This is Episode #13 of the A-KID-EMIA podcast, the home for parent-scholars looking to balance personal and professional goals. This is the fourth of an eight-part monthly series generously funded by the American Philosophical Association.

Today, we welcome Christina Hinton, a Research Associate at the Human Flourishing Program and faculty member of the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. She is also the founder and CEO of Research Schools International, and a single mom. In this episode, she shares her wisdom on turning business tactics into organizational tools for family life. She also shares her secrets on blending student engagement with domestic delegation, with the aim of reframing ‘outsourcing’ as community building.

Chapters

00:00 – Intro & Guest OverviewBalancing motherhood, academia, company leadership, and single parenting.

02:25 – Evolutionary Parenting & The Myth of Doing It AloneWhy humans evolved to raise children in networks—not in isolation.

03:29 – CEO Mindset Applied to Family LifeUsing “outsourcing” principles to focus on what matters most: quality time with kids.

04:42 – The ‘Family Assistant’ Model ExplainedDelegating domestic tasks to free up parental energy.

05:06 – Hiring Students as Support (Win-Win System)How Christina recruits and mentors students while they help with family life.

06:01 – Building Long-Term, Meaningful RelationshipsTurning childcare into lasting, family-like connections.

07:39 – How to Find & Choose the Right PeopleWhere to look & how to hire.

09:42 – Traveling with Kids & Support SystemsBringing assistants along to balance work travel and family life.

10:27 – Creative Community BuildingThinking outside the box to design support networks that actually work.

11:55 – Teaching Kids Responsibility Through ChoresWhy chores support development and reduce parental work load.

16:19 – Reflection: Rethinking “Outsourcing”Reframing support as mentorship, growth, and shared community for transferring parental knowledge across generations.

19:02 – The Role of Humor in ParentingWhy laughter makes challenges more manageable & Christina’s new podcast

This is Episode #12 of the A-KID-EMIA podcast, the home for parent-scholars looking to balance personal and professional goals. This is the third of an eight-part monthly series generously funded by the American Philosophical Association.

When your brain is necessary for your work, pregnancy can feel like a gamble: will my mind be too foggy to research? How long will it take to recover (if ever)? What am I even getting myself into? Worries like these plague a lot of mothers, the experienced and the aspiring alike. In today’s episode, a pioneering researcher on the brain in gestation puts these anxieties to rest. Laura Pritschet is the lead author of the first neuroscientific study of the brain during pregnancy, in contrast to earlier research which focused exclusively on the pre-conception and postpartum periods. She explains in laymen’s terms how the minds of both moms and dads are physically affected by pregnancy and subsequent childcare. She also shares how the short and long-term neurological changes of gestation produce lasting cognitive benefits, including advantages that can specifically help academics. Far from the standard declension narrative, the latest neuroscience shows that pregnancy is in fact a period of rapid finetuning, efficiency, and resilience.

Chapters

0:00-1:03 - Introduction

1:04-8:55 - Background on Laura’s groundbreaking study & why pregnancy neuroscience is understudied

8:56-18:19 - Her study’s findings and what they mean

18:20-20:56 - Brain effects for fathers

20:57-25:52 - Should parents fear ‘baby brain’?

25:53-27:39 - Long-term cognitive benefits of gestation

27:40-34:40 - Cognitive advantages for academic work specifically

36:50-40:29 - The durability of pregnancy-induced anatomical brain changes across time

40:30-42:52 - Pregnancy’s affect on attentional focus

42:53-45:40 - What we know about successive pregnancies

45:46- The importance of neuroscience for parents

This is Episode #11 of the A-KID-EMIA podcast, the home for parent-scholars looking to balance personal and professional goals. This is the second of an eight-part monthly series generously funded by the American Philosophical Association.

Today, we welcome Suzanne Ouyang and Rachel Schroder. Suzanne is the Associate Director of Special Projects for Professor Tyler VanderWeele, who leads the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University; Rachel is the Executive Assistant to Catherine Pakaluk, Associate Professor of economics at Catholic University of America and Director of the Institute for Human Ecology.

