Ella Patelli

University of British Columbia, Sauder School of Business

“Do you think it is best to have a baby now or wait until tenure track?” was the first question my classmate asked during a faculty Q&A session our first year in the program. I looked at her, shocked that she would dare to ask, and silently thanked her for saying out loud what I had been wondering for a while. One faculty member (a dad) told us to “definitely wait,” to take advantage of the one-year extension on your tenure clock; another (a mom) suggested doing it sooner, to capitalize on the PhD’s flexible schedule and because the biological clock waits for no one. In academia, it seemed, fitting the decision into one’s career plan added a whole new set of constraints and contradictions.

Following this, I quietly formulated a plan: work hard to finish my PhD in under 5 years instead of 6, and start a family as early as possible. It was my way of splitting the difference — I would wait until the tenure track, but I would make sure I got there sooner. In my third year, I was ahead of schedule and shared my plan to defend early with my thesis committee, without explaining my personal reasons. At the time, I did not want to mention my plans to start a family, worried they would see me as unserious, uncommitted, and perhaps not worth investing in. They concluded that there was no compelling reason to finish early, as it would weaken my job-market prospects, and my plan to finish early was dismissed. I left our meeting with the impression that “real life” would need to wait. That day, I realized that the length of a PhD was largely inelastic to my efforts. With or without a baby, I would be there for six years. At that point, the trade-off felt clear: I did not want to postpone my life or amplify the health risks associated with delaying pregnancy. Damn the consequences for my career: this was too important, so I decided to go ahead with my plan to start a family.

My baby was born at the end of my 4th year in the program. Our parents could not come to help, due to COVID travel restrictions, so my husband and I had to figure things out on our own. On his second day of life, my son stopped breathing and was taken to the hospital. Though he thankfully recovered, this episode shaped the months that followed. I barely slept, worried I might miss the chance to save him if it happened again. Breastfeeding was a constant demand on my time and body; in one of the hottest summers I can remember, we were terrified he would dehydrate. I was so sleep-deprived that I started hallucinating. Six weeks postpartum, at a point when I’d expected to return to light work (and when other countries indeed require this), I was asked simply to fill out a one-page form listing my name and date of birth, as well as my husband’s and the baby’s. It took me three days. I kept mixing up who was who, getting distracted or called away. The experience left me in a panic: how could I return to the urgent demand of working on my thesis, as I had planned, when I could barely remember, much less spell my name.

When my son turned four months old, needing support and missing home, we packed our things and flew across the Atlantic Ocean to be with family. When I landed, instead of switching into work mode, my body and brain hit their limit. Four months of survival mode since the health scare had taken their toll, and my brain and body gave up. It took me months more to get myself back to something resembling normal. Only when we started daycare at seven months postpartum did I begin working a few hours a day. Even then, basic tasks were difficult; things that used to take an hour took a full day.

Could my loss of productivity be compensated for by an extra year? Not nearly. In some ways, the point was moot for me: I am not sure I knew whether an extension was available, and given how little PhD stipends pay, I am not sure I would have wanted one anyway. At any rate, once the baby was born, I was too vulnerable to think about it or advocate for myself. I had seen other women make it work, and I did not dare to signal that I might not. I feel the consequences on my research pipeline to this day, five years later.

“Do you think it is best to have a baby now or wait until tenure track?” This question assumes that there are points in our career when it will be less costly to our professional progress than others, while ignoring the physical, emotional and mental costs of delaying, and the fundamental unpredictability of life. Moreover, current career structures are not neutral with respect to biology: they reward those who can delay having children, and select for people willing — and able — to put their reproductive lives on hold for their careers.

In the end, I went on the market, on schedule, and found a great job, largely thanks to my work before the baby. How I made it work, I am not sure, but I am grateful to the forces of the universe.