' All the straight male managers have a wifey and kids though'

That's probably because they didn't take any time off work to raise them... therefore they can 'have it all' whereas more women tend to have to 'sacrifice' one or the other e.g. kids or career....

I think if I changed my mind and wanted kids I would give my partner a choice, if you want kids we both have part time jobs.. or you can give up your job and look after it whilst I work... I doubt he would agree so I think we'll stick to the cat

pc_geek that's exactly the kind of thing i discussed with my partner. i said, if we are ever going to have kids, then only if it is "our" project rather than me having kids and him tolerating it. so it would be "our" problem how to deal with career and family time, not mine alone. being a sociologist i am of course aware that such plans often disintegrate once the child is there, and make space for pragmatic solutions - man earns more, well obviously he will "work" more to raise the common spending power. but luckily my partner (that's one reason why i love him so much) is of the same opinion - he does not want to be a weekend-and-evenings father, but rather envisages working part-time, perhaps taking some time off completely, and thus sharing the "double burden" with me.

If I had had my daughter first I would not be doing the phD now. Not because I wouldn't want to - but I would have known the conflict of interests from the start. We hadn't intended to try again when I started and in some ways it has worked out well as, although it's a struggle, I will hopefully get to do both.

It's great if you can both compromise and maybe go part-time, but my husband is far along in his career now and that is unrealistic in our situation - it would be like asking the head of dept to go back to a part-time teaching assistantship. If we had both been at similar stages that would have been different. We also like having the security of his job, as alas, I am unlikely to provide anything simlar wrt income or security anytime soon.

Hell, least you guys will both reach a mutual decision - I just think even in this day and age when you have women getting PhD's, excelling in the work place.. as soon as you think about having kids, society expects you to give up your career, education - not everyone, mind you.. as some are very open minded... but I ACTUALLY had one bloke ask me ' Why are you bothering getting a PhD? when you have kids it will be wasted...'

er when, WHEN? and even if I did breed... why would he assume I would be the one to give up my job?

Meh

That reminds me of something my granny said to me when I was stressing out about undergrad exams a few years back... 'Don't worry about it too much love, you'll be giving all that up in a few years anyway'. She was trying to make me feel better of course, so that one was nice and quite amusing rather than insulting!

my granny actually called me up on my 24th birthday and said "i hope you are not planning on having children quite yet!" that was a good thing as i had just become aware and stressing out about that when my mum had been my age (24), she was dealing with the death of her youngest child (of three), aged 3. it was important for me to realise that even my granny approved of me going my own way in life!