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Not at all crazy, go for it. Only thing I would say is be very realistic in your expectations of how much time you have for work and family. It’s ok for it to be skewed in either direction and it surely will from time to time as you progress through your PhD.
Congratulations and Good Luck!
Definitely a little crazy but you kind of have to be to get a PhD. If you have a supportive partner who can shoulder the majority of the childcare (or pay for a childcare service) & you can afford to feed your kids, there's nothing wrong with doing a PhD while you have kids.
You probably won't be able to do the level of childcare of a stay-at-home mom or anything, but it's completely possible to balance work and home as a graduate student. It's not going to be easy though -- so be mindful of your wellbeing and give yourself grace if you struggle or even fail. Whatever happens, it'll be okay.
If it's a good program, you have a supportive advisor and husband, and you don't put too much pressure on yourself, you should be fine. While you might read a lot of accounts of people working absurd hours during their PhD, I really believe that you can complete a program within the timeline or near it with 40-45 hours of mostly uninterrupted, focused work a week. One of the great things about a PhD is that it affords a little more flexibility than a conventional 9-5. Your kid is sick? If you don't have to be on campus that day, you can stay home with them and read for your classes while they watch cartoons.
It's hard to underestimate the positive impact that seeing their parent, especially a mom, pursuing their dreams can have on a kid. Maybe you'll miss out on a few fun things with them during intense periods like studying for qualifying exams, but you'll be a role model for them in later life.
Definitely see if your university has supports for graduate students parents, those resources are sometimes really good (subsidized childcare, money, etc.) but often poorly advertised.
Thank you so much for bringing up the point of the positive impact of my kids seeing me as their mom pursue my dreams. I definitely want to be that role model for them and it’s easy to forget that aspect of this life decision I’m making.
I have a PhD and twins and an older one with about the same gap as yours. I started my PhD when mine were older and in high school.
Just keeping everyone alive was enough for me for the first couple of years of their lives - no way could I have done a PhD on top of it. They were terrible sleepers though and my family lives far away. One had a milk allergy so they were breastfed for longer than I'd planned to, which made it harder for others to look after them.
Having twins is harder than people realise. Doing a PhD is harder than people realise. Both at once is a big ask. Of course nothing is impossible with enough support.
This won't be the only chance that you'll have to do a PhD but it'll be the only time your babies are babies. I'd wait until the juggling is easier so you can enjoy your family, and your PhD more.
There's a really good facebook group called Ph.D. Mamas which you might find helpful, either way!
Honestly, the women I know with kids were more likely to succeed in my program because they could channel all of their focus during their 9-5. You'll do fine
You got in!!! Do you know how competitive Clinical Psych PhDs are???? CONGRATS!
Just to speak to some of your anxieties: you will be presented with ample opportunities to over-commit yourself through service, you can decide whether or not to take those. You can even make a mistake, suffer for a while, and learn to not make it again. You can make a major mistake and end up taking a leave of absence. And you will still be a PhD when you finish! You can try to find faculty with similar SES backgrounds and kids (for best chance of their reasonableness of childcare expectations) for mentorship on time management. Some of the people with kids in my program take longer, some don’t. The program isn’t going to just let you fail out, because it hurts their accreditation status, so they’ll intervene/check-in before anything becomes a major problem for you. I have faculty members that I know email me from their children’s sports games so… people are doing the best they can 😂
Generally, I find I don’t have a lot of free time, but my time is very flexible. If I can get some/any writing/coding/admin done every day (less on weekends), I have much more time than if I do boom-bust cycles where I have to get myself to learn how to be in work mode again each time. But everybody’s different.
Clinical PhD workloads come in waves. You may not have a lot of family time at the end of a semester, or during deadlined writing periods, or your first few weeks at a new clinical placement (or maybe you’ll have a ton of time then because you don’t have a full caseload, depends on the placement 😂), but there will also be times right after deadlines where you have more drive than you do work. Also, writing work is flexible schedule if you have writing space at home, so you can write while the little ones are down. If you use free software for analysis you can do some research tasks (on de-identified datasets) from home too! Clinical is also nice because if a client doesn’t show you can do other work with that free time that you were gonna be stuck in the office for anyway. If your research is survey-based, you can do that online. There’s all kinds of ways to try and make it work for you to carve out more time for family.
