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Original poster

A support thread for academic mums?

51 replies

Mimile · 08/12/2010 00:01

There was a thread like this a year or so ago... not sure whether it died or moved.
Anyone out there in an academic post, struggling to keep research momentum with mat leave / childcare etc and who is struggling to churn out the 3* publications for the next REF?
There is so little mentoring for young mothers in the work place that something here would be good!

OP posts:
theory · 24/01/2011 10:59

Mimile- I just went searching for just this kind of thread! I've been back to my job full-time for over a year now and still wouldn't say I have managed to achieve 'research momentum'. I'm meeting this week with the head of research to discuss my REF outputs, which I dread and resent and feel guilty about in advance. I would love to go part-time. Or become miraculously productive. But both seem equally pie in the sky...

BoffinMum · 26/01/2011 16:11

Yup
See Off The Beaten Track

Acinonyx · 27/01/2011 09:23

I think I am losing the struggle. I am in the limbo land of writing papers from my PhD in order to write a grant for a postdoc. There is no other way for me to get a postdoc - I can only apply to my institution and there are no existing projects in my speciality.

The papers are slow-going. VERY slow-going. One is under review and I'm about to submit a second. And I wonder what's the point? It's not that likely we will get a grant - and if I do - I can't see me putting in the hours. I don't want to go full time and it is therefore only a matter of time before I commit professional hari kari even if I get a postdoc in the first place.

I feel utterly lost. I started the PhD before I had dd and we had given up on having children. Pre-dd I was prepared to put more hours in, to commute, or even move away from dh for a year or two to get my career off the ground. Now I don't know what to do.

BoffinMum · 27/01/2011 09:53

We should start our own journals ;.)

Acinonyx · 27/01/2011 12:08

And our own super-flexible virtual research institue.

BoffinMum · 27/01/2011 21:53

They should make it illegal for people to do academic jobs unless they have kids.

methodsandmaterials · 27/01/2011 21:56

Can I join? Hello everyone!

BoffinMum · 27/01/2011 22:11

Welcome.
Performance review docs in the bin over there.
Help yourself to the departmental secretary's biscuit stash.
VC has been pensioned off and replaced by a personal trainer with massage skills.

Kittyroo · 27/01/2011 22:16

Hi all. Glad i found this thread. I have a 2 yr old and 3 month old and am starting a PhD later in the year. I am insane???

BoffinMum · 27/01/2011 22:20

Yes, but so are we, so there's company.

Acinonyx · 27/01/2011 22:49

I am well sick of writing these papers which is basically working for nothing (I do some OU teaching and bits and bobs). I have been trawling madly looking for Proper Sensible Grown-up Jobs. There are not many that are crying out for PhDs in Anthropology.

So what shall our first projects be at our Parent-friendly Virtual Research Institute.

Query: those of you who are forging/crawling ahead on the academic road. What kind of working hours do you keep? Does your spouse/partner (if you have one) have a similarly demanding job? What kind of childcare do you have - is it all clubs/CM/nanny?

My dh has a heavy job with regular travel. My mind boggles unpleasantly at how we will juggle the hours/childcare if I ever become properly employed.

Faceonlyamothercouldlove · 27/01/2011 22:51

DH is an academic and told me only this evening that only 18% of "alpha" rated research proposals get funding. What a shocking waste of all that time invested in putting them together. You have my sympathies.

Acinonyx · 27/01/2011 23:09

We work on a 20-25% likelihood. Not great odds for all the time spent.

peppapighastakenovermylife · 28/01/2011 07:46

We do indeed have a thread - I will PM though as we DO NOT want to link to it because it then becomes searchable in google Smile

Faceonly - Is more like 5 - 10% for lots of grants Sad

Boffinmum 'VC has been pensioned off and replaced by a personal trainer with massage skills' - this is the best line I have ever read on mumsnet!!!

REF - I am so confused. I have got the good papers, plenty of them. But trying to make sure the good papers have a high enough impact factor, are international and show impact is driving me insane. If I already wasn't Hmm Grin

BoffinMum · 28/01/2011 12:45

TBH I am actually starting to find it tough for the first time. I am one of the brightest people in the country statistically (if we're counting), up until now I have been pretty indefatigable, I have researched and written some stuff people want and read.

