I know I'm not BU (?), but WWYD? Babies vs career/husband.

[JaneS]

Well, I've just been to my brother's wedding, which was beautiful. His wife is pregnant with their first child, and looked absolutely lovely and so happy. Now, I'm pretty broody and have been for a while (hence the presence on MN), but now isn't a great time for me and DH. I'm guessing that everyone feels a little emotional/excited when a family member is pregnant.

DH and I are both quite young, he has a job that pays a little and I am a post-grad student. Once I've finished my post-grad and got a job, DH wants to do a post-grad too. So, for at least the next 3 years and potentially the next 6, we will (with luck) be solvent but the money will be tight. It's possible DH won't get funding for his postgrad, in which case we can just about cope but there will be no money spare at all, and we will probably need to take out loans.

If we have a baby in a couple of years, the pros are that DH thinks he'll be better able to look after a baby if he's studying, rather than working (this is probably true). And I will, with luck, be earning some money. I would probably have less time for the baby and more demands from work, but DH would feel happier about it.

The cons are that I will be trying to get my career off the ground and will have a small baby - and DH won't be able to do all the care (nor would I want him to). At the moment, I am studying but am well ahead with my work, so could probably afford more time now than I could later.

I don't think there's a 'right' answer, but I'd appreciate any advice you can give. I should also say, so that you know, that part of my broodiness comes from the fact that when I was 18 I was expecting a baby, and my parents insisted I have an abortion, which I was very sad about. I suspect I am partly reacting to that, as I was so happy to be pregnant then.

Would be very grateful for thoughts/advice/perspective.

Children were born during the war.

I am 26 now but my husband and I were both 23 when our daughter was born and I wouldnt classify that as being particularly young at all. We had been married nearly 4 years though and had our own mortgage for 5 years so we felt more than ready for children. Its up to you though. There is no way that either of us would have been able to wait until we were a lot older.

Also I did my degree and took 10 days off when I had her. I got a 2:1 and it was a bit stressful at the time but I am glad I did it now. The university were so accomodating and made everything easier for me. I think personally its a good way to do it as you have the student loan, help towards childcare etc.

I am 29 and pg with my first, after having finished a PhD and worked for a couple of years - so I'm in that 'trying to kick off my career' stage that you're talking about! Obviously, I don't know how it'll work out long term, but at the moment I'm happy to be in this situation. I have the security of a job to go back to and all the associated maternity benefits, and I have made some start on my career.

I definitely feel more secure after having 2 years in a job than I ever did as a PhD student, and I know that going back after maternity leave will mean that I'll be able to stay up to date with work. And it is much easier not to fall out of working if you have a job to go back to. Before deciding to have kids, I did think about putting it off to focus more on my career for a couple of years. In the end, I thought that if I did that I'd probably just be in the same situation in a couple of years, earning more but still wanting to climb the ladder more before kids! So I decided to go for it now and worry about my career afterwards.

Another alternative, depending on your DH's view/career/prospects, is for him to postpone his PhD till your child(ren) are a little older. It would (I imagine) be much easier to fit in a PhD around school age kids and be their main carer, but then he might not want to wait that long. It depends whether doing a PhD is essential to his career immediately, or whether it's just something he'd like to do at some point in life.

Like the others have said though, there's no best time and it depends entirely on you and your DH. Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

If you're funded, I believe the funding body have to pay you 6 months maternity, and you have an optional further 6 months unpaid leave. He, on the other hand, would get ten days. Dont imagine that either of you can get much of your thesis written if you're the main carer for a child under two though. You will loose weeks on end of research time to every little illness they get, and how will you get to libraries etc? I imagine they dont take kindly to screaming babies in treading rooms. Sorry if I sound synical, but I am going through the exact scenario you describe myself. Good luck

Hello LittleRedDragon, I would say have the babies while you are young. My friend had 2 babies while doing a funded PhD, I had my first just after doing mine (was pregnant by viva time) but I have found that research and babies mixes very well if you are determined enough. It sounds like you are, I am never ahead with my work!
Also found that my career fits in nicely with staying at home with the babies (I have 3), and this is ideal if your DH has such a flexible career too.

Reelingfromshock ' Dont imagine that either of you can get much of your thesis written if you're the main carer for a child under two though.'

I actually found the opposite - is easier to fit small children around a flexible phd than it is a job.

I spent 4.5 years doing my PhD. I was pregnant or breastfeeding the entire time and had my viva when my middle child was 18 months old and I was 18 weeks pregnant. DS1 was 3.5 years old

Was easier than the horror of organisation and juggling I am trying to work out of going back to my full time lectureship after mat leave now....

Why not have babies now (go on ) and then once you have graduated DH can start his meaning someone can be home if they are ill.

peppa - it may be easi er to fit small children around a flexible PhD than around a job, but that still doesn't mean that much thesis writing can get done while looking after a baby/toddler full time.

Like any kind of working-from-home, you are more in charge of your own timetable, but you can only really get things done while children are asleep or while someone else is loking after them.

