The present research investigated the influence of gender and tenure status in academicians’ experiences of balancing parenthood and an academic career. Men ( n = 85) and women ( n = 179) employed full-time in tenure-track academic positions with at least one child younger than the age of 16 responded via the Internet to a 36-item questionnaire assessing experiences and perceptions regarding work and family demands. Results revealed group differences based on gender but no differences based on tenure status alone and no significant interactions between gender and tenure status. Women reported greater academic and family stress and perceptions of less institutional support for balance of work and family as compared to men. Results are discussed in terms of the rational and role demand models of work/family stress.

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This study replicates and extends previous research examining the effect of mother presence versus absence on child distress in response to medical procedures. The effect of degree of maternal involvement during a routine immunization at a 5-year well-child visit to the pediatrician was examined. Behavioral observations of child distress and self-reported ratings of child affect were obtained in a repeated measures (pre, during, and post) design. Mother-child dyads (N=36) participated in one of four experimental conditions: (a) mother present as usual (routine), (b) mother absent (absent), (c) mother present as observer (watch), and (d) mother present as coping coach, using distraction (coach). Results support the efficacy of instructed, limited maternal involvement compared to routine procedures: Children in the watch condition showed less behavioral distress and their postinjection affect was more positive than children in the noninstructed, high maternal involvement, routine condition.

Motivations and expectations of parenthood were assessed in 505 female and male undergraduate students. Parents and those intending to have children agreed more strongly with intrinsic motivations and also endorsed more benefits for having children than did the unsure group. Those intending to have children estimated costs of parenthood to be significantly less than either parents or those unsure of having children. Women across all three parenting groups estimated the costs of parenthood to be higher than did male respondents. Results are discussed in the framework of violated expectations and the need for prepregnancy intervention programs.

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