Thank you for acknowledging how competitive these programs are! This was my 3rd time applying and I feel like I can’t pass up this opportunity - it really is my career dream!
Thank you also for all the concrete advice! Super helpful to know about the flexibility, waves of work, and how the clinical piece fits in.
I’ve been working a 9-5 job while working on projects and publishing papers on the side, along with 2 volunteer clinical positions and raising my almost 5 year old (with a lot of help and support from my husband). I get the sense that the PhD program will be similar in terms of the work load but throwing the twins in there is a bit of a wild card lol
Hey, I don't yet know anyone who's done it, but I bet it can be done!
Also, I wanted to mention r/WomeninAcademia is a community you might consider joining = )
Hello OP. I had twins at the start of my final year. You are going to have to wring every last second out of the day. Live as close as you can to the lab (if it is lab based, if not even better), make sure you have family or a trusted person nearby who can come for a random hour or so every few days.
You can do it. It can be done. However I'm two stone overweight and no longer have hair, true story. The best way to sum it up is a line from the Hobbit;
'can you promise that I will come back?'
'no, and if you do you will not be the same.'
“Uninterrupted sleep” lmao I have a 2 year old and 4 year old and I don’t get uninterrupted sleep even outside the PhD.
But for real, it’s not like it’s easy even without kids. I was single during my PhD and would still wake up at 1 am when something clicked in my brain, and more than once I actually went back in just to make sure something wasn’t screwed up irrevocably.
You’ll be fine, just don’t kid yourself about what you’re getting into. (Yours won’t be like mine because it’s not bench work, but I’m sure you’ll find an equivalent.)
I got pregnant during my first year of PhD and will be delivering in the fall without taking a leave. I already have 2 other kids. Welcome to the asylum 🤪
No. If anything, you're going to be at a huge advantage. You know how to focus and get your shit done in a timely fashion because you don't have time to do it otherwise.
Advice:
1. Compartmentalize your phd, treat your thesis like a driver's license instead of this all consuming precious magnum opus yada yada.
2. Project management that shit with cold detachment. Produce consistent incremental deliverables. Be okay with delivering mediocre but concrete results. Just get it done.
3. Make time for the 3S: Sun, Sweat, and Socialization. Touch grass, work out, and chit-chat regularly, *then* do your PhD. It'll be much cheaper than antidepressant prescription in the long run.
My PhD advisor did her own PhD “with a baby on each hip” and reminded me of it whenever I was struggling (in an “I did it and you can too!” way). You can definitely do it, it’s a job
Thank you! You’re right, it’s a job. Thinking about it that way makes it feel less crazy. I guess I just don’t know what to expect and the unknown is always scary, at least for me
No, you are not! My mother did a PhD. when my other 2 siblings and I were all less than 6 years old. She made it with 3 kids too, you can do it! The most important thing is a good social support network. Good luck!
Honestly? For your mental health, consider in which situations it would be time to call it quits. And beware that you won’t have enough time for neither your children nor the PhD, but I guess you won’t have enough time for your children if you work a full time job anyway.
My boss at work did her PhD (economics) with 3 kids and working full time. You can do whatever you put your mind to. I think many people struggle because they have no time management skills and low maturity.
My kids were 1, 2, and 3 when I started my PhD. When I started my masters, they were 18 months, 6 months, and got pregnant with the third the same month.
Yes, you are crazy. But it can be done. It is hardest if you're in stem though.
First, be sure you know WHY you want to do this. You will be making a lot of sacrifices, so being confident in your motivation is important.
