To think doing a PhD with young children is impossible?

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It’s Oxbridge, and it’s a fellowship, but I am finding it so tough to combine with family life. I thought it would be easier to combine PhD and home life than working and home life, but it’s not. Has anyone done it successfully? It doesn’t help the field is pretty new to me. All my friends who’ve done phds (non Oxbridge) have loved their first years. I just wonder what the hell I'm doing.

Depends how young. Mine were 7 and 10 when I started, and I was the main parent, but I had chosen my research to fit around school holidays (it's possible in my field) and treated the practical work as a 9-5 job.

I have known people do it.

It's pretty tough.

Mine were 8weeks and 2yrs when I started, and I completed in three years. I had to be very disciplined with the time I had, set clear goals and took it in small steps - for example, giving myself an hour to read and make notes about an article, or write so many words etc. I really enjoyed the space to think about something else, and then enjoyed returning to being 'mum'. I dealt with it as I would a big work project. I think you have to be realistic about research methods - and I was in social sciences - I would guess being in a lab would be very different. But yes it is both possible and hugely rewarding. Good luck!

It’s so dependent upon your particular set up that it’s impossible to say. I don’t think that at doctorate level the difference between Oxbridge and non Oxbridge will make such a difference as will your personal set up. Many people who do a PhD do so whilst caring for young children. It will be very situation specific.

I did a 2 year research MSc part time whilst working with small kids, with the full intention to go on to do a PhD. I completed the masters and have not done the PhD, and honestly over those 2 years I missed out on so much with the kids that I now regret even doing the masters.

It's doable, but it's incredibly tough - much harder, I think, than balancing work and kids, and you will, undoubtably, have to make personal sacrifices to get through it.

I wouldn’t, why add so much stress and sacrifice whilst you have young children. Can you do it when they get bigger?

Thanks all for your replies. I’m not sure I’d get this opportunity again tbh, so it’s sort of now or never. My children are 7 and 4 so not tiny, but still young enough to wake several times at night (I’m looking at you, 4 year old). I treat it like a job but the school days are so short and invariably I get a call from nursery asking me to collect for one reason or another, that I end up working until late every evening when they’ve gone to bed. I know a PhD is hard graft, but we’ve had a couple of busy weekends too and all I wanted to do this Saturday and Sunday was cry (I did cry today). I’m starting to think I can’t give this what it needs and also remain sane.

What sort of support do you have? Do you have a partner or is their dad involved? It hinges on that I think.

I treat it like a job but the school days are so short and invariably I get a call from nursery asking me to collect for one reason or another, that I end up working until late every evening when they’ve gone to bed.

This sounds like you aren’t treating it like a job (where your partner needs to take on their share of the filling in the gaps), but more like something you fit in around the kids while your partner has the “real” job. I think not being able to prioritise your work at least half the time would make it much harder.

I think if it can be done within a 9-5 type situation and you're able to be really organised and keep on top of it then yes, but you'll need help with the home life from your partner

FWIW it's not the easy option I'm afraid but you'll get something out of it!

I think it’ll be extremely tough. I have a DC currently doing a PHD and it is very full time. They are finding it tough with no children and living at home but I suppose it does depend on the subject/project.

Agreed. You need to treat it like a FT job, and be absolutely hard-headed about prioritising it. I’ve supervised several doctoral students who had young children. They all completed.

what area of research are you in? things are different for lab work where you need long hours at the bench or book work where you need to sit alone in the library and think.

it can be done but it is not at all easy. Do come over to the 'academic common room' board on Mumsnet (hidden under 'work') and you'll find others in the same situation who can give advice that is specific to the weird world of academia.

I did an MSc by Research when mine were 3 and 7 then started a PhD when they were about 6 and 10 and it took 5 years. I was also working full time for both the MSc and the PhD.

It was really hard going. My husband really helped with the DC and he worked 12 hour shifts so had a lot of time off. I am a morning person and would get up and work from 5 am til 11am on the weekends so still had the rest of the day. Most of my annual leave was spent studying.

