Flexible working in academia? Commuting to London?

[Acinonyx]

I finished my PhD last year and am now applying for lectureships and postdocs. I have one dd, 5 in July, who is in reception and goes to a CM twice/week.

I want to continue to pick her up from school 3 days/week so I will be asking to drop a full time post down to 4/days week, 3 in the dept and 2 half+ days at home. How realistic is this? How likely am I to be committing professional suicide? When should I mention this - at the interview or only if I am offered a job?

Worse still, most of the jobs are coming up in London which would be a 1.5 hour+ commute by car and rail each way. Even worse, dh travels regularly for work, so cannot be relied on to get her to her CM who could take her at 7.30 am (but that would not get me to a 9 am lecture in London on time).

The child care issues are daunting and paying to commute and for a part-time nanny on junior lecturer's salary is depressing. What do other people do?

I understand what you are saying but no one on this thread is working part time I dont think?

I work full time just fit the hours around the children.

You have a very good point though - my DH does not see me as doing a full time job even though he sees me work every evening and knows what I do during the day. I also end up doing more childcare and more housework because I am at home

But on top of that I earn double what he earns and have the responsibility of all the bills. Yet he still moans he has the harder job

But to me its worth it to be able to see the DC's that bit more and have a bit less guilt.

Xenia, alas, I do see your point. I would work part-time if I thought it would really BE PT - but since I'm sure it wouldn't I'd prefer flexible working. I would go 4 days/week if I thought that was the only way to really protect doing some school runs.

Part-time can be exploitative all round but if it's that or SAHM I would take it - in fact it's what I'm doing now - teaching part-time and writing papers.

I do wonder if I really have the stamina to go FT if I end up doing a lot of those hours at night. I am not crazy about working a lot of nights. Dh already has that kind of job - and I just wonder what kind of family life we would have if we both did.

Hatwoman - I'm in my 40s and have been through the whole PhD-baby process. I'm sure that affects my outlook. I don't have time to pootle along for a few years. I haven't felt that my age has counted against me at all - but being tied wrt both time and geography by family is tough.

In the end of course I'll just apply for stuff and take what I can get and see how I manage. I'm feeling impatient and restless as I need 2 particular papers to write a grant (so I'll miss this years deadlines) so I'm (probably rashly) looking at jobs in London.

I work 4 days per week, however, so does dp. We each take the dc's two afternoons per week (and my 4 day a week salary is higher than dp's too as my position is senior to his ). Therefore from a domestic perspective it depends on your personal situation.

OTOH, it can lead to problems professionally, but that really depends on how you handle it. I often work many more hours than FT (and on occasion through the night), and I don't draw attention to the fact that I work 4 days rather than 5. My output is also frequently more than some FT colleagues. OK, so I could get 20% more money by being FT, but TBH I like the fact that I can afford to be more flexible by being on an 80% contract.

It really depends on your own personal circumstances and how you can arrange things, but for me, there are more pluses than minuses from doing things this way. (...and I thank god I don't work with an alpha-male, "little woman earning pin money" type ).

I agree with Unseen.

I also work 4 days a week, having only recently gone up from 3 days a weeks and for me this has been the perfect compromise. Yes my career ladder climbing has been put on hold but for me that is a very small price to pay for the extra time with my DC. now that they are a bit bigger i have increased my hours and made it very clear that i am working very hard to get 'back on track'.

There is lots that is crap about this career but I will always be very grateful that I ended up in a job where I was able to take this 'pause' while the DC were little.

In terms of value for tax payers money, I think part time women are excellent value for money as what tends to happen is we end up doing more than our fair share of the teaching/admin and that it is the (externally funded) research that takes most of the hit.

and the 'domestic slave' thing is a complete non-issue for all the academic women I know. Big issue for lots of other women though.

Unseen and muddleduck - that is exactly how I see 4 days/week vs FT and for me it would definitely be worth the drop in salary to protect my flexibility.

I don't see any 'little women' attitude in my dept - but I have glimpses of it from others - even other other (childless usually) women. Seems to vary a lot by subject area and mini-dept culture. I don't really get the 'domestic slave' thing.