About

My name is Made­line Pap­cun, and I’m a senior at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut, earn­ing a dual degree in jour­nal­ism and human devel­op­ment and fam­i­ly sci­ence. This project was com­plet­ed as my senior hon­ors the­sis in jour­nal­ism. 

For my hon­ors the­sis, I want­ed to com­bine both of my areas of study into an in-depth report­ed piece. Addi­tion­al­ly, as a young adult woman about to grad­u­ate col­lege, I had been think­ing exten­sive­ly about what my future might hold, includ­ing my career path, but also the pos­si­bil­i­ty of one day hav­ing a fam­i­ly. 

After hear­ing so many anec­do­tal sto­ries about the dif­fi­cul­ties of bal­anc­ing fam­i­ly life and the demands of the 24-hour news cycle, I decid­ed to take a clos­er look at this phe­nom­e­non, specif­i­cal­ly high­light­ing why it is dif­fi­cult to be a care­giv­er — most often a moth­er — and also a jour­nal­ist.

This project is the result of a year’s worth of research into the top­ic. I con­duct­ed inter­views, trav­eled to Chica­go for the 2023 Jour­nal­ism and Women Symposium’s annu­al con­fer­ence, and most impor­tant­ly, asked fel­low female jour­nal­ists to share their expe­ri­ences as well as ideas for solu­tions. 

There’s val­ue in talk­ing about shared expe­ri­ences, and I hope this project was able to high­light that. I would also hope that if an issue con­tin­ues to be so wide­spread, we can col­lec­tive­ly do some­thing about it.

Thank you to all the peo­ple who took the time to tell me about their career jour­ney and expe­ri­ences for this project. I appre­ci­ate your open­ness and will­ing­ness to share what you’ve been through, pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive, and ways you think we can improve from here.

Thank you to Pro­fes­sor Marie Shana­han, my aca­d­e­m­ic advi­sor, hon­ors advi­sor, and advi­sor for this project. It wouldn’t have got­ten done with­out you, and it cer­tain­ly wouldn’t have been as cohe­sive, well well-thought out, or elo­quent with­out you. Thank you, always. 

Thank you to Haleigh Schmidt for pro­vid­ing inde­scrib­ably-amaz­ing art to go along with this project, and adding on to your own senior year work­load to help me out. The final prod­uct is exact­ly per­fect and I can’t wait to be able to say “I knew them when, and they helped me on my the­sis in col­lege” when you’re a famous artist. Much love, always. 

I can be reached at madeline.papcun@gmail.com.