(what do I know anyway? self-)

I put my children off until I had finished my PhD and then had a couple of years to establish my career before I had first dc at age 32. I was still young but it did make life a lot easier. Those of my friends who had babies while doing PG studies really struggled to complete. I'd rather fit a baby round a job than round a PhD any day; ime a PhD is far more all absorbing and demands the kind of creativity that is very hard to combine with sleepless nights and being vomited on.

Do you and your DH really have to do a PHD? Just asking.

If you both really really want to prioritise that then perhaps holding off on having a DC might be a good idea.

If a DC is your first priority, then your or his plans for a PHD may have to wait.

reelingfromshock have you done a phd? have you heard of the internet? Most research is published online, i hardly ever set foot in a library during my PhD.

I think it depends very much on what subject area you are doing your PhD in. Mine was lab based so had i had my DD during that time i would have struggled with childcare issues. No way could my partner had DD. I got pregnant at the end of my lab time - not on purpose i hasnt to add! Anyway, i was given 6 months mat leave, although as i was at the end it was a bit confusing, i also had other issues and extended due to that also. Because of the other things going on in my life i wasn't able to write up until i had the baby. I remember sitting at my computor in front of Thesis.doc, a great glaring EMPTY document! with about six months to go before my deadline.

My baby slept a fair bit during the day, i remember writing and breast feeding at the same time, bouncing baby chair with feet whilst writing, lack of sleep, etc etc - but somehow i did it.

If you are organised, i see no reason why you shoudlnt do your phd now - definately more flexible, i chose my own lab hours, it was up to me when i did stuff.

Be informed though, this was the toughest period of my life and i dont remember writing most of my thesis, but i did, i have it on my bookshelf with my name on it, so i must have!!!

reelingfromshock im sorry, ive just read that back and it was a very aggressive sentence. Didn't mean it to come out like that! apologies

Trillian - I am not sure of your point? I know! Just saying that you can work in the evenings or on weekends with a PhD more easily than in a full time job. Or you pay for childcare - probably less than you would need with a full time job?

I did a lot of writing whilst breastfeeding or bouncing a baby in the chair. Would have struggled to work and breastfeed at the same time

A lot of a PhD is actually mental rather than sitting doing (unless you are lab based I get). I did a lot of thinking in the car

Wow, I will try to reply to all of this. I'm really grateful.

tebbles - good point. DH and I quite like the idea of an only, but you make a lot of sense.

teapot - eh?

noodle - wow! That's impressive. However, it's perhaps a bit different at postgrad; I'm not sure if that's positive or negative.

squirrel - that's good to hear. I suspect it's always tempting to see the next stage on (ie., for me, the stage you're at now) as immensely harder, but maybe it's not so.

reeling - yes, I see. . But then, does it ever get easier?

cory - I am not hopelessly far off completion, though (famous last words). I'm ahead of schedule, so with luck I wouldn't end up with such an obvious CV gap as some people?

TLC - well, no, we don't, but I'm in the middle of one and it is funded, so it'd be silly to stop now (given how hard it is to get a job). DH certainly doesn't have to do one (and unlike me, is unsure he wants to get into academia). However, he really wants to do a one-year MA and then see, and it seems only fair that he should, as I've had that chance myself.

bright - to be fair, I can't do much research from the net; I do need to be physically in the library for quite a lot of the time. Like you, though, I could choose my hours.

peppa - you're inspiring ... but I'm not sure I'm as capable as you!

Doing a PhD and looking after a baby is doable, I had children part way through mine (two) and you just get good at focused working. I don't think it's easier to be starting a new lectureship with a baby, tbh.

However, I don't think this is about you anyway. YOu will probably fit in a baby into your career in the next ten years without it stalling everything forever (where did you get that idea, it might stall it for two or three years, but you've got 30-40 years to go!) But your partner doesn't seem to want one and he feels way too young. I think that is the main hurdle to you having children, you sound more than ready and like you would manage the situation. YOu need to talk to him, if he says no way for five years, this is a hypothetical discussion, if he's more amenable, I would think seriously about it.

cornettos - to be honest, I'm mainly trying to be more objective, as it's tempting for me just to say 'ooh, yes, I'm broody, therefore it's a good idea'. So it's good to hear what people are saying on the negative side, and it's also good to be able to say to DH 'have you thought about this' about some of the positive things.

The thing is, DH tends to say, yes, he'd like a baby, but now of course it's not easy and it'll be so much easier later on. I do like that he is so very confident that he could, for example, do his MA with a small baby around, but I suspect he's got more than slightly rose-tinted spectacles about it all. So it's good for me to get these perspectives and properly discuss it with him, instead of just happily assuming that in a couple of years time we'll suddenly and magically be in the perfect place.

I don't really get why you have to have them now? You are only mid-20s, and your husband isn't even that bothered? You could wait until your early 30s. I can't remember what area you said you were in. Most of my PhD-doing friends did a lot of networking/socialising to enhance their future careers. This will be curtailed if you have a kid. Do you want an academic career?

Basically, I don't really understand what the rush is given you are young. I was broody since early 20s but knew I couldn't support a child the way I wanted until I had a 'proper job'.

mishy: well, I was asking because:

• I'm pretty broody
• I want to think about it now, even if we don't end up having them for ages (I'd feel a right idiot if I ten years time we were having problems and I'd not thought about it.
• Quite a lot of people reckon it's easier to have a child during the PhD than after (though, as I see from this thread, not all).

