Please tell me about how having children affected your academic life(?)

[Boozena]

Hello
I applied for my first post grad job and have just had the rejection email.
I haven't submitted my PhD yet so knew I was already on the back foot but my research interests and publication history fitted perfectly. I also know it was only my first application so I need to get a grip!
DH and I were discussing starting our family. We sort of said if I didn't get this job we would start trying. I'm due to submit at the end of the year. Would this be career suicide? I'm worried ill be "out of the loop" if I have a baby now. Would it be better to get a job and settle in first?
DH is starting a much better paid job in Aug but regardless he has supported me throughout my studies even on low wage. So finances not a huge issue but could/would be much better if I worked.
Rambling now! Any thoughts?

BTW I also lived in a country which doesn't give much maternity leave when DC was born. This meant I had to be back at work full-time (with teaching, research, admin) load when DC were less than a few months old. Pretty challenging when DC were bf - they used to reverse cycle, and bf all night, sleep more in the day when I wasn't there.

I used to go to bed around 8. I would try and sleep when they did and then when they woke to bf, I would work on preparing lectures or research.

I am not recommending any of this but it's too strong to say it's impossible.

I apologise for making assumptions about your life.

Fine: it is not impossible.

But few people are capable of the kind of regime which you maintained. You clearly fully deserve to be professor in your thirties. Kudos to you.

Whether others - usually women - who can't do this, or who can only put in, say, an extra 20 hours on top of the "9-5", "deserve" career-death because of it, is another question.

I would say it is impossible for most women to produce coherent research with so little sleep! I am very impressed by what you managed.
When did you do housework, chores etc?

I think we should celebrate those women who manage to progress in the child-bearing/rearing years. While understanding that not everyone can do it.

I see colleagues catching up when their children are around 5 or 6.

I see colleagues catching up when their children are around 5 or 6.

But what angers me is that women are frequently given a much harder ride than men. I see a lot of male colleagues leaving early to get children, scheduling their lectures so that they can do school dropoffs, research performance dipping because they work short hours. Yet they claim they work 1.0 FTE and often don't get penalised for not doing so. Women who want to schedule their lectures to pick up from school are often forced onto 0.8 FTE contracts and women with young children are given a much harder time for dips in research performance.

Despite working very long hours, despite managing large research grants and groups, I still hear rubbish about how I should expect my career to go more slowly because I have children. My DP never gets told this, which is just plain wrong when we both work full-time and are comparably succesful.

Countess, I don't do a lot of housework. For example, I almost never iron. I do keep the house moderately clean and clothes clean, and we cook from scratch simple meals. Generally Saturday morning suffices for cleaning the house; we order groceries and most other things online; since we don't iron and have a drier laundry doesn't take that much effort.

I went extremely slow during the post-baby phase, I was definitely not at my best or very productive, and this was for several years (two children). Now they are older it has definitely picked up again. I don't work crazy hours endlessly anyway like a couple of my colleagues, I can do it for a specific project (e.g. grant application due, manuscript due) but I can't live like that and have children and keep the household running which I do alone and so forth.

Absolutely agree, esornep. I remember once in a Departmental meeting, a new father looked at his watch and said "This meeting has now cost me $100 in childcare." And he started to refuse to do evening teaching etc etc (we still taught p-t students after 5:30pm).

Yet he was thought to be fantastic because he was so engaged as a father. Whereas another colleague had a chronically ill spouse and 3 children, so was the main breadwinner and responsible for child care, and never did we hear too much about it. That this colleague was female was no coincidence.

Then there are the single childless ones, like me. Let's not dig too deep into the pain behind that facade of "careerist."

I advise my female students never to go to 0.8 on the basis that they need to do pick-ups, tonnes of men do pick ups, heck, one of our professors used to go sailing on a midweek day every week. They don't account for their lost time, just make it up during evenings and weekends but sometimes my very honest, diligent and hardworking female students moving into post-docs feel too guilty to do this, and they end up working longer hours for less money from the outset.

