Is anyone else an academic who has not produced enough research while having kids and is now in the s***?

[Kathyis6incheshigh]

There are lots of academics on MN, just wondering if there is anyone else in my position.

Am pg with 3rd dc in 5 years. Have had hyperemesis and other problems in all 3 pgs, which on top of 2 maternity leaves means heaps of time off work. In the meantime I have completely lost research momentum and produced sod all apart from a few book reviews. I was not submitted for RAE (though fortunately my dept did very well without me so none of my colleagues are holding it against me personally.)
Every time I come back it takes me all my time to get back up to speed with teaching and admin, get on top of all the changes in my field etc, and I only ever seem to make baby steps towards producing anything before I am sick or pregnant again.
Just had uncomfortable meeting with (supportive) HoD at which she broke news to me that I am about to get a scary letter from Personnel and a process is going to start which will probably include ritual disembowelling/change to a teaching only contract if I don't get something submitted before baby is due. Which would be fine as long as the foetus behaves and sickness holds off - am only just back at work after 2 months off with HG.

Serves me right for having children, doesn't it?

can't give any advice, nopubs, but thanks for encouraging words. have written one whole sentence tonight , feel vv stressed about the whole bloody thing dammit

I wouldn't start later. I would probably take off as holiday the days when I have no childcare (it sounds like it won't be every week for two months?).

Nopublicationsyet: I'd check out your new employer's work-life balance policy and what arrangements they have about flexible working. I'd rather start off with something formalised rather than wing it and find you might be suddenly required to be present when you can't be.

Nopubsyet: I agree with Kathy - see how much your DH and mum can cover, and then arrange to take the remaining days as holiday.

I don't know what your holiday-taking arrangements are: ours are completely informal i.e. we just take holiday when we like, but to be on the safe side in a new job, I would just email my mentor or line manager a short factual note, saying that you are taking the following dates as holiday due to unavoidable childcare circs.

In my place at least, this would prob go down better than asking for flexible working. (My colleague was recently told in her annual appraisal that the university's work-life balance policy was 'just for support staff'. )

Agree that it probably not a good idea to wing it - chances are that it would come off, but it would probably be too stressful for you!

Thanks so much everyone, honestly, it's amazing being able to ask a question like this and get answers from people who work in the general environment! I've agreed my start date, and am busy firming up alternative childcare arrangements for the first month, and then if I need to take holiday in the second, at least I won't look too much like a flake! That's what I'm hoping anyway. It just so happens that all the dept meetings etc seem to take place on the very day I need off!

at 'just for support staff'!!!

I know, wrong on so many levels.

Can't remember if I've said this earlier but when I was offered the post I did ask about the potential for both part-time and flexible work. I was told basically not to bother but that nobody would be clocking me in and out. In other words, get the work done, we don't really mind how. I obviously don't know yet how that will work in practice, but I'm hoping it could work better than a formal approach in my particular case and that this could be one of the major benefits of a postdoc rather than a lectureship. We'll see!

Ladies this is very interesting this thread not least because I am an academic who has 3 kids and secured a promotion after she came back from maternity leave with the third.

First thing I would say is that I don't work at a large research renouned university although our university did raise its game in our region at the last RAE and also is higher than all the other "new universities" in our area.

You need to get advice on this. I had a situation whan I went on maternity leave with my third where I was refused something that I was entitled to and I got UCU involved. It was clear sex discrimination and when the uni realised this they backed down sharpish. Also it sent out a warning signal to the rest of the management that I wasn't going to be walked over.

There are worse things than being on a teaching contract. At least it gives you some fixed time slots and remember as a primary carer of children under 16 you can request not to do unsocialble slots ie evenings and a university with all the diversity proceedures etc will find it very hard not to allow you to do this.

Six months after I came back from maternity leave the Heads job came up and I applied for it and was offered it initailly on an acting basis but subsequently perminately. At this stage I also said it would be on my terms ie I could do eveing meetings provided I had notice to arrange childcare and I would only work until 5pm. The truth of the matter is that I am in a lot more than I was before and my research and flexibility to do what I wanted has suffered.

Saying that I drop my kids off at nursery or school every morning and am there to collect them at 5pm when after school activities finish. I can take time off for sports days and other school events and its not really been a problem. Most of the staff who work for me think I am mad and they wouldn't do the Heads job and I must admit I am one of a very few female mebers of staff in my school and of those I am the only academic with young children.

Academia is a very male dominated environment to work in and I see on a daily basis examples of machismo and gender steriotyping but I have survived and it suits me because I have made it work.

dumb question #1 - if they want a 4-page proposal, is that double-spaced?