In this episode, Suzanne and Rachel enumerate the academic responsibilities a professor could delegate, and how to find the right person for the job. Looking at all of a professor’s duties, they share how they’ve helped improve the productivity of Professors, Directors, and Deans at several different institutions. From grant applications and syllabi updates, to letters of recommendation and journal submissions, Suzanne and Rachel tell us how academic support on each front generates better work-life balance overall.

Chapters

0:00-3:10 - Introduction

3:11-5:01 - A general list of delegable tasks

5:02-10:37 - Conference hosting and presentation

10:38-15:14 - How long it takes to feel comfortable fully delegating

16:36-19:35 - Scheduling

19:36-21:49 - Conference and meeting attendance/minutes

21:50-22:40 - Meeting action-item follow-up (and other unpleasantries)

22:41-28:13 - Grant application support

28:14-30:34 - Locating new funding sources

30:35-32:55 - Balancing budgets

32:56-40:44 - Job searches/grant and program hiring

40:45-48:22 - Integrating the personal with the professional to improve work-life balance and regularize rest

48:23-53:17- Research assistance

53:18-55:24 - Manuscript submissions

55:25-58:37 - Streamlining teaching logistics

58:38-1:03:02 - Email management & standardizing invitation queries

1:03:03-1:07:02 - Whether assistants should be remote or in-person

1:07:03-1:10:21 - Letters of recommendation

1:10:22-1:11:48 - Committee work assistance

1:11:49-1:13:16 - Things to look for when hiring an assistant

This is Episode #10 of the A-KID-EMIA podcast, the home for parent-scholars looking to balance personal and professional goals. This is the first of an 8-part monthly series generously funded by the American Philosophical Association.

Today, we welcome Catherine Pakaluk, a mom and Associate Professor of economics at Catholic University of America. She tells us how to avoid gaps in your CV while riding the ups and downs of productivity cycles and discerning different academic job types (including negotiating full-rank TT jobs down to part-time).

Chapters

0:00-1:14 - Introduction

1:15-2:52 - Catherine’s background

2:53-6:16 - How parenting can shape research agendas

6:16-10:17 - Identifying tensions between family goals and TT jobs

10:18-13:57 - Tension solution #1: prolonging grad school

13:58-17:27 - Tension solution #2: negotiating a TT job to part-time

17:28-18:30 - Tension solution #3: staggering job applications

18:31-25:05 - Part-time, full-rank jobs (I have followed up with other scholars on the availability of part-time tenure-track jobs here).

25:06-26:45 - Overcoming productivity cycles across the lifespan for men and women

26:46-29:26 - Counterintuitive ways that big families are easier

29:27 - The family-friendliness of SLACs vs. R1s

36:45- The extras needed in life to make everything work

43:40 - How to discern academic jobs

50:50 - Children as a safeguard against hyper-professionalism

52:12-54:06 - CV gaps

This is Episode #9 of the A-KID-EMIA podcast (formerly Anscombe’s Juggle), the home for parent-scholars looking to balance personal and professional goals. In this Fall Semester episode, we welcome Christopher Tollefsen, a father of nine (yes, NINE!), professor of philosophy, and director of the Center for American Civic Leadership and Public Discourse at the University of South Carolina. Married to another academic, he tells us how his family managed the ‘Two-Body Problem’; what home education was like; and how he achieved prolificacy, both while seeking tenure and in later administrative roles as department chair and director of a research center.

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction

2:32-4:18 - Tollefsen’s Job and Family Background

4:18-7:45 - Having Kids in Grad School

7:45-9:54 - Bringing Kids on Campus

9:55-12:47 - Living Near Campus and Bringing the Campus Home

12:48-15:49 - The ‘Two-Body Problem’ and Whether Home Education is Possible

15:50-18:25 - Geographic Stability

18:26-20:32 - Productivity Tip #1: Scheduling Specifics

20:33-23:40 - Productivity Tip #2: How to Be More Creative

23:41-24:03 - Productivity Tip #3: Using Teaching as a Research Stepping Stone

24:04-25:09 - Productivity Tip #4: Vertically Integrating Popular Writing into Academic Rough Drafts

