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

[camaleon]

That is really. I have to make a decision regarding this. I need advice. I want to accommodate this student as much as possible but I am very aware of disrupting other students' learning experience.
What would you do?

Dreaming, to go even more off topic on this thread (sorry OP!) but if we were to have equal child rearing by men and women, how do we as a society create that?

Because at the moment it seems the general message seems to be (not coming from you, but in general in society that it is an individual arrangement where the mother is responsible for making sure that she has picked the right father and can be absolutely sure he will do his share, and if she doesn't achieve that, it is her fault and not anybody else's problem. Added to which, all of my paid childcare was carried out by women, which is the case for most people.

So is men doing half the childcare relevant to what we should be doing now to help mothers, when in the vast majority of cases, even among supposedly equal couples, this is not the situation we are in. It seems a bit like saying we'll not pay anybody benefits because we don't believe that a thing such as poverty should exist (when it does) or that we shouldn't provide services for gay people because sexual orientation shouldn't matter (when it does).

I'm not making a criticism, just wondering how we all manage situations of acting ethically in the discriminatory world we actually live in vs. acting by applying the standards of the world we think we should be living in.

i am pretty sure that someone feeding a baby can continue a conversation. someone on a phone wouldnt be able to.

i can feed a baby and pay attention in a lecture or seminar and take notes and oarticioate in deiscussion. i did it with my ds1.

that was 14yrs ago. i suspect it happems at unis on a regular ish basis.. we just dont hear about it.

thank god my lecturers were more umderstanding than some on this thread.

and how i lol at bonsoir and her comment about phoning the vice chancellor tocomplain if it happened at her sons uni!

dreaming I didn't meant to imply you were old

I just feel very protective of my students, I think.

My issue is: ok, if we say babies don't need to be there - where do they go? What happens with the women (and it is usually women) who have those babies?

Because after all, wasn't the argument with women 'oh, women do not need to be here, they could simply take the examinations and if they pass (in small numbers), all well and good. And if they fail, because we shut them out and refused to adapt, well, that proves they were too much of a distraction.

oh and my dp was and is a hands on dad and vrry involved with the kids and housework and all that goes with having a family...he doesnt have lactating boobs however... so yes my two/three week old baby did need to be with me and i had classes to attend.

I also wonder if this happens at some universities more than others. Having been at two different universities, one always seems to have children in the library and the other never did. That would seem to be connected to the range of students that attends each university, in terms of age, ethnicity and social background. It has to have an impact on what kinds of environments those students are going to be well prepared to work in later on, and what attitudes they take with them.

It's a good question freya. I'm not sure how to answer it necessarily, because I do have equal parenting with my DH and have done since day one. But I know we are quite lucky in this regard.

I do think part of it is down to the individual, in that women need to avoid fuckwit partners and be assertive about sharing the load.

But a lot of it is down to society though, and I do hope things are changing. I think the new paternity leave is a huge step in the right direction -- I think women are so disadvantaged early on because they are the only ones who can take so much paid time off.

We need more high-level men to take time off so that it becomes okay for lower-level employees to do so. etc and so on. I think we will get there slowly.

I think in the meantime, as I said earlier, we should really embrace 21st century technology and rethink our usual styles of work and education. Do people really need to be in the office and the classroom all the time, at the same time? How can technology make things more family-friendly?

I don't think the issue is one specific student and her hopefully perfect non-crying, non-puking baby. If we really want mothers to still be in school and the workforce, we need more creative solutions than just letting them bring their babies everywhere. That's not going to work for everyone.

It is outrageously rude to make or take a call during a lecture! You are there to learn and even if the call doesn't distract your fellow digital natives, it could distract the lecturer - just plain rude.
Have a bundle of snuffle tucked up your t-shirt is not a distraction. I have taught maths to high school students whilst carrying a 5 month old in my arms. Later they questioned why I wasn't breastfeeding the baby. I said that I had been, they just hadn't noticed!

Furthermore it is part of the greater sense of a wider education in growing up and being part of the real world, that people have babies and that these students will see them around the whole time. This young woman is being an excellent role model showing that having a child is not limiting her education. If we stop her getting that education she will become a subject of a hideous show about being on benefit and attract the ire of MN.

I agree we need a range of solutions. We don't want carers to be limited to only jobs that can be done with a child present, and many children and parents prefer child care. It does though assume that the nuclear family is the norm or that people want it to be the norm.

