Last month, after almost 6 years of graduate school and 22 years of consecutive academic training, I received my PhD in Biomedical Sciences from UCSF. To give some perspective on how long I have spent in graduate school, consider the following: When I started graduate school, the year was 2005. I was 21 years old. I was unmarried and had no children. George W. Bush had recently been re-elected. The American Idol was Carrie Underwood. My favorite jam was "Gold Digger" by Kanye West featuring Jaimie Foxx. It was a friggin' long time ago.
First year BMS retreat in Lake Tahoe (we were all carded).
You may be wondering why anyone in their right mind would decide to put themselves through this (more than 2 decades of classes, exams, assigned reading, manuscript writing, timecourse experiments that sent me into lab in the middle of the night). Believe it or not, it never even felt like a decision to me. It was simply
what I had always wanted to do. Ever since we were sent home with tubes of precipitated DNA at my 6th grade Women in Science Career Fair, I told everybody that when I grew up, I was going to be a Scientist. From that moment, my path was planned in my mind: plenty of resume padding in high school, a prestigious university, and a PhD in Biology.
By all accounts, I followed my 6th grade plan to the letter, which as far as I know, is pretty unusual for a plan formulated in the 6th grade. Therefore, one might expect that my graduate school commencement and the completion of my PhD would be one of the most momentus occasions of my life, marking the ultimate achievement of a life-long ambition. However, while it was a sentimental occasion filled with family and friends, it also felt a bit anti-climactic. In the last few years, the dream I had in 6th grade had dimmed, perhaps being outshined by other dreams I didn't know I had.
Of course, the actual graduation was still a wonderful celebration of the completion of a long chapter of my life. At UCSF, we give a thesis seminar that is attended by friends, family, and university colleagues.
I booked the largest auditorium on campus, not because I was expecting a large turnout, but because it had small, soundproof rooms in the back that I thought would be a good area for Ruby to watch from. I think she was a little confused as to why she wasn't allowed to run up to Mommy, and as soon as she was let back into the auditorium, she ran up and asked me to "bao-bao" (pick her up).
Afterwards there was a reception in our lab break room, where my advisor made several (to my relief, not too embarrassing) toasts.
Then we took friends and family out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Straits Cafe.
It was a wonderful day and a relief to be finished, but an even greater relief came from a decision I had made not long before.
For about a year before I graduated, I struggled with the decision of what I should do once I received my degree. My meticulously laid out plans dictated that I should find a post-doc or research scientist position in the biotech industry. However the thought of working a high-pressure, full-time job, struggling to put out publications, filled me with an intense dread. Even though I had technically been a full-time graduate student, I cheated most days, leaving home late and returning early. On the days that I needed to be at work the full day, I could sense a dramatic difference in how much I could really enjoy my time with my family. Even though I was with Ruby for a couple hours between the time I returned home and her bedtime, the time was filled with the essentials: make dinner, feed the baby, eat, bathtime, bedtime routine, put the baby to bed. After a few days of maintaining that kind of schedule, I would start to feel like a hamster on a wheel, perpetually going through the motions but too tired and pressed for time to really appreciate the random cute things that Ruby would do.
On the one hand, I knew that MANY women are full-time working moms and make it work. In fact, every mother in my family and Steve's family worked throughout their lives. I know at least for my mom, working made her happy; she took great pride in what she did and the fact that she was self-sufficient. Before having Ruby, there was never any doubt that I would follow in the footsteps of the other women in my family.
There was also the issue of sunk cost, the cost, both literal and figurative, of my extensive education. In my field, it is not very easy to take a few years off to raise a family and then pick up where you left off. Once you are "inactive" in the scientific community (not publishing, not attending conferences), it is nearly impossible to regain your footing in the same career path. Even if I looked for work immediately, and even as a graduate from a top research university, I am sure I would have had a very difficult time finding a good position, simply due to the level of competition in the field. No one was saying to me that it would be impossible to return to research after taking several years off; they were just saying that they had never heard of anyone doing it before. Therefore, the decision felt more than just whether or not to to take a few years off; it felt like whether or not I should give up my career.
