26 You Don’t Have to Keep Going: Reflections on Navigating Crises and Precarity as an Excluded Scholar

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. CONTENTS vii
3. Foreword xiii
4. Change the Conversation: An Introduction 1
5. Part I: Stay Alive
6. 1 Embrace the Multiplicities: How Internarrative Identity Theory Transformed My PhD Journey 17
7. 2 Leverage Your Assets: How Parenting Shapes (and Benefits) Our Scholarly Identities 22
8. 3 Be Your Best Advocate: Prioritizing Self as a Pregnant PhD Student 31
9. 4 This Too Shall Pass: Strategies for Mothering While Studying as a Distance-Learning Graduate Student 39
10. 5 Just Be Okay: A Reflection on Pandemic Parenting, Burnout, and Healing 47
11. 6 Keep a Labor Log: Analyzing Master Narratives about Time and Toxic Work Culture 56
12. 7 Send Away the Cucuy: One Mom’s Journey through Graduate School While Battling False Expectations 65
13. 8 Órale! Apply and Earn Tu Degree: Parenting While a (Chicana!) Doctoral Student 74
14. 9 Stay Alive: A Black Mother’s Responsibility to Ride Grief ’s Hills and Live 81
15. Part II: Your Body Has Other Plans
16. 10 “A Lot of Us Can Swim”: One Queer Student’s Advice for Mentoring Pregnant and Parenting Graduate Students 91
17. 11 Expect the Unexpected: Navigating the Early Dilemmas of Becoming a Graduate Student Parent 100
18. 12 Do Have Kids in Graduate School: Resisting Chilly Advice to and Treatment of Prospective Parents in Graduate School 108
19. 13 Send Those Damned Emails: Experiences and Advice from My Premature Delivery 117
20. 14 Don’t Divide Yourself: Building Hybrid Work Practices to Reconcile the Competing Identities of Graduate Student Parents 125
21. 15 Your Body Has Other Plans: Finding Support and Forgiveness for Morning Sickness 131
22. Part III: Juggle What Matters
23. 16 “Go to F-cking Disney World”: Establishing a Work-Life Balance and Learning When to Say No 139
24. 17 Cobble Together the Village: Securing Childcare as Graduate Student Parents 145
25. 18 The World Won’t Pause: What to Expect When Co-Navigating the Academic and Professional Job Market with a Newborn 153
26. 19 Reframe the Narrative: A Conversation on Navigating Childcare in a PhD Program 160
27. 20 Know When to Move: Intentionally Choosing When to Share News of Fostering with Your Committee 168
28. 21 Find Ways to Shift: Reimagining Labor in the Postpartum Period amid the PhD 177
29. 22 Give Yourself a Break: Juggling Rugrats, Experiencing Regrets, and Cultivating Compassionate Community 182
30. 23 Create a Toolkit: How We Developed Practices of Care to Survive as First-Gen GTA Parents 191
31. 24 Juggle What Matters: An Autoethnography of a Graduate School Mom, Educator, and Caretaker 200
32. Part IV: Push Back
33. 25 You Can Be Both: Navigating Complementary, Not Contradictory Roles as a Conservative Muslim Mother and Academic 209
34. 26 You Don’t Have to Keep Going: Reflections on Navigating Crises and Precarity as an Excluded Scholar 217
35. 27 Know the Problem Isn’t You: Addressing Systemic Barriers for Parents in PhD Programs 229
36. 28 Question Normative Tropes: Possibilities for Queer Parenting in Graduate Programs 240
37. 29 Get Rid of the Gauntlet: Redefining a Scientist’s Parenting Experience in Academia 249
38. 30 Push Back: Identifying and Handling Retaliation in Order to Stop a Leaky Pipeline 256
39. Part V: Leave a Note
40. 31 There’s Never a Good Time: Navigating Graduate Medical Education While Pregnant 267
41. 32 Things Don’t Always Go According to Plan: Navigating Pregnancy Loss and Challenging the Culture of Silence as a PhD Candidate 276
42. 33 Investigate and Invest in Supportive Spaces: Doctoral Programs That Accept and Enhance the Experiences of Graduate Student Parents 284
43. 34 It’s Not All Sunshine and Rainbows: Mentoring Graduate Student Parents in the Writing Center 293
44. 35 My Place in the Wolfpack: The Importance of Cultivating MyPacks and Providing Student Parents with Opportunities to Belong 302
45. 36 Race at Your Own Pace: A Story of How Caregiving Sometimes Means Changing Lanes or Start Times in Graduate School 311
46. 37 Lean On: Planning For, Insisting On, and Accepting Support 319
47. 38 Leave a Note: Powering through an Academic Job Market as a Breastfeeding Mom 330
48. Closing Thoughts: From Survival to Self-Preservation 337
49. Appendix A: Jenna’s Self-Preservation Toolkit 343
50. Appendix B: Out-of- Office Replies from Stephanie Graff, MD 348
51. Appendix C: Labor Log Template from Keith Jackson 351
52. Acknowledgments 353
53. Notes on Contributors 355
54. Index 369