I also think that if globally, women were able to work without also carrying out childcare as the norm, the actual consequence of that would be that almost everyone in the West, including most women, would have to work a lot harder at a lot of unpleasant tasks because our standard of living relies upon the cheap labour of women globally working with children in two. The cost of providing childcare to all children with two working parents would be huge, and would require many more people to cease other work so they could be employed as childcare workers, leaving the rest of us to have to work a lot harder to pay for it and produce essential goods and services.

Children in tow not two!

Good question freya.

I think a huge issue is - what are students losing if they cannot cope with this form of 'distraction'? Are they also, perhaps, unable to cope with a student who is entirely unlike them in other ways?

LRD they go where babies always go -- with their other parent, with family, a friend, formal childcare, babysitter, etc. It's something most mothers have to sort out when they go back to work.

Obviously some people don't have many options, and if I had a student in this position I would do everything I could to figure something out for them. But I don't think the default should be 'just bring your baby to class', I think it's best to try to come up with other solutions.

The problem then is that many women don't go back to work, or education, or go into poorly paid part time jobs beneath their skill or experience level because they can't find a babysitter, affordable childcare, grandmother, partner etc. It is only where children go if the mother has that available.

x-post

Not wanting crying babies or ringing phones in the classroom does not mean someone is grossly intolerant of people in general. Or incapable of working in an office or whatever other extrapolations you might imagine.

As Dusk said upthread, it's about creating an optimal environment for learning. Obviously interpretations of that differ, and I suppose our different fields might account for that.

Do 'most mothers' sort that out, dreaming? Or do some of them drop out?

I'm sorry, but I see so many women who cut their education short. I am nearly 30 and I'm still being told that the system does not have room for a woman like me to have a baby. I really think it is utter bollocks that there is a support system for most women. Really?! If there is ... what is it that my students are doing wrong - that I am doing wrong - that we don't seem to have that system?

Which would, btw, inconvenience other students no more - at most, as you said - than a mere phonecall.

I mean, come on. What is it that we're failing to do that is so incredibly obvious, that it stacks up against a mere phonecall in the middle of a lesson?

I cross posted too.

dreaming, there are laws against an 'optimal' environment. We are required to make reasonable adjustments for students who, by reason of disabilty, cannot access the curriculum otherewise.

We are require to curtail hate speech.

Of course, there are no exact parallels to be drawn here. But we're not starting from the idea that we have to create an 'optimal' environment.

Has the mother had the child yet? I think you need to have 2 contingencies in place depending how she feels after the birth, I know I felt very different after each of my 3, I had one very easy baby who would have been no problem in this situation and 2 horrors.

I would not make any assumptions about what she will want but arrange a meeting with her to discuss her opinion and ideas on the best way to move forward. If you give her ownership of the situation then she's more likely to follow the agreed plan.

I said most women when they go back to work, meaning if a woman goes back to work she must have sorted out some kind of childcare. Sorry if that was unclear.

And I've said over and over that we need more childcare options because obviously there isn't enough at the moment.

I was just responding to your question of 'where do the babies go?' because it seemed faux-disingenous to me. There are plenty of places for babies to go, the problem is that some women cannot access them. So I think in those situations we need to find individual solutions (until the system as a whole can be improved), along the lines of what we've been discussing. I don't think the answer is to turn the classroom into a creche.

If you want to have a baby, have one. I know academia does not make it easy but you will find a way to make it work if you have to. Don't just listen to people who tell you it's not possible, the system will never change if we all listen to them.

Sorry, dreaming.

I didn't mean to be faux-dsingenous. I see why it sounded like that. I guess I mean, if you are 19 or so - does it feel ok to do that?

I do honestly belive that for the system to chance, it needs us to help as well as be the ones who have the babies. But I do see I am ignorant here.

I am a student with a baby. I would be very grateful if the uni considered doing what you are. I don't see the problem with having the baby in a presentation if she's willing to leave if the baby becomes disruptive.

It's not like you're saying she should attend every lecture with a baby in tow, just a few key sessions, if I've understood you correctly?

FWIW I have felt shut out of things since having a baby, and I do think society does need to address this if we're ever to get anywhere near to equality.

To be clear, I would go to extremely great lengths to help a student struggling with childcare. You're right that we do need to help and foster that change.

You're not ignorant, just more phone-tolerant than me obviously

As to where the babies go. I would have been very uncomfortable indeed leaving my newborn with anyone. She got very distressed if I was away from her for more than a few minutes. I'm not sure if I could have left her to attend a presentation, personally, when she was very young.

I taught a small group computing at my uni 22 years ago, with a 2 -3 month DD in tow. No-one batted an eyelid. Mind you, actually giving a lecture might have been rather different.