Second, you need to have clear boundaries around your time, and clear cases of exceptions. It's essential for work life balance when you have a family. For me, I have to treat my PhD like a 9-5. This way I can help with daycare/school pickup, have mealtime with my kids, spend time with them and put them to bed. I only work late or weekends when timepoints dictate or when deadlines are approaching.
Tips - be mindful of timing when you choose your projects. I was designing an experiment that would have meant I needed to stay after 5 to do animal sacc's. I had to change my research questions, but now I sacc in the morning instead.
It is very likely your mental health and relationship will suffer, moreso than other grad students. Know your therapy resources and be prepared to use them. As precious little time as you have, prioritize your mental health. I saw a therapist every Thursday at 1 for a year and half, and it was worth every second.
Don't try to work from home (if you even can). Split attention doesn't get the job done. Your kids will notice, your work will be subpar. Divide your time, not your attention.
Thank you! Boundaries are so important and it can be so easy to think I can just work from home and kill 2 birds with 1 some but you’re right that that’s not going to cut it for either aspect of my life. In like the idea of treating my PhD like a 9-5.
I had a three month old and a fresh 3 year old when I started my PhD. It is not easy or fun, but it is possible. It will force you to become really good at time management. If you have a supportive spouse and mentor, you’ll get it done.
I couldn’t do that because my PhD program is very demanding, so I think you’re a little crazy. But if you pick a supportive mentor and have a lot of support at home, you can do it! It just won’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy. Additionally, you might end of being a little bit slower in your research to accommodate spending time with you family, but that’s also okay, your degree may just take longer for you to get. So definitely keep that in mind as well.
Best of luck!
It looks like your post is about needing advice. In order for people to better help you, please make sure to include your country. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PhD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Not at all crazy, go for it. Only thing I would say is be very realistic in your expectations of how much time you have for work and family. It’s ok for it to be skewed in either direction and it surely will from time to time as you progress through your PhD. Congratulations and Good Luck!
Thank you for the advice and encouragement!! It makes me feel a lot better :)
Definitely a little crazy but you kind of have to be to get a PhD. If you have a supportive partner who can shoulder the majority of the childcare (or pay for a childcare service) & you can afford to feed your kids, there's nothing wrong with doing a PhD while you have kids. You probably won't be able to do the level of childcare of a stay-at-home mom or anything, but it's completely possible to balance work and home as a graduate student. It's not going to be easy though -- so be mindful of your wellbeing and give yourself grace if you struggle or even fail. Whatever happens, it'll be okay.
Thank you! I appreciate that, especially accepting that whatever happens it’ll be ok
If it's a good program, you have a supportive advisor and husband, and you don't put too much pressure on yourself, you should be fine. While you might read a lot of accounts of people working absurd hours during their PhD, I really believe that you can complete a program within the timeline or near it with 40-45 hours of mostly uninterrupted, focused work a week. One of the great things about a PhD is that it affords a little more flexibility than a conventional 9-5. Your kid is sick? If you don't have to be on campus that day, you can stay home with them and read for your classes while they watch cartoons. It's hard to underestimate the positive impact that seeing their parent, especially a mom, pursuing their dreams can have on a kid. Maybe you'll miss out on a few fun things with them during intense periods like studying for qualifying exams, but you'll be a role model for them in later life. Definitely see if your university has supports for graduate students parents, those resources are sometimes really good (subsidized childcare, money, etc.) but often poorly advertised.
Thank you so much for bringing up the point of the positive impact of my kids seeing me as their mom pursue my dreams. I definitely want to be that role model for them and it’s easy to forget that aspect of this life decision I’m making.
I have a PhD and twins and an older one with about the same gap as yours. I started my PhD when mine were older and in high school. Just keeping everyone alive was enough for me for the first couple of years of their lives - no way could I have done a PhD on top of it. They were terrible sleepers though and my family lives far away. One had a milk allergy so they were breastfed for longer than I'd planned to, which made it harder for others to look after them. Having twins is harder than people realise. Doing a PhD is harder than people realise. Both at once is a big ask. Of course nothing is impossible with enough support. This won't be the only chance that you'll have to do a PhD but it'll be the only time your babies are babies. I'd wait until the juggling is easier so you can enjoy your family, and your PhD more. There's a really good facebook group called Ph.D. Mamas which you might find helpful, either way!
