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Training and professional activities in psychology create challenges for those who are navigating family planning and care. Training requires significant emotional labor, long hours over variable schedules, and high levels of occupational stress. These challenges may strain family life, including decisions about becoming a parent, and they may negatively influence other career milestones as well. Recently, increased awareness into the struggles professional families face has sparked a call for understanding how to best assist graduate-level psychology trainees and early career psychologists. This study uses a national survey of psychologists at varying levels of their careers to (a) examine views towards parenthood in the context of psychology training and (b) identify areas of need for both trainees and supervisors who wish to support trainees in balancing parenthood with training. Nearly 400 doctoral graduate trainees, supervisors, and mentors responded. Results show that trainees felt insufficient support at various stages of their career and parenting journey, and mentors overestimate the effectiveness and sufficiency of support to trainees. This attests to our field’s responsibility towards better supporting trainee families.

This study identifies a perception gap in mentor support received by psychology graduate trainees before and after announcing impending parenthood. Results highlight the need for additional policies to protect parents in the psychology field from negative career implications, as they progress through stages of their career.

Following undergraduate education, psychologists average 5–8 years of doctoral training. With a median degree completion age of 32.4 years (National Center for Science & Engineering Statistics, 2019), it is reasonable to assume that graduate training often occurs during a developmental period when many trainees may encounter social and biological pressures to become parents (Martin, 2017). Recently, Kulp (2016, 2020) found that 7.1% of female respondents and 8.3% of male respondents became parents during graduate school. Thirteen percent of trainees, who completed the 2021 Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship...