Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life (Paperback)

by Elrena Evans (Author, Editor), Caroline Grant (Editor)
Key Phrases: tenure clock, mommy thing, wire mother, The Conversation, Orange Kangaroo, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"This is easily the most important piece of work to date on academics and family issues, full-stop, because the editors draw out from the authors all of the messiness, the highs and lows, the fears and hopes, the pride, guilt, anger, love and sense of failure and accomplishment and mainly great stories that comprise life for so many moms who try to make it as academics. The panopoly of supportive or unkind department chairs and colleagues, high and low status schools, childcare arrangements that work or don't work, supportive or non-existent partners, and perfect and not-so-perfect children is all here." -- Bob Drago, Take Care Net

"Mama PhD offers a series of lively personal essays from women who share varied experiences of being both mothers and academics, from struggling to keep down morning sickness while lecturing to a room full of students, to writing a dissertation while caring for a child with special needs, to negotiating viable maternity and family leave policies. Honest, funny, frustrated, provocative, and, yes, in love with their work, these writers don t claim that their experience in the academy is more difficult than any other working mother's." --Jo Keroes, Mommy Track'd

"This is easily the most important piece of work to date on academics and family issues, full-stop, because the editors draw out from the authors all of the messiness, the highs and lows, the fears and hopes, the pride, guilt, anger, love and sense of failure and accomplishment and mainly great stories that comprise life for so many moms who try to make it as academics. The panopoly of supportive or unkind department chairs and colleagues, high and low status schools, childcare arrangements that work or don't work, supportive or non-existent partners, and perfect and not-so-perfect children is all here." ----Bob Drago, Take Care Net

"This is easily the most important piece of work to date on academics and family issues, full-stop, because the editors draw out from the authors all of the messiness, the highs and lows, the fears and hopes, the pride, guilt, anger, love and sense of failure and accomplishment and mainly great stories that comprise life for so many moms who try to make it as academics. The panopoly of supportive or unkind department chairs and colleagues, high and low status schools, childcare arrangements that work or don't work, supportive or non-existent partners, and perfect and not-so-perfect children is all here." -- Bob Drago, Take Care Net<br /><br />"An engrossing collection of essays by women who have negotiated the complex challenges of parenting while pursuing an academic career. Unlike similar studies that focus primarily on mothers who have made it --i.e., those who have remained in the professoriate--Mama, PhD provides a balanced perspective from mothers who have opted to pursue other career options, from part-time contingent positions to non-academic writing. Celebratory but realistic, these essays illustrate the multitude of choices available (and still unavailable) to women and the great rewards (and considerable pitfalls) of fitting motherhood into the academic mold. In offering concrete suggestions to improve institutional support for women with children, the anthology connects personal experience to systemic change and gestures toward academe s potential to provide truly family-friendly workplaces. Its stories will be of interest to young scholars contemplating motherhood, to current parents who feel isolated by expectations that they perform childlessness, and to anyone wondering how mothers are faring within the academy. --On Campus with Women, Association of American Colleges<br /><br />"This is easily the most important piece of work to date on academics and family issues, full-stop, because the editors draw out from the authors all of the messiness, the highs and lows, the fears and hopes, the pride, guilt, anger, love and sense of failure and accomplishment and mainly great stories that comprise life for so many moms who try to make it as academics. The panopoly of supportive or unkind department chairs and colleagues, high and low status schools, childcare arrangements that work or don't work, supportive or non-existent partners, and perfect and not-so-perfect children is all here." --Bob Drago, Take Care Net

Review
"Mama PhD offers a series of lively personal essays from women who share varied experiences of being both mothers and academics, from struggling to keep down morning sickness while lecturing to a room full of students, to writing a dissertation while caring for a child with special needs, to negotiating viable maternity and family leave policies. Honest, funny, frustrated, provocative, and, yes, in love with their work, these writers don't claim that their experience in the academy is more difficult than any other working mother's."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (July 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813543185
• ISBN-13: 978-0813543185
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #57,674 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From women who have gone before: balancing the Mama and the PhD, June 30, 2008

By	Merrie - See all my reviews

In today's world, a Mama, PhD, is (at best) an awkward thing to be. The glistening Ivory Tower is a place of the mind, and a place they try to make a disconnected mind. It is the realm of the intellectuals who are not busy with the physical realm. And the realm of motherhood is, firstly, a physical one. Making the two opposite spheres of "All Mind" and "All Body" mesh is an intense juggling act made worse by the academy's continued unfriendliness towards women, and in particular, mamas. If you try to balance both, the academy says, they must be in worlds as separate as the Mind and the Body. Parallel tracks that never, ever cross - and it would really be preferable if you'd just choose between one or the other.

And that's where this book comes in. As the Introduction explains, "With no easy solution for the struggles they encounter, women take a variety of different approaches as they attempt to reconcile family and academy." The essays anthologized are real women sharing their stories of bringing together both hemispheres, the Mama and the PhD; of women who have chosen to put one on hold for the sake of the other, and of women still deciding. They talk candidly of the difficulties and the sacrifices, and share how they've come to terms with their decisions regarding motherhood and the academy. There are stories of women who have not only not chosen, but have brought the two halves of themselves together into a whole. The last section of the book, "Momifesto", shares brighter hopes for change and a new future for the Mama, PhDs. And in the essay with the same title, women considering this balancing act will be encouraged by the compilation of ten things the authors wished they'd known.

In short, "Mama, PhD" is a necessary book for any woman considering, muddling through, or interested in the shaky balance between motherhood and the academy. And yet, while this is geared specifically for those in or through graduate school, many of the themes - balancing work, careers, and children - will ring true for women in the working world as well. It's a book where the authors write honestly of their struggles and consequent decisions, one that will make you better informed about the choices you may face (or have faced), and one that will spark plenty of discussion. But even more, it's one that will leave you encouraged, as you read the stories of those that have gone before.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for PhDs, July 27, 2008

By	Suzanne Kamata (Japan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Although I am not an academic, (I teach as an adjunct and have occasional fantasies about becoming a professor), I found this book highly engaging. Who knew that the academy, that last bastion of liberal arts, was so conservative? The writers offer up stories of trying to accomodate both scholarship and motherhood - and occasionally giving up, as well as tips on how to deal with colleagues and antiquated policies regarding maternity leave and childcare, and ideas on how everything could be better. Some of my favorite essays were by the iconoclasts - Elrena Evans on trying to fit in as a feminist Christian while teaching barefoot, Angelica Duran on being a single mother from a low income family and making it work anyhow, and Jennifer Margulis on teaching (or trying to) in Niger.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars thoughtful and engaging, June 30, 2008

By	Raleigh Zwerin - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Mama Phd is an anthology of heartfelt essays written by women. The writers beautifully describe the challenge of balancing family and academic life. This book will resonate with all mamas, working or stay-at-home. I couldn't put it down.