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?

Chaotica and Jazzicatz,

I feel for you as I think the life working on short-term contracts is the shittest of all. I did it but I didn't have kids then. I hope you can find a way of being utterly ruthless with your colleagues when they try and exploit you (as people do) and find a way of insisting on research/writing time so you can develop some career options.

I don't know how bad the financial contraction of universities is going to be, but if the demographic timebomb Howard Newby predicted back in 1995 does happen, there should - in theory - be more posts soon as the 60s generation retire. And in theory there should be more promotion and development options for mid career staff also. But it will depend on how much cash there is overall, and it most universities things are just gonna get harder work.

Chaotica and Jazzicatz,

I feel for you as I think the life working on short-term contracts is the shittest of all. I did it but I didn't have kids then. I hope you can find a way of being utterly ruthless with your colleagues when they try and exploit you (as people do) and find a way of insisting on research/writing time so you can develop some career options.

I don't know how bad the financial contraction of universities is going to be, but if the demographic timebomb Howard Newby predicted back in 1995 does happen, there should - in theory - be more posts soon as the 60s generation retire. And in theory there should be more promotion and development options for mid career staff also. But it will depend on how much cash there is overall, and it most universities things are just gonna get harder work.

Lupus if that's your general guideline I really am crap! though tbf I am lucky if I get an hour off a week - all my writing is after the kids settle. And it's not like anyone's paying me to do it! (The writing, that is.)

Oh, have I mentioned that before?

PhDlife.

Ah, now don't do that thing where you don't see wood for trees and try to compare unlike with like.

1. I obv over-stated what I would really be able to do cos, sheesh, someone on here might have to interview me one day for employment or summat

1. MAIN and most important differences between us include me being in full-time employ provided with paid research time and having all kids in childcare: you being between contracts with new baby and toddler in tow.

There is a MAHOOSIVE difference there. No-one sane would expect anything of you in the circs, but clearly, if you can publish something between jobs etc if you want to, it would be good for the career. As Fennel said though, is it good for the babies? And you? Why not just, erm, stop for a bit and find ways of resuming when you're more able.

I did NO work while on my three mat leaves and this last year have barely strung a sentence together as have been so sleepless. Am happy to have got through year alive but still have no more proper articles to show for the year as result of dribbling stupidity.

Can I also add that I think that there is a real post-PhD malaise that can hit?

You spend so much time and energy on that research and producing the actual thesis, and then you might publish from it for a bit, but at one point or the other you have to move on to another research project.

I think that can be a difficult time and - for many women who have waited until after submitting the PhD to have children - that time can come at the same time as looking after a young baby.

"No-one sane would expect anything of you in the circs,"

lol

here's a bit from email I received last week from mentory prof:

"as long as you keep some connection alive and manage to spend at least a couple of hours a week on a writing/ reading project, that will pay off in due course and I'm sure you'll find a way back to full time employment".

worst of all, though I'm bitter about the expectation (and thus, terrified cynical about my chances of getting back to full time employment), I do think it's good for me (and therefore good for the babies) to write - it's the only way I get any mental stimulation atm and I go a bit barmy without sentences longer than three words in my life.

d'you think we should call the men in white suits? for him or for me?

(gtg actually - it is waaaay past my bedtime)

Couple of hours a week? With a six week old baby and a two year old?

Is he/she insane?

I could barely get dressed with 6 week olds, nor feed myself, nor think about anything other than why my nipples were bleeding and burning or my CS scar aching.

FGS

Sure, if you get some equilibrium later and in a routine that works for you all and they both nap at the same time and no-one is ill, and you WANT to, by all means.

But I wouldn't dream of suggesting such a thing to a colleague, post-doc, student or anyone.

When I went on ML, 2 years in to PhD, I packed up all my work, told my supervisors I would do loads at home while the baby slept. (Hollow laughter). They were great - they didn't say anything - and even less when I came back and couldn't even string a sentence together let alone finish a PhD. It was really reassuring when a friend told me that it took at least 6 months for clear thinking to return - I had been terrified that it had gone forever.
On a related issue - has anyone managed to work pt in academia successfully? Without ending up doing only admin etc and not the career-progressing stuff. The received wisdom seems to be that it is impossible but it shouldn't be, should it ........ ?

Oh I have lots of unsupportive colleague comments

Prof, Female, 2 kids: 'oh well, lucky you, you'll be able to work when the baby sleeps'

Prof, Female, no kids, upon my arrival to meet with her as she had just been appointed to our dept. This was a meet the folks session she had insisted on even though I wasn't officially back at work yet. As such, could not rely on my MIL who had just had a diagnosis of breast cancer and was about to have a mastectomy and who had been going to have DS1 for 2 days a week, so had to take baby in with me. Her VERY first words, before she had asked me to sit down were: 'God, I do hope you're not going to have any more! You're not the Bright Young Thing in this dept now are you?'