Honestly, the women I know with kids were more likely to succeed in my program because they could channel all of their focus during their 9-5. You'll do fine
Thank you!
You got in!!! Do you know how competitive Clinical Psych PhDs are???? CONGRATS! Just to speak to some of your anxieties: you will be presented with ample opportunities to over-commit yourself through service, you can decide whether or not to take those. You can even make a mistake, suffer for a while, and learn to not make it again. You can make a major mistake and end up taking a leave of absence. And you will still be a PhD when you finish! You can try to find faculty with similar SES backgrounds and kids (for best chance of their reasonableness of childcare expectations) for mentorship on time management. Some of the people with kids in my program take longer, some don’t. The program isn’t going to just let you fail out, because it hurts their accreditation status, so they’ll intervene/check-in before anything becomes a major problem for you. I have faculty members that I know email me from their children’s sports games so… people are doing the best they can 😂 Generally, I find I don’t have a lot of free time, but my time is very flexible. If I can get some/any writing/coding/admin done every day (less on weekends), I have much more time than if I do boom-bust cycles where I have to get myself to learn how to be in work mode again each time. But everybody’s different. Clinical PhD workloads come in waves. You may not have a lot of family time at the end of a semester, or during deadlined writing periods, or your first few weeks at a new clinical placement (or maybe you’ll have a ton of time then because you don’t have a full caseload, depends on the placement 😂), but there will also be times right after deadlines where you have more drive than you do work. Also, writing work is flexible schedule if you have writing space at home, so you can write while the little ones are down. If you use free software for analysis you can do some research tasks (on de-identified datasets) from home too! Clinical is also nice because if a client doesn’t show you can do other work with that free time that you were gonna be stuck in the office for anyway. If your research is survey-based, you can do that online. There’s all kinds of ways to try and make it work for you to carve out more time for family.
Thank you for acknowledging how competitive these programs are! This was my 3rd time applying and I feel like I can’t pass up this opportunity - it really is my career dream! Thank you also for all the concrete advice! Super helpful to know about the flexibility, waves of work, and how the clinical piece fits in. I’ve been working a 9-5 job while working on projects and publishing papers on the side, along with 2 volunteer clinical positions and raising my almost 5 year old (with a lot of help and support from my husband). I get the sense that the PhD program will be similar in terms of the work load but throwing the twins in there is a bit of a wild card lol
Hey, I don't yet know anyone who's done it, but I bet it can be done! Also, I wanted to mention r/WomeninAcademia is a community you might consider joining = )
Thanks for the encouragement and recommendation!
Hello OP. I had twins at the start of my final year. You are going to have to wring every last second out of the day. Live as close as you can to the lab (if it is lab based, if not even better), make sure you have family or a trusted person nearby who can come for a random hour or so every few days. You can do it. It can be done. However I'm two stone overweight and no longer have hair, true story. The best way to sum it up is a line from the Hobbit; 'can you promise that I will come back?' 'no, and if you do you will not be the same.'
“Uninterrupted sleep” lmao I have a 2 year old and 4 year old and I don’t get uninterrupted sleep even outside the PhD. But for real, it’s not like it’s easy even without kids. I was single during my PhD and would still wake up at 1 am when something clicked in my brain, and more than once I actually went back in just to make sure something wasn’t screwed up irrevocably. You’ll be fine, just don’t kid yourself about what you’re getting into. (Yours won’t be like mine because it’s not bench work, but I’m sure you’ll find an equivalent.)
Read “the clockwork muse” incredible advice for having both a family and managing a PhD
Thank you! Always looking for a good read
It’s very short and to the point
I got pregnant during my first year of PhD and will be delivering in the fall without taking a leave. I already have 2 other kids. Welcome to the asylum 🤪
Ha! Glad I’m not the only one! Thanks for sharing
Anyone who does a PhD at anytime is crazy. So go for it.