What I'd be worried about would be the string of one/two-year postdocs.

I do want an academic career - I also know plenty of (male) academics with young children. It makes me wonder if I couldn't do it too.

Have only skim read this thread, but thought I'd add in my experience, for what's it's worth. I fell pregnant in the final year of my PhD and had my viva five weeks after my daughter was born, followed by about three months to complete the minor corrections. The pregnancy was planned as I started the PhD when I was 28 and figured I didn't want to leave it too far into my thirties to start a family.
I agree with other posters that it depends very much on whether you're doing a science (as I did) or arts PhD - having to be in the lab/field or stuck in front of statistics software does make a difference to what is possible. I also think what you want to do afterwards makes a big difference. I finished nearly two years ago, am just about to start back in full time work - though not in academia, which is what I'd initially planned, and crucially still haven't managed to get any papers written for publication.

Personally I don't think the period of short term post docs, which you'll probably have to move around for, is necessarily the time to be thinking about having children - starting earlier might be the way forward if you're both ready, as once you're past the post doc stage it's likely there'll be another reason why it's not just quite the right time.
It's also worth noting that whilst there are female academics with children, all the ones I know have nannies! Oh and be prepared for the lack of intellectual stimulation when switching from PhD to newborn baby to drive you crazy!

Thanks Buch. I am concerned about the postdocs (I am in Arts, btw). As well, I know in theory no-one should mind interviewing me for a job if I'm pregnant/have just had a baby, and in theory it shouldn't reflect badly on me if I get maternity leave in a two-year post. In practice ... well, I know what academics are like, so I worry!

I think, though, we are going to leave it a bit but DH is more aware now than he was about what the pressures are, which is great. (I've been reading him bits of this thread.)

Or alternatively prepare for not being able to stop working when you have that newborn [a very common academic reality but you know my whinging!]

Shhh now about post docs and moving

at peppa.

I think my problem is, I know you do amazing things and have small children ... but you're deeply impressive and I know that!

I'll keep the discussion open with DH...

I had my children at 27 and 28 and think that worked pretty well (so far at least - my children are now 10 and 11). I had been working for four or five years, and dh was finishing his masters when we decided on parenthood. Looking back it probably wasn't a very good idea to start before he got a job, but he pretty much picked up a job on graduating.

I did a part time masters and there is no way I would have been able to do that with a baby - two people did get pregnant during the course, and they both deferred a year. Personally I think it is unwise to plan to do anything alongside having a new baby, especially anything that involves thinking - my brain was totally fried for months afterward because I really don't operate very well on disturbed sleep. I've had a few colleagues going off on maternity leave with ideas of all sorts of things they would do "while the baby is sleeping" and what they forgot is that a)not all babies sleep predictably, and b)they will want to go to sleep then too (or clean the house, or have a bath, or all the other things you cant easily do when you have a small baby to look after).

Of course some women cope better on little sleep, and some babies are more manageable than others, but I suspect it is better to plan on the likelihood that you will lose at least six months totally, and that after that you will need childcare.

For me working when my children were small worked out very well and I then had much more flexibility as they have grown up and needed me more (plus now dh is a SAHD). However the jobs I had when they were tiny were fairly menial and I could do them on very little sleep. If it is likely that your early career will be very stretching then you may need to plan very carefully.

My advice, as someone who has a small baby and is now in a permanent academic job at a top university? Either have the baby now, leaving enough time at the end of your maternity leave to finish your PhD 'on time', or wait until you're in a permanent post. Which, given the current climate, is unlikely to be any time soon. I would do it now. You will never have so much extra time than you do now, and being poor you will be eligible for all sorts of support that once one of you is earning you will no longer be. There is absolutely no disadvantage to you having a baby now. There might be if you wait.

Really, I'm not LRD. I just sacrificed a lot of other things like a social life, sleep and my sanity .

When you look back on it there really is so much more flexibility during a PhD than a job. It is an overwhelming task in itself but one you can often do in pyjamas bouncing the baby if needs be!

Hi there - I admire very much that you are making a conscious choice about whether or not to become a parent. It's very admirable that you're thinking it through.

This is in no way meant to be discouraging, but, are you really truly convinced that doing PhDs will be worth it in your career and in your husband's career? I'm only saying this because sometimes when you're at university you can become a bit myopic and think that the highest postgrad qualifications are going to be endlessly valuable. At the very least you expect that they will gain you an advantage over everyone else in the workforce. I have found that actually sometimes the opposite is true; staying on at university can be a disadvantage. It can make you miss out on real world experience (employers love this) and can make you seem a bit too nerdy and theoretical(employers don't love this). Gaining those higher quals will also cost you two years a lovely salary, which you can spend as you please. Don't underestimate how lovely it is to have a bit of money and time to do what you please with. You don't get that when you have a family.

Good luck with your decision. Remember, whatever you decide you can't really control nature. So it may or may not happen when you want it to. Que sera.