By: Zahraa Chorghay
If you are a parent or thinking of being a parent or are just curious about what life is like at the intersection of parenting and graduate school, this article is for you! When I was in the beginning of my PhD, I was part of a group of trainees who were asked to discuss how could we make open science more feasible? Some trainees insisted that daycare services at our institute would help them do their science better. While I nodded along, in truth, the gravity of this assertion did not quite sink in. After all, I thought, we are students, and as students, we have completely different issues as our priorities, right? And besides, how does a daycare affect science, right? Now, being a much more weathered PhD student, I can only scoff at my naivete. Most Master’s and PhD students begin their studies in their 20s, and by the time we graduate, we are well into our 20s and 30s. It’s not surprising that during this time, some of us will start families or at least entertain the possibility. Making science more open, accessible, and equitable, requires that we invest seriously in those actually doing this science — graduate students are ultimately people, people who must balance their personal and professional responsibilities, and who are deserving of the policy and infrastructural framework to live full lives.
I spoke with six parents in the IPN about their initial concerns and ongoing challenges with parenting as a graduate student (“student-parents” for the rest of the article), how these were addressed on a personal and institutional level, and some practical advice for others. I thank these student-parents for their time, candid opinions, and for trusting me with this task! I have anonymised their responses here, though with her permission, I would specifically like to thank Maria Zamfir for including most of the links you see here. Many of the interviewees have also graciously agreed to speak with fellow IPN students who are / were thinking of becoming parents; if this is you, please write to me at zahraa.chorghay@mail.mcgill.ca, and I will be happy to put you in touch in order to maintain everyone’s privacy.
I had the opportunity to interview a diverse range of student-parents, both fathers and mothers. Some of them became parents prior to commencing their studies, and others made the decision to become a parent during graduate school. Overwhelmingly, they told me that the primary challenge they faced in their decision-making was a lack of information. And most of them relied heavily on other students and postdocs to guide them through their process. For those who made the decision to become a parent during graduate school, they waited until they were well into their studies: at a minimum, until they had their thesis project lined up. Beyond the private decision of choosing to become a parent, we focused on their concerns regarding parenting specifically as a graduate student, which included (1) policies around parental leave, (2) childcare logistics, including housing; finding daycare services; health insurance, and child assistance benefits (3) how their supervisor would react, and (4) how this would affect their performance in graduate school, including completing experiments; balancing parenting responsibilities with research; meeting deadlines for graduation; and how others would think about their research competency.
Parental leave
At McGill, you are allowed up to two semesters of medical leave, which includes pregnancy leave. International students taking parental leave must consider how this will affect your student visa length, and submit appropriate documentation. To process the leave, you inform the IPN by email and then apply through GPS by filling out the McGill Leave of Absence form, alongside a note from your doctor with the due date. Once the IPN receives the form and the document, they forward it to McGill Enrolment Services for approval, and you receive an email confirmation. Importantly, if you are paid through a grant from the federal tri-council (CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC) or provincial (FRQS) agencies, you and your PI can apply to the agency for paid interruption. Since your supervisor is not legally obligated to pay you during your leave, this is an important consideration in terms of funding, especially if you can position yourself to be on a project covered by one of these funding agencies. To fill out the tri-council agency forms, you need the McGill Leave of Absence Forms, though there seems to be some confusion regarding whether IPN or GPS needs to sign the form. Excitingly, as of June 2019, parental leave under the tri-council agencies has been extended to 12 months; note, if both parents are funded this way, then the shared parental leave is up to 12 months.
Childcare logistics
The main childcare logistics are finding family housing (especially if you’re coming to McGill as an international student with children), finding a daycare, health insurance, and child assistance benefits. While none of the interviewees mentioned it, I stumbled upon the McGill Family Care website during my research and recommend this as a starting point for information; they also have a Facebook group for those looking for a community of student-parents and a Google map to locate these services all at once. Since there is quite a bit of information, you can freely peruse their site regarding these logistics. I will only add that due to shockingly long waiting lists, it was emphasised to me by several student-parents that it’s best to sign up for Quebec daycare as soon as you learn about your pregnancy.
As for health insurance, you will be covered by provincial or international health insurance for you and your family. However, note that if your child is born in Canada but the parents are not covered by provincial health insurance like RAMQ, then the child will also not be covered. So for international students, it’s recommended to apply to be covered by RAMQ prior to childbirth or rely on private insurance. During parental leave, PGSS (Studentcare) will no longer cover your supplementary health insurance. However, you can contact PGSS at studentlife.pgss@mail.mcgill.ca and ask to pay the PGSS student fees while on approved leave so that you can maintain enrollment in the health plan.
The government offers financial assistance for raising children, as part of the federal Childcare Benefit and provincial (Quebec) Family Allowance programs. One interviewee emphasised that they particularly chose McGill for their studies, after declining offers from the United States, because of how much the child assistance benefit would lighten the financial burden for their family.
