Having children during grad school

[ny1020]

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I have heard some stories personally (and on this site, I think) about mentors and schools that are biased against having children during grad school or during the tenure process once you're teaching. I'm a non-trad, married, my spouse is willing to move anywhere, but I am concerned that interviewers will ask if I am planning on having children and then be biased against me if I say yes.

Are they allowed to ask questions like that?

Thanks!

 

[GiantSteps]

I have heard some stories personally (and on this site, I think) about mentors and schools that are biased against having children during grad school or during the tenure process once you're teaching. I'm a non-trad, married, my spouse is willing to move anywhere, but I am concerned that interviewers will ask if I am planning on having children and then be biased against me if I say yes.

Are they allowed to ask questions like that?

Thanks!

Schools can not legally ask questions like that. I do not see how they can even ask if you are married or single. I have heard of this issue coming up frequently for female medical doctors applying for their residencies. In any case, regardless of the legality, schools might ask you such questions and other illegal question as well since no one ever challenges them and as my lawyer friend, who handles discrimination cases, told me, most of these cases are impossible to prove. Besides, what are you going to do, take legal action against a school and then expect to go there and work with the professors you sued?

I do not think you have to worry about this. Many psychology professors have young families themselves so they will understand.

Even if many psychologist are not willing to admit it, many of the most important subjects of their studies were their own kids!

 

[PsyDr]

it all depends.


clinical:

i have seen women go to internship interviews with enormous bellies who have gotten it and i have seen women show up to internship interviews in similar conditions and the training director whispers "is she joking?". it depends on the site. some of this is simply realistic. it would not be safe to have you do assessments on violent people and any facility admin would experience considerable liability.

as for having kids overall:

i don't think a lot of people care IF you have kids. it is more in how this affects you. professors will be nice, but they will fail you if you frequently have to leave a class due to some child related issue.


as for tenure:

pretty much the same. you are not going to escape your research duties because your kid had a recital. but i doubt many would care if you cancelled a single class a semester for the same purpose.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

When I interviewed a couple professors assumed I had a family, (I look fatherly? I got the same thing at my last job too...weird) so they told me about the school system and whatnot....I let them know that it was good to know, but not an immediate need. I don't think they did it as a back door to answering a question, I think they legitimately were trying to be helpful. If I *did* have a family, that would be a definite contributor to my decision.

I think psychologists will be more understanding of this, though I don't think that makes it any easier to do. I know a few people who had a child during their training, and they all took off between 6 months and a year. I think having a strong support network is really important (the people I know had very involved husbands, family close by to babysit, etc). I wouldn't suggest it, but people do it. I know my workload was such that I wouldn't have been able to do nearly as much as I did, and I think it would have negatively impacted the breadth and depth of my learning. I wouldn't have been able to go to as many work shops, spend extra time researching, take extra classes, etc.

-t

 

[paramour]

I do not *think* that I had any problems during interviews due to my child. Most were very helpful and gave me information about schools, etc. in the area. I heard more negative feedback once they learned that one's family isn't moving with you immediately. This happened to me a few times, mostly from the grad students. I didn't mention it at the next place--but another applicant was in a similar situation and she was talked about quite a bit for it. I decided at that point no one else was going to know until I was accepted somewhere.