Foggy I've had years of single childless and then of married childless. There are still the elderly parents and assumption that you will be the on-call daughter/aunt/DIL. While still childless I had an argument over why I couldn't just take sabbatical when the department thought it would be convenient because it wasn't convenient for my DH. All the married men in the department had little wives with little jobs that could be dropped and picked up at will. I also had a great HoD (I suspect honorary daughter though male - one of those men in a family of sons who is the closest to his mum) who told me to drop everything and go with my own DM to sort out a close family member's estate in the middle of term "Yes of course you should go, it's a daughter's duty".

Without meaning to belittle esornep at all I see this pattern from US female academics quite a lot - either a) high flyers who have incredible reserves of energy/mental stalwartness who manage to get several grants while their children are tiny, work at night with non-sleepers, and talk endlessly about pumping in the office or b) the silent majority, I reckon, that just leave academia.
So, in a very very hard environment (and almost no maternity leave plus tenure track, in the US, has to be pretty much impossible) only those who've been blessed with either do-everything partners, nearby helpful family, and incredible personal reserves even carry on at all in academia. And they often (IME) have no personal/family life, and do nothing outside work at all.

I like to think that the UK setup is marginally more family friendly in that those of us who are more flaky normal can manage at least to continue in academia. I don't have the type of personal reserves that enable me to work all weekend when my children are hanging off my legs (or indeed all weekend at all), or to work every evening when the baby keeps crying, or knock out loads of papers on no sleep. It is very nice for those that do and I'm sure they will go further in their careers but at least I've kept my career and I suspect people like me in a less mum-friendly country do not keep their career.

I'm on a FB group which mainly seems to consist of talking about pumping in the office and baby wearing during lectures, or taking the five year old to the office all day when they are sick. I'm just glad I don't have to do any of those things or risk losing my job.

I see myself as falling between the two extremes being painted above... I have two small DC (pre-school age) and have managed to keep chugging along during this time. I haven't been blazing any trails, but I'm not totally falling behind either. A lot of this is because I had DC relatively 'late' (I was 4 years into my first post/ post-PhD) and managed to get myself in a good position prior to doing so. My first monograph (I'm in humanities - so it's all about monograph publication in my discipline) was finished while I was pregnant with DC1, so it came out during my mat leave, which means I maintained a presence in the field during that time. I then managed to get a small research grant in between DC1 & 2, which means I got promoted to Senior Lecturer while on mat leave with DC2. All of this planning/luck means I've managed to keep momentum going without too much effort during my actual maternity leaves. It has been hard to get the momentum going again after returning to work, though. Despite having a supportive spouse who works shorter hours than I do... I'm tired and I'm rubbish at working when I'm tired. And I find the stop-start nature of work and the fact that I can't really work in the evenings (too tired) or weekends (not fair on family) anymore means that I lose the thread of what I was working on. I then waste a lot of time, when I do have a day clear to focus on my research/writing, reminding myself of where I left off. I do miss the time when I had week- (or even month-) long blocks of time to work on something.

So, in short, if I hadn't had kids I know I would be further along than I am now in my career. But it hasn't been career suicide for me.

Absolutely Thewind. I went to my HoD on the verge of tears when DC1 was about 6 months old asking if I could go 0.8. He advised me to 'fudge' that day at home with my DC anyway and make up the time as I could. I'm glad I listed to him as I would have ended up doing the same amount of work anyway, just for less money...

So, in a very very hard environment (and almost no maternity leave plus tenure track, in the US, has to be pretty much impossible) only those who've been blessed with either do-everything partners, nearby helpful family, and incredible personal reserves even carry on at all in academia.

Again, I am not advocating this. (Indeed I am in a role where I am actively trying to change this culture.)

BTW it's virtually impossible to combine family and career in my field in the UK also - it is NOT particularly more family friendly than the US, although maternity leave is a bit longer. We still have grant targets, publication targets etc in my field in the UK and many women get pushed out at early career stage.

We still have grant targets, publication targets etc in my field in the UK and many women get pushed out at early career stage.