Ho fucking ho. Funnily enough I shed no tears when she left.

My PhD supervisor, many years back, Prof, Male, Gay, no kids: 'I hope you won't be like Prof XXX; she only REALLY got her act together once her kids had left home. Blew her career really'

All in my general field, which on these issues in particular, really, really ought to know better.

I've been more fortunate, most of mine have been very nice.
Did have a classic one from a workaholic childless colleague who opined that I was 'lucky' because she was unable to stop herself working at weekends whereas I was forced to have a break. I think she imagined I spent the weekends frolicking with golden-haired children in fields of buttercups, when the reality was more that dh and I would spend the weekend doing laundry and trying to stop the children fighting, and then if you had any urgent work that still needed doing for Monday it would end up getting done at 9 o'clock on Sunday night after you'd spent the whole weekend worrying about it.

ooh, ooh another Foucaultian!! [needs to get out more emoticon]

Have you seen this article about fathers also juggling in THES?
I agreed with a lot of it - I certainly think men can get away with talking about their kids at work in a way that women don't do for fear of looking flakey.
DH took dd along to one or two meetings when she was tiny.

Kathy
Absolutely - when a man leaves a meeting early saying he has to collect his kids from school etc you can see everyone thinking 'Aww, isn't he great?' (It's the man wearing a baby phenomenon) - when a woman does this you can see everyone thinking 'Flakey woman'. Or is this just my paranoia?
I am always torn between brazening it out and being honest about the reason for leaving a meeting or slinking out the back muttering about another meeting to go to. Given that we have no set hours in our contract the first should not be a problem, on the other hand this also means that you never feel you can legitimately leave a meeting for child-related reasons. (My dean likes to have meetings at 8.30am or 5.30pm).
Phdlife - sorry to disappoint - I'm not actually a Foucauldian - I just couldn't resist the name (following a conversation re naming girls' bits - a popular topic on mumsnet I believe).

hi

The fund is called Women Academic Returners' Programme and its for women in Science, Engineering, Technology and Medicine (SETM). I'm not sure if this is just a my uni thing but others may do it.

hope it helps

ROFL at clattering the dishes to they know you're doing the washing up

And the toddler's work being entered for final show....

Thanks Katz. That must be the thing I mentioned earlier in the sciences to help women come back after a break. It sounds like it is even more flexible and wide-ranging than I thought. We need something like it in the arts and humanities.

Anyway, woohoo, I am allowed a break now because I've just finished rewriting the text of the conference paper I am revising for publication. Now I just have to slog through the footnotes, changing them to Harvard and checking the page refs I hadn't bothered with when it was just a conference paper. I also need to find a day to go to Boston Spa to harmonize refs from one text where I had used two different editions (lashes pre-child self for not being more conscientious 6 years ago when it would have actually been easy to find time.)
Wish I could just run away all weekend and get it done but sadly will be busy frolicking in fields of buttercups organising dd's 4th birthday party.

FouFoucault, I would say clearly in advance what time I had to leave but not give a reason, I think. That's what successful women in my dept do. Actually often the rest of us end up being very grateful for them saying they have to leave at 4 because that way the meeting stands a chance of being over by then.

Yes I didn't quite believe the toddler art story but liked it anyway

Actually that struck me as relating to another interesting issue - the extent to which children are allowed onto university premises. I know of women at Oxbridge colleges who have breastfed babies while supervising students but I doubt there is any way you would be allowed to do that in most universities today. My uni sent round a memo a year or two ago saying that it is completely inappropriate to bring children into university buildings because of health and safety issues. Completely spurious, of course - most departments are not full of dangerous chemicals or bits of equipment, and if there's a childcare emergency and you have to teach, finding someone to mind the baby for the hour that you are actually lecturing is surely preferable to cancelling the lecture.... I think DH once left ds in a travel cot with the secretaries while he did his lecture - I imagine it would be less trouble to them to mind a baby for an hour than to deal with the fallout from a cancelled lecture. I also remember a lecturer when I was doing my PhD paying a grad student to keep an eye on her sick 10 year old in her office while she went off to teach. Obviously you would not do any of this by choice or instead of making proper childcare arrangements, but in an emergency or if the child is sick, what do you do?

Am on this thread already, but fancied a name change.

Where I work is pretty relaxed about children - one colleague brings his daughter into his office if she is off school, and another colleague came in and met students with a very young DD.

I took DD to a Very Important Meeting when she was about six weeks old and I was on ML. I was changing her nappy outside when the Dean came over to say hello.

Afterwards I breastfed in front of quite a few colleagues, which I feel quite about now. But at the time I was happy to BF in the most public of situations (e.g. in a school governor's meeting) - must have been the hormones!