Oh I don't know PhDLife - I'd probably one-and-a-half space it to make it readable without being too restricted in length!

Slalomsuki - it's really good to hear such a positive story. especially from someone with 3 kids!
I don't want a teaching-only contract as I used to be quite good at research and I'm sure I could be again once I get going.
You may not have read the entire thread.... I am probably ok for now because I met the deadlines my HoD was asking for.

nopublicationsyet - really, just do it from your normal start date. No one will care if you take the odd day off for childcare - that's the one really brilliant thing about academic work (apart from the sheer joy of research/egoboosting nature of standing up and having given a paper!!), it is very flexible. If they are telling you not to tell, just don't tell. We all work a hell of a lot more than our '37 hour' notional week, so think of it as flexitime. I pick my kids up from school 2/3 days a week, finishing at 3pm, on the basis that I do loads of work on top of normal (eg currently on maternity leave but my publisher has just asked me to index a years-old book for the internet by 14th August....).

didn't realise you'd met your HoD's deadlines Kathy - congratulations!

I am struggling so badly with this proposal, am really here. Gutted, as I could tell you about it, but I can't seem to string any sentences together.

Well, do you want to tell us about it and then use that as the basis?
(You could type it into the little box on the MN screen and then copy and paste it into Word rather than posting it!)
I bet it is really interesting!

mmm thanks for the offer kathy worried it might identify me though.

might just pretend I'm explaining it to you in Word

Yes, pretend you're telling a bunch of interested CAWKers instead of a selection panel.
My supervisor always used to recommend Wine for this kind of writing as well.... (draft it drunk and edit it sober is the idea, I think).

That's a good way of putting it Kathy. I find it helps to pretend you are someone else - which the wine (or too much coffee) probably helps with - this 'frees you' to write things that you might otherwise feel ridiculous writing. You can always take them out later (when sober, as Kathy says).
The advice I have always been given is probably cliche/d (don't know how to do an accent) but perhaps still useful - about telling a good story - so don't just waffle, but lead the reader through it - so that the obvious conclusion is that you and your project are the only possible choice.
Now I have to take my own advice and get back to my conclusion (which I still haven't re-written satisfactorily).

I wrote a whole para last night and astonishingly it even says what I wanted it to! Will take a day or so for next para to percolate through to consciousness, so will focus on getting references together. thank you so much for encouragement

just bumping to keep this current in my threads

hope you're all out in the sunshine (and that it's sunny there!)

hi all

bumping as i'm keen to keep following/eventually post more to this thread -- i posted awhile back but since Leo was born 8 weeks ago haven't had the chance!!

he just started sleeping for 4 to 6 hour stretches, so yesterday evening i thought about planning my 'maternity leave research'. how sad is that

Hi everyone! Just thought I'd revive this to say to any of you who haven't yet gone out and got the Boice book 'Professors as Writers', recommended earlier in this thread, it is brilliant! I bought it after reading this (from alibris - I think its currently out of print) a month or two ago, while still on maternity leave, and read it over August. Well, I've started following it in dribs and drabs over the last few weeks, and have just found myself staring at a one-page outline of the book project that I've been working on/putting off for three years now! Suddenly it has all come together, I know what I'm going to say, and I know it is going to be both original and interesting! (OK, I might change my mind about that last bit soon, so that's why I thought I'd say it here now!). So go get the book!
And to prove how disciplined I'm going to be from now on - I came onto mumsnet just to post this, and will now log off!!

Hi,

Can I join in? I've been in my academic post since 2004. I had my DD in 2007, and have another one due in January. I can certainly identify with a lot of what's been written here. I've struggled to get on with my research since having DD. (I'm really hoping I can avoid #2 having such a disastrious effect.) I've just had to return a form listing my pulications since the last RAE. It had my name on the top, and then completely blank. Anyway, it's nice to know I'm not alone.

I have nothing to add but wanted to sympathise - the only way I seem to get anything done is to work 24/7. A colleague asked me the other day how I survive and I realise I am on auto pilot working all day then every evening when the kids are in bed. Its so tough - and im not even particularly on top of things.

Hello. How is everyone now the new term is looming? Do we all have a nice achievable project to get on with? And are all the pregnant/morning sick people coping?

Of course, I have far too much to finish in the two weeks or so before students return but hey-ho, when you're busy, you're busy.

I thought MN were going to do separate areas but perhaps they got somewhat distracted by the DM issue?