nursingforsocialjustice

Yesterday I took my oldest child on a practice walk to her new middle school. She asked me about how my school was going. I said to her, “one day when you are grown up you will look back at this time and talk about when your mom and dad were doing their PhDs.” And I thought, I hope I finish my PhD one day. I have been in grad school the whole time that she has been alive. I started my first masters degree a week after she was born. She turns 11 in two weeks. And, because of this strange reality of me being in post-secondary for most of my adult life I sometimes (more and more often lately) think, is this finally winding down or am I going to let this last stretch drag along forever?

PhD school is hard. Today I am thinking deeply about Dr. Linda Henderson, the best professor I ever had. She made a PhD seem attainable and I have been on a journey to achieve this since I was 19 and in her sociology of gender class at U of C. In so many ways it is designed to privilege the young, the childless, the financially independent. Scholarly is in many ways an elitist endeavour.

Love,

Michelle D.

P.S. I think the hierarchy of academia and university is in need of a drastic change. It is strange that a PhD supervisor is an educator but, in some ways, your PhD boss. If anyone wants to work on a duoethnography of the PhD experience in nursing as a woman let me know. It’s a curious struggle, a woman dominated profession and university discipline that seems to be trying so desperately to fit into the tradition of university instead of trying to bust out of it.