The part-time paradise

My home country is the country in Europe where most people work part-time. Nearly half of the workforce (both male and female) work part-time (meaning less than 38 hours a week). And if that is broken down for gender you can see that 75% of women work part-time.

Source. I couldn't find this figure in English, but the X-axis shows the percentage of working people, and my homecountry is the longest blue line all the way at the bottom.

You might say: ‘Oh nice, there are so many jobs that people can do part-time and they get to spend more time with their family’. True, but the downside of this is that daycare providers often also work part-time. This means that if you are one of those few mothers that want to work full-time, you will almost certainly put your child in a daycare where it does not have one steady care provider, but different ones for almost every day, making it much harder for your child to form a bond with their care provider. 

And that is not even the worst part of it. Because the reality is that because so many women work part-time, it is almost seen as a crime when you have children and decide to work full-time. Almost no child goes to a daycare 5 days a week, and if you ask if that’s a possibility, the answer we got was:”I guess, if you insist”. I won’t even get started about the judgmental looks and comments from other mothers. It is just not done. 

So can you science part-time? I think you can, because as a matter of fact a couple of my mentors from grad school (both men and women) worked four days a week. Some of them worked 4 times 9 hours (technically full-time but with one day to be home with their kids), others worked 4 ‘regular’ days. I’m not saying that these people did not work at nights and on the weekend, because I’m pretty sure most of them did. And I guess in about a year from now (if all goes well, we get some kind of grant, etc etc) we will try for ourselves. Both Dr. BrownEyes and I are considering working 4 days a week, so that BlueEyes and prospective baby can go to daycare 3 days a week, just like their fellow homecountry kids.

On parent-friendly science

So a lot of people, for example Erin McKiernan and TSZuska share my opinion that the recent piece in Nature kind of misses the point in trying to show that it is a piece of cake to combine a career in academia with being a mom. However, when I talk about this with friends or with my husband, their comment is often:”So who cares when women quit science because they want to stay home with their kids? What if these women don’t want academic careers, but they just want to be a stay-at-home mom?” I find it hard to formulate a good answer to this, because sure, if women want to stay home then that’s their choice. But I think that often it is not their choice to leave academia, but it is the academic culture that makes it incredibly difficult to pursue an academic career as a woman/parent/both. 

As Zuska says:

  “But every time we devote words and energy to discussing How Women Can Be Mothers And Scientists Too! we are not discussing What The Hell Is Wrong With Science And How Can It Be Fixed.“

So let’s move on to what I think can be done to fix this.

First off, it would be great if having babies and putting those babies in daycare would be easier, especially when you’re a post-doc and you don’t have all the money to arrange help in any way you would want. But this is not really changing science, it is just changing the environment around us a little bit.

What would also be great is if you could be a scientist also if you don’t love insecurity about your job. It would be awesome if there were more research associate/staff scientist type of positions for those of us who LOVE to do science but who HATE the fact that science can only be done on a short-term contract OR on a super-hard-to-get tenure track position that in itself means tons of insecurity in terms of getting grants. Wouldn’t it be great if you could have a science job that doesn’t come with tons of disappointment…?

Next, it seems like right now it is impossible to take some time (i.e. few years) off to take care of children when they are very little. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could do that and then be able to come back as an academic scientist? I sure would consider it. Or work part-time for a bit when your children are little.

Finally, for women it would be beneficial if grants and papers would be judged either anonymously or with only your last name on it. In comparison with the two items above this seems like something that can be pretty easily implemented right?

All this is coming to you from a disgruntled post-doc who just heard that she didn’t make the cut to be interviewed for a TT position in the home country and who is in a lab where funding is running out, while desperately trying to find grant money to support myself. I'm going to go dream about this fairytale land where you never have to worry about grants and you can do science with the unicorns.

A Postdoc’s Guide to Pregnancy and Maternity leave

I only discovered today that the National Postdoctoral Association published “A Postdoc’s Guide to Pregnancy and Maternity leave”. It’s a short guide that tells you all the things that you should keep in mind before, during and after your pregnancy as a postdoc. That’s incredibly helpful, because as a postdoc you’re not a student but regularly not a real employee either, so it’s often vague what your rights are concerning things like maternity leave. 

Click here for a larger view.