Supervisor
For those who were parents prior to coming into the program, they chose to let their supervisor know this beforehand, but there is no policy about this. For those becoming parents once they were already in the program, since the decision to become a parent is such a personal and sensitive matter, many student-parents wrestled with the idea of when and how to tell their supervisor, and eventually, their lab. The student-parents I spoke with unsurprisingly wanted to be sure of their pregnancy before having this discussion; one interviewee informed me that the minimum amount of time is usually 13 weeks pregnant or once they are “showing.”
Most of the student-parents who were interviewed emphasised how incredibly supportive their supervisors were, and I would say this was the take-away point for me. Due to the lack of clear policies, infrastructure at most institutions (e.g. changing tables, breastfeeding areas), and general support, it was apparent to me that the fate of a student-parent entirely lies in the hands of their supervisor. Fortunately, the student-parents I spoke with did have supervisors who were willing to help them secure funding, to find offices for them to use for parenting duties, to allow their students to work flexible and reduced hours when necessary, and overall, to continue to encourage, mentor, and champion their students. In the absence of a good supervisor, though, there is certainly a gaping absence of a framework in place for student-parents to manage their personal and professional responsibilities.
Performance in graduate school
It was difficult for student-parents to assess exactly how their graduate school performance might be impacted by their decision to become parents, due to the absence of written policies or contacts of specific personnel whom you can communicate questions and concerns.
The first concern is completing experiments. During pregnancy, some women may have health concerns that will require them to plan experiments accordingly and discuss accommodations with their supervisor as necessary. Pregnant students should fill out the New and Expectant Mother Risk Assessment form and submit to McGill Health and Safety by emailing ehs@mcgill.ca. They will then contact you for a discussion about the appropriate precautions. For safety reasons, student-parents, especially those working in wet labs, chose to tell their labmates to reduce risk, for example, so that the pregnant mother can refrain from performing a PFA perfusion / dissection to avoid PFA exposure. Upon return to work following leave, or while working as a parent, student-parents have the challenge of balancing personal and professional responsibilities.
From the student-parents I interviewed, unsurprisingly, being a new parent was especially challenging for the female students, due to issues such as lack of rooms for breastfeeding and change-tables in most McGill-affiliated research institutes. This makes it difficult to even come in for a meeting with one’s supervisor, let alone schedule an entire day’s worth of experiments keeping into account responsibilities like pumping milk. For graduate students at or near the downtown campus, the Thomson House does have a private breastfeeding room. Another important infrastructural hole, as previously mentioned, is with daycare: only a few daycares exist on campus (McGill CPE childcare centre, and SSMU daycare) and within institutes (e.g. MGH has one but not the MNI), and the ones that do, have long waitlists. Thus, student-parents end up paying out-of-pocket for private daycare and spending time travelling to drop off their children. (Note that since most student-parents fit into a low income bracket, the initial daycare costs are subsidized with the next income tax payments.) Almost all of the student-parents, male and female, heavily relied on their partner to share childcare responsibilities, and without adequate social support, it would be near-impossible to manage the demands of research.
Once experiments and data collection have been completed, planning for graduation can be stressful, since student-parents must write their manuscript(s) for publication and their graduate thesis, perform their seminar and defense presentations, and make revisions to manuscripts, while managing their pregnancy and / or childcare responsibilities, all within strict deadlines. Although parental leave does not count towards the IPN cap for the length of the program set to MSc 3 or PhD 7, the interruption to their studies can affect how student-parents feel about their research. Additionally, parental leave cannot be taken in the final term of your degree as per McGill policy, so this is something to consider when planning for graduation. For international students, failure to meet deadlines can lead to their student visa being revoked, effectively banning students from completing their degree altogether.
Finally, becoming a parent comes with a lot of social pressure, especially in the world of academia. Student-parents expressed concern about how they will be perceived in terms of their dedication, productivity, and ultimately, competency in research. One interviewee even told me that they will advise their peers to have children after they graduate from the IPN, or to pick a different program that is less demanding of their time and energy. But despite all of these policy, logistical, infrastructural, and social barriers to parenting in graduate school, I couldn’t help but be awed that this impressive group of people went ahead anyway to pursue their passion for scientific discovery, while nurturing loving relationships. I feel fortunate to hear about their perseverance, resilience, and dedication. They told me that having their children has been more than worth it for them, and being a parent despite the challenges is “ultimately, a leap of faith”. I only hope that the IPN, McGill, and science academia in general can acknowledge how incredible these student-parents are, and begin implementing the necessary frameworks and support structures to help parents and parents-to-be excel in their fields. And if I could speak to a younger me sitting years ago in that discussion group, I would say that having a daycare at our institute is merely the tip of the iceberg.