giving up career opportunities

[Dellspoem]

I’m an academic on mat leave. I recently sent in a book proposal to a well know literary agent who liked the idea and wanted some more info. It was like a dream come true.

I just can’t do it. I’m sleep deprived, with a 2 year old and new baby, and I can’t even do the 5000 word synopsis I promised I would do. He knows I’m on mat leave but I did promise I would get something done in ‘the next few months’. That was six months ago.

Alongside this we’re other things I said I would do and I just can’t, an academic book co-written with a colleague, book chapters, etc.

I feel like these things are just hanging over my head. ‘But I’m on mat leave and my babies take priority’ is just not working and I don’t know why. I just feel I’ve stupidly given up this opportunity and I won’t get another one.

Where's the baby's father? He surely could support your dreams by taking an extra couple of hours of baby care a day until you have your synopsis. Don't give up on it

He’s at work. Older ones at nursery. I can get childcare on a tuesday, or do it in the evenings. I just can’t be bothered/ am too tired and I think that’s the problem. Or, that the task seems too big and daunting.

It won't last forever, you have the rest of your life to write books.

But... you are on mat leave. Course this is how you feel. Stop plaguing yourself with the idea these opportunities will never arise again. More things will happen. I'm very career-focused and not at all of the 'you must spend every precious moment with your babies' persuasion, but even I can see you need this mat leave for the purpose it was designed for, not to write some academic tomes. Park it for another few months and enjoy the rest of your mat leave. Publishing can wait and other dreams will come and go throughout your career, but there's zero point torturing yourself about this now when you know you can't manage it and that's completely normal and to be expected. Put it out of your mind and do other things. It'll percolate anyway and might well be better when you get to it.

Thank you 😊

Having kept a research group running and done a 20% undergrad teaching load instead of full time mat leave I can look back and ask myself if the shear exhaustion was worth it and the answer is no. Be kind to yourself, enjoy mat leave and write when you are back at work would be my suggestion.
I did what I did for career stability which worked out well but I would still not do it again

I interviewed a teacher once who said she organised starting her masters when she was on maternity leave. She didn’t say when she finished it.

I get you. I did mat leave twice - both times thought I could do projects like this 'while the baby sleeps', both times did not manage it. The reality is that writing a book proposal is work, and at the moment your full-time job is looking after a baby. Of course, if you can fit any bits of work in here and there on mat leave that's great, but in the main, I would just wait til you have childcare in place and do the proposal when you actually have the time. Maybe let the agent know the revised timeline; it doesn't sound like this is going to be time-sensitive for her. Even when you're back at work, it's tough fitting in 'extras' when you have tiny kids. My strategy is to keep my career bubbling along, enjoy the younger years, and then press my foot on the pedal a bit more when the kids are bigger. Plenty of professional women (and men) employ this strategy. Don't beat yourself up.

I did masters level professional qualifications during mat leave with a husband that was away 5.5 days a week and family 5000 miles away.

Admittedly, I didn’t have a toddler as well, but a 5000 word synopsis doesn’t feel that challenging if you have a support team as well (husband, family nearby, childcare).

Those synopses are challenging because you’re essentially getting your head around the whole thing, which is exactly the kind of concentrated deep and distilled level of thought which doesn’t combine well with looking after a baby (and toddler), being sleep deprived and all that. As some wit once said “I’d have written less if I’d had more time.” The pressure of having to get into that state of mind is unnecessary stress in OP’s situation so she’s better off taking the pressure off and just having idle thoughts about it when the mood takes her and waiting to do the work when she’s back in that mode and has the headspace.