I'm sure that's true too but the people I know in the US who are like me - don't work when tired etc. (Closetlibrarian I think you are me but not in STEM - I was also lucky that some former PhD student papers came out during my first maternity leave and I also got promoted on the back of previous work during my second) - tend to have left academia at all or be teaching at CCs. Those who are like me in my field/similar in the UK are still plugging away doing a little bit of research and not so much teaching they are drowning (unlike the TT and non-tenured US women I know).

Closet whereas I am SO SO glad I do not work FT as I do have a genuine reduction in my teaching load (not so much admin but hey ho) and a complete right to say NO to anything on my non-working days.

It's been financial hell with two in nursery but now DC1 will be starting school in September there will be only one nursery bill, after school club is peanuts in comparison, and I'm increasing my hours but still having one "go away I don't work that day" day.

Seems thread has moved on to situations where the desired career path is to be faculty (lecturer+). Which is fine, but just to be clear, was not a path OP was interested in being affected, OP wants a relatively brief stint in junior academia as springboard to private enterprise.

I don't want to argue, but it was implied above that something about being a career RA was unusual, or maybe only possible in health/medical sciences. Actually, I had a 12 yr career in another science (partly economics) before I ended up here. I know folk working in env. science, math, chemistry, biology, engineering who are also career RAs. Not rare or very hard to be a career RA in sciences, ime.... but still not what OP wants, so not relevant to her situation, either, tbf.

I know this thread has moved along a lot since I last posted (on hols- Internet rubbish) and it's interesting to read these different perspectives.
I do feel very torn at the moment and as I'm even more uncertain about which career path I'd like to take its certainly good to get an idea about different options and has cemented in my mind that I should wait til I've a better plan.
It crossed my mind a while ago that academia may be a less desirable option, particularly at my current institution- the politics are shite and ive seen how messy it can get and the bullying that goes on, sadly aimed at women.
I think I might book an appt with the careers advisor and explore my options a bit further

Late to this thread, but you ought also to be aware of the surprising, often unwelcome, things that can happen to you when you've had children. I was one of those who thought I'd be finishing up a book on maternity leave (ho ho ho). I had been used to working the usual 60-70+ junior academic's working week, had done so for a while, and expected to be able to at least carry on in the same style, albeit doing a bit less.

I simply hadn't realised how much those working hours were enabled by being young, fit and well-rested. As pp have said, it's impossible to do any research, never mind maintain high working hours, when you haven't had any sleep. (Enough childcare is a whole other issue I won't get into. But you will need LOTS of money or supportive family living close by.)

From being someone who was fit and cheerful and rarely got ill (maybe a cold a year?) I had a bad birth, which left me unable to walk properly for two months and having physio for much longer. I had numerous other health problems following the birth, put on loads of weight, and my immune system absolutely crashed - by the time my DC was about a year old I was getting ill, and I mean having to go to bed for a couple of days or more ill, every week or two weeks. My doctors could not find any particular reason why this was happening: probably a combination of poor immune function, sleeplessness, stress, weight gain, and having a germy toddler. Some of it, my GPs thought, was probably down to a degree of physical burnout having worked such long hours for years beforehand - it's true that the high workload demanded in academia seems fine as long as you can keep it going, but you never know when you're going to hit a physical wall. (It is not healthy to work 70 hours a week for 10 years straight.) There was nothing I could do about getting ill like this and nothing I did seemed to make it better. My oldest DC is nearly 3 and I've been pretty much suffering from low-level illnesses almost constantly for 2 or more years. You name it: respiratory viruses, noro, throat problems, skin infections, mastitis, gum abcesses, conjunctivitis, more and more flus and colds, you name it, I get it.

Obviously not everyone will suffer from this; but it's pretty common to suddenly find you're getting a lot of minor and chronic illnesses and infections on a regular basis with small DC. I have (academic) friends who have suffered from a variety of problems post-DC. I have been able to do my teaching, and publish a couple of reasonable articles and reviews in the last 3 years (am in humanities, thankfully in a low-publishing field compared to others), but I'm aware that this is causing my research career to crash and burn. My manager is understanding, but I feel a lot of guilt.

