A Shared PhD Journey

Almost four years ago, I was in the process of applying to a PhD program in Adult, Professional and Community Education at Texas State University when I received the news that my wife was pregnant with our second child. At that moment, I had to make an important decision: should I continue with the idea of pursuing a doctoral degree, or should I maybe focus on parenting and leave the dream of reaching the highest level of formal education for the next life? The fact that you are reading this means that I took the leap and decided to follow my gut rather than possibly rationality. It is by doing that that I ended up in the city of Padova, as a visiting doctoral student on an Erasmus+ program, working with professors and colleagues from the SPEF program for the summer of 2025.

The idea of coming to Padova for two months took another set of layered considerations, given that I would have to bring my family with me across the ocean and find a good place to settle in the city for the duration of the program, with the considerable investment of resources and energy that the operation entails. Interestingly, universities are seldom equipped for these types of situations, which meant I had little to no support from any institution to take care of two young kids while taking care of my studies. Basic services and initiatives, such as dorms for visiting scholars, greet-and-meet events, and so on, were all clearly set up for the typical mid-to-late twenties PhD student, who seems to be expected to be single, or at the very least, certainly childless.

In many ways, one could feel the irony of studying adult education in an environment that was not necessarily set up for adults to pursue education. This is a very common duality in our field, where we discuss at length the idea that we should bring the entire adult and their circumstances into the learning journey, and yet we seldom do it ourselves. Luckily, every problem brings the chance to grow, and what started as a dilemma ended up becoming a highly transformative chapter.

Given the fact that my children were not going to school, it meant having to figure out a system to keep them occupied and entertained, while also accomplishing scholarly activities. It also meant that we would explore the city together, an opportunity that opened up an entire set of experiences I would have never lived otherwise. One thing is walking through the streets of Padova, the other is walking through those same streets with a young child over your shoulders. The first is interesting, beautiful. The second is entirely incredible. The presence of children lights up the face of everyone you encounter. Elderly people would stop me in the streets to warmly compliment me on my children, telling me their life stories and even thanking me for having had them. Younger people would smile and offer us the best seating at restaurants, so we could be more comfortable with our kids. This overwhelming outpouring of warmth and affection made my time in Padova not only memorable for me, but for everyone in my family.

Journeying through Padova’s historical sites is also a fascinating experience when you do it with young children. Showing my five-year-old the jaw of Saint Anthony in the Chapel of Relics certainly took on another dimension than if I had done it on my own. Going through the Scrovegni Chapel is breathtaking, but playing at the playground and having a picnic at the park next to it gave it a completely different value. Instead of moving on to the next site like any other tourist, I found myself sitting for hours just outside it, watching my kids play, with the chapel always in sight. It stopped being a novelty or a checkmark on a list and started to feel like part of everyday life, like something that lived alongside us. I wasn’t focused on Giotto’s brushstrokes; I was focused on whether my son was going to fall off the swing. And somehow, that didn’t take away from the chapel. It gave it a new kind of meaning. Suddenly, one realizes that life is more beautiful and complex than we might have thought, especially when we let ourselves see it through the small, ordinary moments of childhood that we tend to forget as we grow into the serious adults we pretend to be.

Being in that state of mind also had a deep impact on the relationships that I was able to build, and the way I interacted with the new knowledge I was receiving. I had personal moments with incredibly human scholars such as Dr. Juliana Raffaghelli, who as a parent understood my situation and customized my learning experience to reflect my reality. I was able to advance in my research at a rapid pace, taking advantage of every opportunity I had, every seminar, appreciating their value much more than if I had taken these classes as a young student. When I learned about the school system in Italy, for example, I took in this information as a parent, making the content extremely personal, creating a wide array of connections in my brain as I imagined a hypothetical life in Italy with my family, and placed myself in the shoes of other families going through that process.

In my final days in Padova, I was by myself. I had left my family in Rome with relatives so I could spend some final days focused on finishing work. I found myself immersed in nostalgia, walking the same streets and unique corners where I had lived intense experiences with my children. I stopped at the sites they found interesting and looked at them again, appreciating the beauty in the simplicity, like that house that always leaves the window open, where you can see three bored cats resting inside, something I would have never found on my own had it not been for my kids. I went to see the body parts of Saint Anthony again, remembering what I had told my son while we were looking at them. As I walked, the smiles of people were gone. The glow that was in me, thanks to my kids, was lost. I was only another dude walking the streets of Padova alone.

For my final dinner, I asked my colleagues to meet at a fish place under the Palazzo della Ragione, where a big illuminated tank holds some eels and fish that my children always wanted to admire. Even at times when we were in a hurry, they wanted to stop to see those eels, which at the moment frustrated me. But alone, I realized how we are able to miss those very important instances in our necessity to always be productive. I had the best spaghetti alle vongole next to those eels, like old friends and confidants of a world of fantasy that I was able to live, only because I was so lucky to have conducted this experience with my young kiddos.