Single Mother-To Disclose or Not to Disclose

[FreeRadical]

Hi Guys,

 

I was wondering what your thoughts would be on disclosing that I am a young mother? For the CDA interview, I believe a lot of the competencies I can show through my adventure of parenthood. However, when I was talking to my aunt who is a cardiologist, she had advised me not to bring up the fact that I am a mother because in the medical world it may be "frowned upon" since I "technically" will not have as much time to devote to my studies as someone who doesn't have a child (Although I really believe I proved that is NOT the case throughout my undergrad). Anyways, I was just wondering if anyone has a take on this and how it will be looked at. Oh, and I will be interviewing at U of T.

 

Thank you in advance

[Ostracized]

The CDA interview is weird. It is basically a handful of situational ethical questions, and they don't really ask you about your life or background. They have some sort of marking scheme to see if you say all the 'right' things. As a general rule I would avoid disclosing anything you think might be taken poorly.

 

As an aside, I do hope you have a good support network with respect to your child. Dental school is nothing like undergrad. Expect to be in school from 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday - not including practice sessions, lab work, library time, etc - plus many hours of study and homework per week. I found it a terrible challenge as a single male with no other responsibilities.

[FreeRadical]

Thank you for your response. I am well aware of how big of a challenge dental school will be with a child, however, I have adapted before and I am sure that I will adapt again. I am quite prepared to work my butt off for the next 4 years or so to accomplish what I have always wanted to accomplish and to demonstrate that having a child young doesn't "screw up the rest of your life"-it just makes it a little harder. I guess I probably won't use the "I was swamped with coursework and raising a 3 year old and I dealt with this this way_____" or anything else like this as an answer to any "situation based" questions that might be thrown at me

[Life_Sci_Guy]

I don't think there's anything wrong with disclosing it, but you never know. I don't see the advantage of even bringing it up. You can just say you're a mother and leave it at that.

[FreeRadical]

I don't think there's anything wrong with disclosing it, but you never know. I don't see the advantage of even bringing it up. You can just say you're a mother and leave it at that.

 

haha no I would most definitely not do that. I mean using the fact that I am a mother in one of the behavior based questions that they asked, aka "tell me about a time you experienced this...". Becoming a parent has obviously made me grown up and view situations in a different light. A lot of my real life experiences and understandings have come from this fact. However, to be safe, I think I will try and leave it out and come up with other examples where I have demonstrated the competencies.