25:10-27:00 - Productivity Tip #5: Strategically Random Reading

27:01-29:04 - De-Integrating Family Responsibilities from Work

29:05-33:35 - Administrative Duties as Research Inspiration

33:36-37:19 - Staying Flexible Amid Fixed Administrative Duties

37:20-38:33 - Overcoming Learned Helplessness

38:34-40:05 - Making and Following Lists

40:06-41:12 - Wrap Up

After a long maternity leave and a podcast re-branding, Anscombe’s Juggle is back with a new look and name: a-kid-emia! In this 8th Episode, podcast host and Harvard postdoc Charlotte Duffee shares a trimestered play-by-play of her latest pregnancy. From her nursing chair (rather than her Philosopher’s Armchair), she offers tips and lessons for pulling off pregnancy and publishing.

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction: video clips from each trimester

2:56 - Academic-adjacent work as a springboard into research

3:13 - The first trimester: morning sickness

4:06 - Managing peaks and troughs in pregnancy

4:32 - Applying frontloading postpartum strategies to the first trimester

7:38 - The second trimester: baby brain

8:05 - What baby brain feels like

9:34 - Timing work hours around baby brain

10:26 - Staggering projects around baby brain

11:18 - The third trimester: memory problems

11:54 - Turning forgetfulness into a research strategy

12:44 - Baby brain as creativity

13:38 - The fourth trimester: creativity vs. productivity

14:08 - Creativity as a decline in productivity

15:38 - Personal benefits of more creative research

16:24 - Gestation as a natural moderator of overwork

17:55 - Against zero sum games and over-ambition on the job market

19:32 - Benefits of parenthood regarding ambition off the job market

This is Episode #7 of the Anscombe’s Juggle podcast for parent-scholars looking to balance the demands of parenthood and academia. In this episode, Georgetown business professor Jason Brennan shares his secrets for publishing a lot in just forty-hour workweeks to free up more time for family and fun.

Chapters

0:00 - Intro and brief daily work schedule

2:16 - Family time schedule

3:52 - Highs and lows of hybrid work

4:25 - Learning productivity through parenting

7:45 - Useful non-monetary resources

12:13 - A warning about academia’s ‘cult of busy’

15:28 - How to prioritize writing and overcoming writer’s block

18:28 - Scheduling emails

19:35 - Regularizing manuscript innovation

22:10 - Determining how many hours you should work

27:50 - Logging hours/project progress

32:00 - Managing multiple projects over time

39:27 - Managing multiple children over time

42:34 - Coping with novelty across family and career stages

46:53 - Business lecture slides to save you time

For more resources from Dr. Brennan, see his book, Good Work If You Can Get It: How to Succeed in Academia as well as his shorter popular pieces in the Philosopher’s Cocoon and Daily Nous.

This is Episode #6 of the Anscombe’s Juggle podcast for parent-scholars looking to balance the demands of parenthood and academia. In this episode, Gonzalo Dona, a postdoctoral fellow in economics at UT Austin, tells us how his family managed to make four intercontinental moves with four kids in tow! We explore how to decide whether to move for a job; the ways moves are easier as a family than as an individual; logistics for carting his growing family of six across the whole world; and how having kids early in his career has helped to keep him going.

Chapters

0:00 – Intro and background

3:18 – Principles for selecting places to move to

7:43 – Preserving unity across different locations as individual vs. family

16:07 – Logistics for big moves

21:10 – Finding your groove in a new place

26:34 – Keeping your sanity wherever you are

31:43 – Reasons for having children early

This is Episode #5 of the Anscombe’s Juggle podcast for parent-scholars looking to balance the demands of parenthood and academia. In this episode, philosophy professor Patrick Lee explains how he persevered on the job market to obtain an endowed chair, all while raising nine—yes, nine—children. From his early days working odd jobs and hours, Patrick tells us what he did (and, just as importantly, what he avoided) to achieve long-term professional and familial stability.

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction

1:50 – Planning schedules with breaks

2:25 – Working additional jobs as an early career scholar

5:15 – Small towns and cost of living

6:16 – Schedules as a young family (wee-hour work periods and naps)

9:48 – How your children’s development changes your schedule

11:25 – How your own age changes your schedule

13:10 – Schedules as a senior scholar with grown children

15:04 – How far seniority lets you dictate your schedule

16:57 – Schedules during sabbaticals and summers

17:23 – Finding time for recreation and rest

19:22 – Knowing when less effort is more and not teaching too much

21:07 – The importance of rest

22:30 – Discerning how much time to spend with kids

23:54 – Facing financial pressures

30:30 – What having a really big family is like

33:07 – Challenges when both parents work full-time

36:33 – Establishing long-term stability

38:18 – Prioritizing research over extra teaching

39:54 – One last piece of advice on imposter syndrome

This is Episode #4 of the Anscombe’s Juggle podcast for parent-scholars looking to balance the demands of parenthood and academia. Here, I share my new interviewing framework for future episodes, ‘The Three Ss.’

Chapters

00:35 – Building unity across interviews & abandoning free-form dialogue

2:19 - New interview structure: the three Ss

2:53 – 1st S: strategies

3:47 - 2nd S: schedules

6:07 - 3rd S: sanity

8:40 – New interview length

This is Episode #3 of the Anscombe’s Juggle podcast for parent-scholars looking to balance the demands of parenthood and academia. In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Jonathan Rutledge, a Harvard postdoc with two PhDs and three kids aged five and under. He shares how he managed to move across the US and the world with youngsters in tow, and the important lessons about family life he learned along the way. He also reveals the impressive variety of calendars that helped him make it all happen, as well as funny but effective strategies for creating time to rest and exercise.

Chapters

0:00 – Intro

2:49 – Getting married & having kids during grad school & postdoc fellowships

6:14 – Insights on the similarities between grad school and postdocs

7:30 – Moving across The Pond with young children

9:50 – Reflections on long postdocs with kids and ageing parents

11:14 – The nuts and bolts of moving far distances

13:43 – Discerning where to settle

19:30 – Extended family and/or community support

24:05 – Schedule

26:43 – The importance of different calendars

31:56 – Rest and relaxation time

33:35 – Weekends

35:54 – How to work while exercising   

41:50 – Final thoughts: one piece of advice

This is Episode #2 of the Anscombe’s Juggle podcast for parent-scholars looking to balance the demands of parenthood and academia. In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Ashley Yarabinec, a mom to two young children, an assistant professor of pharmacy at the University of Pittsburg, and a full-time PhD student in education also at UPitt. She tells us how she manages the responsibilities that come with her various roles, what a day in her life looks like, and the important lessons she has learned along the way.

Chapters

0:00 - Intro

1:58 - Summary of Dr. Yarabinec’s responsibilities

6:02 - Increased admin duties and creating a schedule

8:33 - Life as both a faculty member and a PhD student

10:33 - Consolidating responsibilities

11:58 - Dr. Yarabinec’s research

13:30 - Learning how to teach and parent

20:50 - Daily schedule and parent teamwork

26:05 - Tempo and efficiency

31:06 - How kids impact career

32:18 - Self-care

34:33 - Preserving hobbies

37:46 - Final thoughts: one piece of advice

This is Episode #1 of the Anscombe’s Juggle podcast for parent-scholars looking to balance the demands of parenthood and academia. In this episode, Anscombe's Juggle host, Charlotte Duffee (Harvard University, postdoctoral fellow), explains what prompted her to start this podcast, what her vision for it is, and how she thinks you might benefit.

Chapters

0:00 - Summary

0:38 - Introduction

1:57 - Questions about work-life balance

2:41 - Answers before kids

3:21 - Answers after kids

4:19 - Anscombe’s Juggle is born: vision and goals

5:33 - A sample answer: a brief overview of a day in my life before and after having kids

6:35 - How many hours do I work per week?

8:45 - When in the day do I work?

10:57 - When and what other things do I do?

15:13 - The big takeaway: more efficiency, more accomplishment, more availability