Last month at the University of the South Pacific three mothers with PhDs spoke at a rather insightful seminar about raising children and pursuing a higher education.
The three included Australian National University senior lecturer Dr Sara Beavis; senior lecturer and deputy head of school (Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Affairs) coordinator. Dr Margaret Mishra; and deputy head (Learning, Teaching and Quality) Pacific Arts, Communication and Education, Dr Rosiana Lagi.
They spoke about their individual experiences and challenges of being mothers — carers of families — while accomplishing outstanding work in the academia world.
“I took a pause of 15 years out of academia in order to raise my three girls,” said Dr Beavis.
She said there were times when she spent a full day in the bush doing geology work with her two older children and her baby being carried on her back.
“I think for women it is important we make reproductive choices about whether we want to have children or not.
Dr Beavis shared that as human beings we evolve. Our early aspirations and dreams may not always stay the same.
“We may need to align our own trajectory with what happens and navigate our way through, we need to care for ageing parents. We need to spend time with our children as well,” she said.
For Dr Mishra, her entry into the world of literature was quite unexpected.
As a young girl from Flagstaff born to an Fijian of Indian descent father and European mother — she did not quite like school.
“The curriculum was rigid and promoted rote learning and I felt that some of the teachers were not passionate about what they taught,” she recalled.
“So when I finished Form 7 I had made up my mind, I was going to find a job, I had no interest whatsoever in pursuing any further studies but this is where the strength of a woman comes into my story.
“The woman was my mother and she pleaded with me for weeks, please go to university, please just one semester.
“I said no and then it went on for weeks and then finally I said all right I’ll make a deal.
“Ok one semester I agreed to and all I can say is I haven’t left university yet.”
Her first major research hurdle was while pursuing her PhD when she won a scholarship at Monash University.
“I’d always been interested in the topic of women’s activism so I chose to write a history of the women’s movement in Fiji.
“This may have been influence by my experience as a young student volunteer at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre.”
A few months after she began her field research, Mishra was pregnant and her supervisor panicked questioning how she would be able to finish a thesis with a baby.
“I think from my personal experience, husband Sudesh and I shared the household chores but he was teaching four days a week and helped me whenever he could.
“I still had to develop a strategy to look after our daughter and complete my thesis.”
Chapter four of her thesis was written with a ‘teething baby’ dribbling all over her attempting to chew her hair.
“Baby was flung over my shoulder held by one hand while I was frantically typing with the other.
“I smiled when one of my examiners commented that it was the best chapter in my thesis.”
For Dr Rosiana Lagi she had planned to undertake her research trip next year corresponding with the school holidays to get her son involved.
“Otherwise you know he will be left at home with nothing to do, given there’s really nothing much planned for the holidays.
“I can also spend more time with him too, you know teenagers they only have limited time with us, and as soon as they start higher education they won’t be home most of the time.”
Dr Lagi’s research was based on indigenous knowledge where she worked closely with communities in Fiji and previously in Tuvalu.
“Currently I’m working with a community in Tavua on restoring their watershed using weaving, traditional knowledge as well as conventional knowledge”.
She said engaging with communities and children gave her great satisfaction in her work and overall research experience.
Dr Lagi found inspiration during her early research in her professors who were in fact women.
Every day she would go grab a coffee with one of her professors engaging in informal discussions which helped her think and write outside the box.
“One such professor told me, Rosi now you will be wearing a different pair of lens and when you see things – you’ll see them differently.
“For me that’s something that I try and also share with my son who isn’t fond of school and so I try and inspire him to see things differently”, she said.
The seminar was an eye-opener to women in the audience including this writer. These three, like many others are breaking barriers and showing young girls and youths that though life may seem full of limitations, there is always a way to break through it.