I might count as one of your 'over-achievers' but I think it would be shame to polarise this - I have dc of 6 and 2 and have 3 books coming out this year and was in the last RAE, albeit as an ECR. There's a tendency here to spare people who are seem as research active from admin, which is useful, but I think the main thing is to be strategic. I never answer a student e-mail within 48 hours, and often not at all, I do my admin late and badly so I don't get asked again, I do absolutely minimal teaching preparation and I allow a maximum of 10 mins per essay when marking. I often send apologies to meetings because I'm 'in London for research' and yes, I say in advance that I need to leave early without saying why. Only the really good students like my teaching and some of my colleagues certainly think I'm selfish, but I do get time to write and publish (and see my kids), and generally I enjoy the job and feel valued in the department. I think it's partly a matter of prioritising in practice and not letting other people's agendas dictate what you do first.

Crikey you lot who are managing writing, teaching, marking, admin, babies and mumsnet are amazing! I feel totally inadequate. Can't seem to write anything, even when I do have the time (I have two papers, road tested at conferences in November 2008 but still can't get it together to 'article' them up and submit them). Am writing this instead of marking the 47 scripts I have to do by Monday. Was totally useless at marking my 1st years essays promptly, though I got good evaluations for my teaching. I just can't seem to get it together and it's making me feel quite low. I've had quite a lot of upheaval in my personal life in the last couple of years I suppose, but it's like this apathy, or lack of confidence set in with regard to research after I finished my PhD (in 2005) and I just can't shake it. I'm ok with teaching - and in this job (another short-termer here - 10 month contract expiring in June) have had a pretty heavy load with 8 hours contact per week, including a weekly lecture. I'm out of a job at the end of June and baby due in September. H of D blithely advised me to use ML to write a book because he says I'll need a book if I want a job, but I just feel knackered at the thought. DH is working abroad most of the time so I'm on my own with ds (5) and DH doesn't bring in any real cash. If I don't get work, we have to move abroad, which I'm not overjoyed about. what the hell am I going to do????

Jeez, egede, your comments really do polarise things though:

'...to be strategic. I never answer a student e-mail within 48 hours, and often not at all, I do my admin late and badly so I don't get asked again'.

Right.

And it doesn't bother you at all that because these things have to be done, you are effectively being a parasite on your colleagues, whose own work is affected?

Yes. This is the dominant attitude of the research overachiever and frankly it stinks.

But Lupus, you could argue that I am being a parasite on my colleagues because they have brought in RAE money while I won't. Egede will be doing good for her department by writing the books which attract students and getting money via the RAE.

Basically we all have 3 jobs to do (teaching + admin, research, parenting) and very few of us are managing all three to a level we feel is adequate. Let's not beat each other up for making different decisions about which ones to prioritise. (even if someone comes on later and says 'I'm fab at teaching, admin and research, I just neglect my kids!')

Yes my dept/ uni is also fairly relaxed re children coming in - although I wouldn't do it with ill DC as I share an office with 9 others. If I had to take DD to a meeting I would always check with the chair in advance that they were OK with this. (And I know that she will sit quietly and read).
The stating time of leaving is a good strategy - it's the feeling that it's legitimate to say that I suppose.
There are plenty of people (mainly men?) who do their admin badly and late - but I'm never sure whether as a deliberate strategy or not. Surely there's a middle ground between Egede and Lupus - or a case for prioritising different things at different times.
Kathy - I too am organising a DD's birthday party this weekend (palm trees out of breadsticks anyone - it's a jungle theme?)

I just don't buy that argument Kathy. Sorry if I was a bit, er, robust egede. I also bring in research money, and publish, albeit in a limited and stilting manner.

If we did all operate like that, who would do the 'housework'? Did egede's colleagues actively consent to the division of labour in that manner? Or is it a decision she made to protect herself? Would she shift it round some years so that she could do the housework and they could write their books so the students didn't get abandoned?

The reality is that egede will get promoted or move on to another university with even more resource to protect her time; and those with kids who CAN do the housework partly because they have to show willing for the reasons you mention Kathy and because they don't want to crap on colleagues, will end up with just more of it.

It's a bit like arguing the bloke should go out to work because he CAN earn more, and the little woman can stay at home because it's all she's fit for and in any case, she's dependent on his salary... Isn't it?

My experience has been that those of us on short term contracts get quite a lot of the work that no one else wants to do dumped on us. The short termers in my dept this year had by far the heaviest teaching loads, and one of my colleagues (senior to me) switched his marking duties so I had to first mark all his exam scripts as well as my own, so that he could go on a last-minute research/publicity trip. Of course, with the prospect of looming unemployment and the need for good references, we short-termers are inclined to do what is asked of us, and there isn't much incentive for departments to protect our research time cos its fruits will be reaped by subsequent employers. It's very demoralising to be stuck in short term jobs and I think that can have an impact on productivity in itself.