However ...

The current system is squashing me and I feel I can't breathe now. I am a bit tearful today, actually, and trying to get back on track as a media person is supposed to be interviewing me about a news topic later today so I need to hold it together.

I am trying to see HR but they are in meltdown as mass redundancies are due to be announced, so no hope of getting my hours reduced to the legal maximum any time soon, or the internal harrassment procedure applied properly.

It's looking pretty dark on Planet Boff at the moment. I have really had enough of my whole life spent trying to be the last man standing. Every job I have ever worked in has ended up like that.

Acinonyx · 28/01/2011 13:50

Ah Boff. The current climate does seem to be getting to everyone. My supervisor was having a right old moan about not being permitted to replace teaching staff and being overloaded. I saw an old friend at Xmas who has tenure at a good U, 2 kids in school - really seemed to have got the whole thing going well. But she was really moaning too and seriously talking about changing careers.

Morale in academia seems to be particularly low. And frankly, I am not the right person to lift it....!

Can we see you on TV Smile?

Whipmawhopma · 28/01/2011 13:55

Sad at all of this. I was once a very high-flying academic, with a gazillion published articles of international standing, papers, conferences, books etc in my 20s. Then I had children, and realised that there is no way to combine a 100-hour-a- week job with anything else resembling a life. I couldn't bear the bullying, the ridiculous workload, the expectation that you could somehow do research on the invisible two days between Sunday evening and Monday morning. The fact that the children were somehow supposed not to exist at all. And so on. Resigning was the best thing I ever did.

Boffin is right - it should be illegal to hold an academic post if you don't have children.

BoffinMum · 28/01/2011 13:56

No, it's a print thing on this occasion, and anyway, I have to be careful not to out myself or that would be MN over for me (accidentally did it recently and luckily MNHQ pulled the thread!)

BoffinMum · 28/01/2011 13:57

Oh shit
it's not just me then??

BoffinMum · 28/01/2011 14:00

OK more established chaps, in our dept we are all supposed to have two days a week protected research time, so 92 a year (46 weeks). This year I had 88 on my official paperwork thing, but they had also added 11 days teaching on another course as well for the first time. I know for a fact colleagues have 92 days and total number of working days over the year 10 less than me, so in actual fact I kind of have 4 weeks more work a year on paper, if I understand this correctly. This is some sort of discrimination, right?

Acinonyx · 28/01/2011 14:09

Ah Whipma. This is my fear. I've been lucky that my (otherwise insanely competitive and driven) dept is relatively family-friendly compared to other depts. But not so friendly that you don't still do a million hours/week and do more teaching than you thought you agreed to etc etc.

Someone once told me that you can do 2 of 3 things - parent, teach or research. But if you try to do all 3 ........

BoffinMum - I am so invisible irl I find it hard to worry about being outed.

Whipmawhopma · 28/01/2011 15:00

Sounds like discrimination to me, BM. Sad What a great shame this all is. Academia really does need a good balance of teachers and researchers, not just Alpha males (who may also have children, but are happy to let their partner worry about how to juggle work and childcare).

Acinonyx, whoever told you that is right. I used to say I would have to be cloned three times over if I were to do all three things remotely well.

Faceonlyamothercouldlove · 28/01/2011 21:25

BoffinMum the topic isn't occupational stress, by any chance?
As the wife of an academic, with three children, I get to suffer this discrimination by proxy. We have had fights in the past about who has the most important job to do when the children were off school ( not really ill, of course in which case there would no argument ). At these times it was especially clear how surprisingly macho the culture is in academia. DH has been passed over for promotion a couple of times by child free (usually male ) colleagues because he deigns(sp.?) to leave work at a sensible time etc.

BoffinMum · 28/01/2011 22:39

Most of the people I work with are single, tbh. The others have wifies or occasionally obliging hubbies.

BoffinMum · 28/01/2011 22:41

Some people manage avoid coming in whenever possible, however, and wriggle out of most of their teaching, just doing the plum bits like PhD students. How do they manage that?????