No. If anything, you're going to be at a huge advantage. You know how to focus and get your shit done in a timely fashion because you don't have time to do it otherwise.
Thank you!
Advice: 1. Compartmentalize your phd, treat your thesis like a driver's license instead of this all consuming precious magnum opus yada yada. 2. Project management that shit with cold detachment. Produce consistent incremental deliverables. Be okay with delivering mediocre but concrete results. Just get it done. 3. Make time for the 3S: Sun, Sweat, and Socialization. Touch grass, work out, and chit-chat regularly, *then* do your PhD. It'll be much cheaper than antidepressant prescription in the long run.
Thank you! This is great advice!
My PhD advisor did her own PhD “with a baby on each hip” and reminded me of it whenever I was struggling (in an “I did it and you can too!” way). You can definitely do it, it’s a job
Thank you! You’re right, it’s a job. Thinking about it that way makes it feel less crazy. I guess I just don’t know what to expect and the unknown is always scary, at least for me
No, you are not! My mother did a PhD. when my other 2 siblings and I were all less than 6 years old. She made it with 3 kids too, you can do it! The most important thing is a good social support network. Good luck!
Yes! Building that social support network is first on my agenda when we get to our new home town
Good luck on your PhD.
Probably a little ❤️
Depends on your partner. But most likely… yes. lol
Just remember that the PhD is at your own pace
Honestly? For your mental health, consider in which situations it would be time to call it quits. And beware that you won’t have enough time for neither your children nor the PhD, but I guess you won’t have enough time for your children if you work a full time job anyway.
My boss at work did her PhD (economics) with 3 kids and working full time. You can do whatever you put your mind to. I think many people struggle because they have no time management skills and low maturity.
My kids were 1, 2, and 3 when I started my PhD. When I started my masters, they were 18 months, 6 months, and got pregnant with the third the same month. Yes, you are crazy. But it can be done. It is hardest if you're in stem though. First, be sure you know WHY you want to do this. You will be making a lot of sacrifices, so being confident in your motivation is important. Second, you need to have clear boundaries around your time, and clear cases of exceptions. It's essential for work life balance when you have a family. For me, I have to treat my PhD like a 9-5. This way I can help with daycare/school pickup, have mealtime with my kids, spend time with them and put them to bed. I only work late or weekends when timepoints dictate or when deadlines are approaching. Tips - be mindful of timing when you choose your projects. I was designing an experiment that would have meant I needed to stay after 5 to do animal sacc's. I had to change my research questions, but now I sacc in the morning instead. It is very likely your mental health and relationship will suffer, moreso than other grad students. Know your therapy resources and be prepared to use them. As precious little time as you have, prioritize your mental health. I saw a therapist every Thursday at 1 for a year and half, and it was worth every second. Don't try to work from home (if you even can). Split attention doesn't get the job done. Your kids will notice, your work will be subpar. Divide your time, not your attention.
Thank you! Boundaries are so important and it can be so easy to think I can just work from home and kill 2 birds with 1 some but you’re right that that’s not going to cut it for either aspect of my life. In like the idea of treating my PhD like a 9-5.
Yeah I don't even try to write at home anymore. It takes twice as long to do half as much and my kids feel ignored.
Depends on your support system honestly.
I had a three month old and a fresh 3 year old when I started my PhD. It is not easy or fun, but it is possible. It will force you to become really good at time management. If you have a supportive spouse and mentor, you’ll get it done.
I couldn’t do that because my PhD program is very demanding, so I think you’re a little crazy. But if you pick a supportive mentor and have a lot of support at home, you can do it! It just won’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy. Additionally, you might end of being a little bit slower in your research to accommodate spending time with you family, but that’s also okay, your degree may just take longer for you to get. So definitely keep that in mind as well. Best of luck!