The only slight flaw that I could discover is that they list ‘looking for childcare’ as something to do after the baby is born. In our case that would have been way too late. Our university only has one childcare center with about 12 spots for babies (!), so we were smart enough to put our names on the list when I was only 8 weeks pregnant. The daycare center knew I was expecting before my close friends did, just because otherwise we would probably not have got a spot.

Anyway, go and check it out if you’re a postdoc and pregnant or considering to get pregnant.

So long and thanks for the fish, National Postdoctoral Association!

The contradictions of caring for a child

Sometimes when I sit in bed with a sleeping BlueEyes in my lap I feel like I was born to be someone’s mother. On other days I feel like I was born to sit on the couch, drink a beer and watch crappy television for an entire weekend. Not surprisingly, these two purposes in life don’t go together well. 

When last week’s hurricane came, some of my friends (only the one’s without kids) said: “Oh that’s wonderful, you get to be home with BlueEyes two extra days”. And all I could think was: What the hell are we going to do those two days, when we can’t go outside and we have to entertain BlueEyes the whole day?!? 

And yesterday night was one of the few nights when Dr. BrownEyes wasn’t home (OMG single parents, how on earth do you do it? You have my utmost respect). I was tired from analyzing data all day, and after nursing BlueEyes I wanted to go and make dinner. I picked the easiest dinner from the list that we made for this week (potatoes with Brussel’s sprouts, mashed together with pieces of bacon), but when I wanted to start cooking BlueEyes started crying. He wanted me to pick him up, so I figured I would put him on my back in a sling. But he didn’t want that either. He only wanted to be held on my hip, but that way I couldn’t really cook. So I ended up putting him on my back anyway, because I didn’t want him to get hurt throwing himself on the floor when I was trying to cook. And I spent the time cooking singing songs and jumping up and down with a frantically crying BlueEyes right in my ear. Dinner went fine, and bath time went fine, but putting him to sleep took over an hour. When Dr. BrownEyes came home BlueEyes was still awake and I had totally had it. Of course when Dr. BrownEyes held him he instantly fell asleep. I felt bad that I couldn’t just stay relaxed and help BlueEyes fall asleep. And I hated that I didn’t enjoy it. I think that what I’m particularly struggling with in my head is that every other thing in the world that you do, you can decide to stop doing it when you don’t feel like it, but not this. I will (hopefully) always be BlueEyes’ mom and that idea sometimes frightens me a bit. 

Especially when he was just born, some nights I just wanted to brush my teeth and go to bed by myself instead of change his diaper, nurse him, comfort him, etc. I’ve gotten used to it a whole lot, but sometimes this same feeling creeps up on me. On the other hand, I know he’s only going to be little for so short, so I better enjoy it now. The days are slow, but the time goes fast.

I guess there’s enough of this type of complaining everywhere, both in real life and especially online. It’s not a taboo anymore if you don’t particularly enjoy having children 24 hours a day. But it feels like kind of a struggle for me. Because I could get a babysitter and do something else for a night, but I won’t. Because I feel that we already have BlueEyes in daycare and since he has trouble falling asleep by himself I would feel bad for him. Also, when I’m away I miss him. I need to more often realize that this is just how it is. I don’t need to enjoy it but I just need to do it. 

And I’m glad that in this day and age it’s okay for women to go to work. And that there’s excellent daycares like ours. Because as much as I would want to be there for every new word that BlueEyes learns, I know that that is just not for me (and even writing that down makes me feel kind of bad).

Is two babies too many?

Today at Scientopia I wonder how people can be post-docs and have more than one baby?

The other woman

I used to hate it when at the end of the day I could smell her perfume on you after you had spent the day together. Or when I found her hair on your clothes. I felt jealous when you would rather go to her for comfort then to me, and when the two of you would laugh together about something I didn’t get.

At first I found it really hard bringing you to her but over the past months I realized how much you like it there. And now I love that she is there for you during the day, and that you feel comforted by her. She knows the signs when you are tired and rocks you to sleep. She knows when you’re still hungry and gives you some extra food. She knows the books you like to read and the things you like to do. She taught you to talk on an imaginary phone, so that now every toy that you have has become a phone to you. She may even have seen you stand by yourself but hasn’t said that to us, so that we think that we’re the first to see your milestones. It gives me such an enormous peace of mind knowing that while I’m at work, you’ll be fine with her at daycare.

But now you’re almost turning one and after the summer you’ll leave her and go to a different class. I hope you will get a new teacher that is as loving and caring as she is. And if not, I will find peace of mind knowing that she will be right next door from where you are.