Finally, there was the issue of expections, both outside and my own. For better or for worse, I was a person who followed through with what I said I would do. I had always taken a great deal of pride with this stick-to-it-ness and secretly scorned those with more flaky and indecisive tendencies. There are some things I am very happy I followed through with. For example, the first time I set eyes on San Francisco, 9 years ago, I thought, "Holy sh@#, this is the most beautiful place I have ever seen.
I will live here one day!"
Three years later, there I was. However, it felt like my desire to keep my promise to myself about having this career was coming at the expense of my happiness and my sanity.
I firmly believe that there is no universal metric for work-life balance. However, achieving work-life balance did not seem to be contingent on literally balancing the number of hours spent at work vs. with your family. It seemed to me that the key to good work-life balance was feeling a great sense of happiness and fulfillment from your work. Happy parents make for happy children, so being truly happy in your career would presumably be beneficial to yourself as well as to your family. Unfortunately, over the years in graduate school, I had lost a lot my passion for my work. And without the feeling of fulfillment from work, it was much more difficult to justify leaving my child each day.
For a year I struggled every day with this decision. I spoke with career counselors, went to job fairs, sought out people in "alternative science" career paths, had long conversations with Steve, and wavered back and forth a countless number of times. I realized that this was the first time I had ever had to make a real LIFE DECISION. Even getting married and having a baby never felt as much like
decisions as just obviously the right thing to do. I had never gone through the existential crisis that most young people go through during college when they are changing their major every month or after college when they are backpacking around the world or living in their parents' basement. I
always knew
exactly what I wanted to do. But there I was, with a toddler and a PhD, not able to decide which foot to lift up next.
If I were lying on the therapist couch of my mind, I would admit that the only thing I felt any passion for at this time of my life is being a mother. In some ways I felt like I was always a stay-at-home mom at heart but trapped in the body of someone who had already served 4 years of her life in graduate school and didn't want it to be for naught. However, there were several mental barriers that kept me from making the decision to not work. The first was the fear or disappointing others, particularly those who had invested time and energy into my training. I felt like I was cheating each one of them and even cheating the institution of UCSF for not utilizing my degree to become the scientist that people expected me to be.
Even after I had made up my mind to stay at home with Ruby, it was very difficult for me to admit it to colleagues and especially to my professors. Anytime someone would broach the subject of my post-graduation plans, I would feel very defensive and bumble out a generic answer about having an open mind and looking at a lot of options. I finally made it over the hump the day I got my thesis signed by my committee chair, Tony DeFranco. I waited in front of his office for almost and hour and just about gave up before I saw him. He was speaking with another immunology professor, Rich Locksley, a man I had had several interactions with over the years but greatly feared. After Tony signed, they both congratulated me and asked what my plans were for after graduation. I looked them squarely in the eye and said, "I'm going to stay at home with my daughter." To my shock, they both smiled, and Rich Locksley said, "That's wonderful."
The other great mental barrier was the fear that I would be bored and deprived of adult social interaction, that I would regret it and have missed my opportunity to take the next step in my career path. After much contemplation, I realized that there is no major decision that does not come with risk, but that fear should not stand in the way of choosing to do what I believe will make me happy. Therefore, as of May 13th, 2011, I became an extremely over-educated Stay-at-Home Mom.
After about a month in my new job I can report that things are going well. I feel like it's an absolute privilege to be with Ruby every day, to enjoy every cute and funny thing she does, and to witness every new milestone she reaches. Of course there are some days that are harder than others. There are times when I feel exhausted or isolated. However, most of the time, it's wonderful and I could not imagine doing anything else. I do not fail to see irony in the fact that going to grad school was the easiest decision I ever made, but I doubted it every day I was there. Becoming a stay-at-home mom was the most difficult decision of my life, but I have not for a second had even an ounce of doubt.
