Professors work to balance their family and the classroom

Three professors at Chapman told The Panther how they make time for their families and work. UNSPLASH

Some parents work a 9 to 5, which only leaves them the early morning and evening hours to spend time with their kids. 

Other parents can schedule their work for the nighttime so they can stay home with their toddlers during the day. However, neither one of these schedules is ideal because no two families’ lifestyles are the same.

The Panther sat down with three professors, who are also parents, to see how they balance their career and family and the decisions they make in order to put their families’ schedules and priorities first. 

Journalism professor Susan Paterno said that it is important to have a partner who is on the same page on family plans, including complimentary parental goals. 

“As I tell my own children, it's up to you to partner with the right person and to ask the right questions, because you might wake up one day with some guy who decides that you're gonna have to quit your job and stay home full time, even though you don't want to,” Paterno said. 

Paterno and her husband were both journalists, which meant a vigorous work schedule in the field. When they decided to have kids, they both took on different careers in order to have time to raise their kids. 

“It's very difficult to be a full-time journalist,” Paterno said. "We both decided to take a different path so that we could share in the responsibilities of having children, and he decided to leave journalism and become a teacher. I left journalism to go into academia. So that was a deliberate decision on our parts. So when we decided to have children we would have the time to raise them."

According to Unicef, the U.S. is ranked 40 out of 41 for the world’s richest childcare countries, making it inaccessible for families struggling to make enough money to afford childcare. Paterno and her husband acquired the aid of her mom who helped out one day a week and made “huge financial sacrifices” to hire a nanny who worked 32 hours a week. The rest of the time her husband and her split the parental duties, Paterno said. 

Doug Cooney is an English professor and writer who has taught for 20 years. Once he adopted his son, his schedule was flexible enough to allow him to  teach his classes at night. This way, he was able to take his son to school. 

This change allowed him to spend all day with his child and hand him off to his partner when he went to teach his night class. 

“Parenting nails your feet to the ground, in a way," Cooney said. "So I couldn't take gigs that would be a week in Chicago or three weeks in Florida."

As his son got older, Cooney picked up classes to fill the time. Cooney also writes plays and books and has found that when his child was younger, he stayed up later and woke up earlier to write in peace. 

“I definitely put aspects of my career goals on the fold because parenting came first," Cooney said.

Since parenting requires sacrifice, the question of whether parents can "have it all” has been  raised for decades. However, communication studies professor Amy Hellem says the real question is, “Do parents want it all?”

Amy Hellem (second from left) said she does not see her work and life as separate entities. While she is both a mother and professor, she is still the same person while doing both activities. Photo courtesy of Amy Hellem

“When you try to do all the things and be all the things and have all the things, you're just surrounded by a lot of mess and chaos,” Hellem said. “I think it's better to just have the things you really want and do the things you really want."

Hellem said she also does not see her work and life as separate entities. While she is both a mother and professor, she is still the same person while doing both activities — a conclusion she came to after feeling like she had to divide herself for several years.

“People talk about work-life balance a lot and I don't know that I really subscribe to that because then I feel like it's like work or life — I want them to all be the same thing," Hellem said. "I shouldn't split myself in two and (be) like, 'This is work Mommy and this is actual Mommy.' I'd rather just be the same person in every domain of my life. Like the people I work with (are) my colleagues. They're my friends. They buy my kids Christmas gifts and send them Halloween candy, and it's all the same.”

With her work and personal life complementing each other, Hellem’s kids have made her understand her students more. 

“I have a 16-year-old daughter who is looking into going to college and she's different than I am," Hellem said. "This girl is going to be a business school student. I was never going to business school and a lot of the students that I teach, they're also dual majors or minoring in communications and I'm like, 'Wow, these kids think very differently.' I think I would have a hard time relating to them if it weren't for my daughter, because I see my daughter in them." 

As Paterno saw her kids deal with a variety of professors, some nicer than others, she became more compassionate towards her students than she was before she had kids. 

“I brought to the classroom my experience from professional journalism, and there's  very little forgiveness in professional journalism,” Paterno said. “I think just hearing (my kids) talk about their own experiences with their own teachers really made me more understanding towards the students that I teach now."

Cooney said that not only has his son made him more sympathetic towards what his students are going through, but his students have also been insightful in helping him understand his son. 

“I talk about my kid all the time in class,” Cooney said. “Sometimes I'll ask the students for their insights when my son started high school and had his first girlfriend. I would ask the students, ‘Does this sound good or normal?’”

With both parenting and teaching being a series of trials and tribulations, it's no wonder that balancing the two can come as a struggle. There is no single way to parent, as seen with the different ways these professors balance work and parenting. 

“It's important to remember, there's lots of different couples that have children,” Paterno said.