It can be done but you will need a lot of support and will need to sacrifice quite a bit. One thing that puzzles me slightly - why are you studying in a field not well known to you?

I'm just finishing my PhD and I've got a 2 year old. It's brutal honestly but I have good support at home and I wouldn't be able to do it without that support. Possible - absolutely. An easy option? Absolutely not.

Good luck

It’s very very tough

Cambridge medicine

Phd

Stanford post doctoral research

2 under 5 at this point

a very supportive partner

It's not going to be a walk in the park! Can you delay?

Mine are a bit older (upper primary and early secondary) which undoubtedly helps but I just wanted to say it’s really normal to feel very uncertain at this stage. Or at least I tell myself it is. Which doesn’t help answer your question but it’s worth thinking about whether some of that feeling of ‘it’s all too hard’ is in there alongside the practical difficulties. It took me over a year FTE to really start to settle and feel like it was working in a way I was happy enough with. PT arts/humanities.

My mum did one with 3 DC aged 11, 8 and 5 when she started it (15, 12 and 9 when she finished). Being the eldest, I babysat my younger siblings a lot and was slightly resentful about how much she worked.

She picked us up from school, made dinner, then worked late. She often worked weekends too. The long hours never stopped and she still work 9am till 8-9pm most days, 20 years later.

Are you doing it full-time? Is there the option to move to part-time, and/or ask for an interruption of study if and when you feel you need one? I think a friend of mine took a couple of those (not because of kids) and ultimately completed. I think it is doable but I don’t think you should feel you have to drive yourself into the ground or be miserable to complete it. You deserve to enjoy your research and time with your children. There can be a martyr mentality around PhDs (and I’d imagine that might especially be true at Oxbridge though I didn’t do my PhD there), don’t buy into that. I’d be assertive about letting your supervisors and funder know what you need, obvs show that you’re organised and working hard but don’t feel you need to apologise for wanting a manageable life. If your supervisor is someone unsympathetic to or clueless about what it’s like to juggle research and kids, that might be an argument for looking around for another supervisor or at least a second supervisor.

Hopefully you’ll get useful tips here but I’d also be asking around (if you haven’t already) to see if there’s anyone in your college and/or faculty and discipline who has recently done a PhD in your situation and how they managed it. Oxbridge can be pretty specific in how they handle things so I don’t know how useful non-Oxbridge advice will be.

I've just chucked mine in. I've been doing it part-time with little progress. It always comes last behind the rest of my job (I'm what used to be called a teaching fellow), kids, home etc. Crucially, I just wasn't that interested in the topic. I don't think I'll ever be interested enough in any topic to look at it in that depth.

It reached the point where any possible career benefits just weren't worth the drag on my mental health and self esteem.

I'm so relieved.

I do know people who've done it, but you need to treat it like a job (so ft childcare and if you have a partner they need to be sharing the load) and have a passion for the subject.

The advice I got when I considered going on to do a PhD was to really think about why you are doing it and what you want to get out of it.

Unless it's something you are truly, truly passionate about and are totally willing to spend years of your live obsessing over, to the sacrifice of just about everything else, then don't do it. It's not the same as a job, no matter how hard you try to treat it as such.

I treat it like a job but the school days are so short and invariably I get a call from nursery asking me to collect for one reason or another

So you aren't treating it like a job. You are expecting to work short days and seem to accept that you are the default parent when there is a parenting issue.

It absolutely isn't "impossible" to do a PhD with young children.
We had 2 when dh did his PhD - well, one when he started and 3 when he was doing his first post-doc.
Was it hard ? Yes
Was it impossible - clearly not.
Has he then worked with, and then gone on to support and supervise other people doing PhDs with young dc ? Yes - loads.

My mother did a masters while I was still a child: it’s a childhood in which I remember often asking her questions only to be ignored or “wait a second”. Not ideal.

I did mine with young children, I started when they were 3 and 5.
My husband worked away and we had no family nearby. It can be done, but is hard work splitting yourself. I was lucky in that I didn't have to work, so that gave me extra time when they were both in school.