Hiya, I'm a mom of a 9-month old baby, and I've got other people in the family to care for as well. It is indeed a huge challenge. When I started my Phd, I was not pregnant yet. It came as a big surprise and I decided to do my best, trying tp juggle family and studies. It hasn't been easy ; we had bouts of cold one after another recently. But I'M DETERMINED to do my hardest for this. I think you need organisational skills to make things easier as well as teaching the kids where to look for their stuff so they can do their chores on their own. Plus, it helps if you can do some work when the kids are at home doing their own stuff, like free-writing on a section of your topic, checking your bibliography, dictating your supervisor's taped comments, googling a concept on the net, keeping in touch with other postgrads, printing out often-used phrases useful for your writing and so on.

Hope we ladies can keep in touch here because it can get lonely being a Phd parent :-)

Hi, I spent my first year doing a lot of reading, and then a lot of summarising, plus meetings every month or fortnight or so with my supervisor. I have a background in education and my PhD is in History (!) so as you can see I had a lot of reading to do. I had a chance to present part of my study at university level and I was quite nervous but I guess that's just part and parcel of doing PhD !

Hi there

I'm new to this forum as well, and like you, I'm doing a PhD in Humanities. I'm also an Asian student : )

Regarding this problem, I can tell you that you are not the only one who feels lost and overwhelmed with the work that needs to be done. I feel like that all the time. I also have a family to care for ; my husband and my two kids are here. So many times I have felt like quitting and going back home. But I'm also trying to persevere. I have a scholarship to honour and I intend to do my best with it.

Could you get help with the sources that you don't understand, maybe try to get a fellow post grad to explain the things to you ? I'm sure there will be someone who is willing to help you with your work. I am not perfect either; I got back from a meeting with my Sup on Monday with a piece of work with lots of scribblings on it ! I feel quite daunted but I am determined to rework on my piece and hand it in in a week's time with more improvement. I'm sure you can do that too.

All the best !