So it is just not possible to predict everything that you will face after having DC. My expectation that I could bounce back and trust to my previous physical capability was not correct.

Get the PhD and the job before having the baby - you have loads of time!

If you want to feel less broody, try reading some of the forums and threads on here about post-birth complications. These aren't rare things - forceps, tears, physio, illness, babies that are ill or don't sleep - they happen to loads of women, especially first time mums. Being realistic when you think about what is involved in having a baby may make you reconsider for a while, at least!

train I also found my immune system was shot to pieces after two children. I was like you, rarely had a cold and was certainly never regularly ill- those first two/three years after my second were awful in terms of persistent horrible illnesses that just deplete you, plus looking after children/getting them in childcare, running a home, all this means that when you sit down at 9 at night to get an hour of work done, you are too ill and have to go to bed.

The only good thing I can tell you is that this stage passed for me. I don't know why, it just seemed to get better, perhaps as the children's immune systems settle down and they get less bugs. I'm not quite as tough as I used to be, but I don't have cold after cold after flu in quite the same way.

I've seen other women go through this, working very long hours and travelling to conferences doesn't suit when you have a high caring burden, even if you have good childcare, I have two friends who have been hospitalized with chest infections and other horrible things really through overwork.

Not all doom and gloom- they do grow up and things do get easier, but it makes sense to anticipate and not be distressed by the 'dip' in productivity and energy.

Wind thank you so much for replying - that's really reassuring! I have been hoping that it would get better but wondering if I was set to be chronically ill for a long time/permanently from now on. (Though I'm hoping to try for another baby when I next have some research leave lined up....hmmm!) I agree that it's impossible if you're always ill and never get quite enough sleep to work productively in the evening - I used to be able to but now feel exhausted after toddler bedtime and there's no way I could do a bit of reading or writing - even replying to emails is sometimes too much!

So glad to hear this stage passes, though

I was continually ill will all the illnesses you name for the first 3 years of my DC. They didn't get ill themselves much (possibly because they were bf) but I would get ill. This stage passed after I stopped bf at 3, but I suspect it would have passed around that point anyhow.

Another one to chime in on the potential impact of DC on your health. I was struck down with PND when DD was 6 weeks old and admitted to a mother and baby unit. That morphed into bipolar disorder and I've never recovered. My mental health has deteriorated in the 7 years since then. I've had 4 admissions in 2 years. In that time, I have had relapses every 3-4 months. My husband is now a SAHP and doesn't work so I can stay out of hospital as much as possible . The medication I take knocks me out for 10 hours a night and it's impossible for me to work past 7pm. Suffice to say my research has taken a massive hit.

Sorry to sound a bit whingy. I'd never had the slightest whiff of depression pre-DC, but like a few PP said, life can change in ways you never imagined post-DC.

whatis you don't sound whingey, you sound amazing that you are keeping yourself on track and carrying on with your career. I think we may have chatted about your project/difficulty completing all the outputs at a different time. I'm having a similar problem myself, letting others down seems to be one of the worst fears for lots of us.

thewind, yes, that's possible. I name changed a couple of months ago.

I'm curious as to how the next REF will change with relation to accommodating reduced submissions/maternity leave/sickness. I had my submission reduced to one item for the last REF, but the process of having to reveal every last detail to the appeals committee was very difficult. I'm not sure whether the recommendations from The Stern report will be an improvement.

On the positive side, I have a Dean who is fantastic in terms of understanding my situation. The previous Dean made life very hard and made numerous discriminatory remarks about having children and bipolar. When I came back to work after DD2, I was given advice that "'maybe you should go down to a teaching only contract because your situation will make research far too difficult ." And when I explained the impact of depression on my ability to concentrate and write, he responded with "well everyone gets writer's block. They learn how to deal with it". This was all in front of someone from HR.

whatis I had a different name then as well, I need to change now soon, as I keep posting identifiable stuff all the time! I may have to use the same REF process, I'm not sure as it depends how much I can keep working. I think it is often the uncertainty which makes it really stressful (i.e. not knowing if you are going to meet your goals, not that you are not meeting them at all).