their personality are perhaps learning in a subject where it is entirely appropriate to consider it part of the eventual job to be organised and cheerful while people are making constant small and large demands on you from all directions.

Actual academic study in its traditional sense is something entirely different. Being unable to do theoretical physics while someone is even looking at you quizzically wondering if that chair is taken, is not making you unsuitable to be a theoretical physicist. (I am that kind of person.) I kind of think it is fine to have enclaves where people only have to do their goddamned subject. All the people in the class that is. And don't have to juggle emotional and social needs of others at the same time.

Your student in a wheelchair, your student with Tourettes, your student with a long term illness are still individual single human beings who ultimately are well organised and considerate people who don't infict emotional neediness on those around them. Bringing a baby into the mix is bringing a great big ball of needy. They are exhausting.

Yes, but that's why I think the answer is to make childcare easier and cheaper, or make it easier for students to study from home, or to get deferments or adjusted assignments. There are lots of solutions besides bringing babies into the classroom.

( and the same DD that slept thorough conferences, lectures and meetings, and held my hand while I presented, screamed blue murder when left in the gym crèche - leadIng to the lifeguard being paged to ask me to come and get her. So I walked right through the centre dripping wet to get her. Childcare isn't a magic bullet for working mothers, any more than being able to bring your baby is).

Childcare only takes from 3 months. In terms of the precedent set - childcare can also fall through, or become prohibitively expensive, leaving the student no choice.

I don't think a baby and a disability are comparable, but a lot of accommodations put in place for disabled students are not essential. Students could complete degrees without some of them, it is just more ethical to make their studies easier if we can. The same applies in this situation; it isn't in theory impossible for this woman to get childcare (although the reality may be that it is impossible); it would just make her life easier if you let her attend with baby.

Buffy, it's an interesting thing to think about, but I would argue the difference is that a student with a disability cannot remove that disability, whereas it is possible to arrange childcare for a baby.

If gyms and rec centres have creches, why can't universities?

In this case one compromise might be that the student can bring the baby to lectures, provided she ducks out if need be, but should really arrange childcare for the presentations, both in her own interest and that of others. I think it's particularly unfair to expect her group to do their own assessed presentations with the possible distraction of a baby, given it's not their choice to take on that risk.