Reproductive strategies in science

​I was never the person dying to hold someone else’s baby, nor did I used to be particularly comfortable around kids. Frankly I wasn’t sure how to engage with them or their world. However, once I started ageing towards 30 and felt the ‘biological clock’ ticking, and being a behavioural ecologist, I thought that I might regret missing out on experiencing reproductive success first-hand☺. At the time, my husband was working remotely for an academic institution in Canada, while I was midway my first post-doctoral fellowship at the University of St. Andrews. I did not want to wait for job stability as I feared that that might never happen, so we just took the plunge.

Written by Neeltje

Our first daughter was only 8 weeks old when we moved to Cambridge for my husband to start his PhD while I worked remotely on the data collected just before I went on maternity leave. I was extremely fortunate that my mentor at the time, Dr Karen Spencer, was happy for me to work wherever was best for our young family. I was also very lucky that Prof Nick Davies at the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge was happy to host me as a visiting researcher after I returned from maternity leave – I was even given a desk in the Behavioural Ecology group and allowed to supervise students. I could not have wished for a more supportive setup!

​It was a huge transition returning to work but now having an 8-month old to take care of. I started off working only 3 days per week so that I could still spend most of my time with my daughter. However, I ended up feeling like I was a lousy researcher as I could not get all the work done that I wanted to in those 3 work days, and I felt like a rubbish mum for not dedicating all my time to a new human being who could not feed herself nor walk yet. So there was a LOT of feeling guilty and inadequate in that period. A month after returning to work, a lectureship opened up in the Zoology Department, and I applied. To my huge consternation I was actually invited for an interview! However, I was also supposed to finish writing a special-issue journal article and I had only 3 days/week to cram everything into. It was extremely stressful trying to do it all, while thinking that the other lectureship candidates could work and prepare for the interview 24/7 if they wanted to, and while my daughter was still waking up 5 times a night to nurse. I felt like a zombie and was sure that I would embarrass myself in front of the whole department that had become my academic home.
 
I was not offered the lectureship, but I did not screw up the interview either, and the whole experience was very useful. However, I had only one year left on my post-doctoral fellowship, and so I had to start applying for fellowships again. The next year I basically did nothing but write fellowship applications. My Marie Curie was rejected. I was then invited for a NERC interview but was eventually rejected as well. At this point I was convinced that I would have to give up on academia. Similarly convinced that I had no transferrable skills whatsoever, I had started looking at vacancies at coffee shops, and was attempting to scheme a plan to somehow serve coffee during the day while doing science… in the night, in between nursing the baby?? That would leave no time for sleep, but who needs sleep anyway… (actually I need ca. 8 hours/night to function properly…;-)
 
I’m still not sure how/why/whether this actually happened, but in a few miracle months after hitting rock bottom I was interviewed for, and offered, a Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research Veni fellowship, an Oxford University Edward Grey Institute independent fellowship, and a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship. I felt so lucky and grateful that I was sure I’d get hit by a bus very soon after, as it just seemed like too much good fortune. I accepted the Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship, which is specifically designed to accommodate flexible working patterns for academic parents and others with caring responsibilities. I do not know of many other institutions that provide this type of support and I am so grateful to have been awarded it!
 
Fast-forward a year later, and I am interviewing for a lectureship at the University of Exeter- Penryn campus, while my 2nd daughter is 5 months old and sitting on my lap as I try to have coherent conversations with the interview panel members and future colleagues over lunch and dinner. It must have been unimaginable even a few years ago to take one’s baby along for an academic interview. I had dear friends looking after her while I was doing the actual interview and giving my job talk, but still I would say that things have changed immensely in terms of accepting and accommodating motherhood in academia. I am also lucky that my new department is very welcoming to young families and accommodating to flexible work requirements.

We’ll be moving to Cornwall this summer for me to start my new lectureship position, just in time for my first daughter to start primary school there, and for my second daughter to join the campus nursery. My husband is finishing up his PhD. It has not been an easy ride for him either, doing a PhD while having two babies and sharing all the parental responsibilities, baby germs that then significantly increase the frequency and intensity of adult disease, and lack of sleep. When I did my PhD I worked 14 hours per day, which made me absolutely miserable but productive – and I am so much happier now as my kids show me that there’s more to life than work! My husband has had to suffer loads of sleep deprivation and illness, and as a result has not been as productive as he would have wished. And now I’m dragging him to the outskirts of England so that I can have my dream job, but he’ll have to work remotely again. So we haven’t found a perfect solution to the “two body problem”, but I’m hopeful that we can make it work. And I can’t wait to build sand castles with my girls on Cornwall’s beaches.

​Advice?
​I’m not sure I am really positioned to give advice, as this implies that I’ve got everything sorted out, which is definitely not the case. However, here are some thoughts on what I’ve learned along the way:

1. ​You might have to change expectations about your productivity. You can't be as productive when you're spending hours a day and night taking care of little ones, when you're lacking sleep, when you have to stay home for a week because they have chickenpox, etc. And you shouldn't expect to be as productive as before! So better to accept this up-front than to beat yourself up about it.  
2. I would say that perseverance is one of the main determinants of success in academia. I think it is totally possible to survive in academia with or without kids, as long as you never give up, even after getting multiple applications/manuscripts rejected. Rejections are hard (I spent a day in tears after my NERC rejection), but taking the feedback constructively really can make your proposals better.
3. When the demands of kids and work are too much, it's important to consider your own health. Usually nobody is going to die if you can't make a project deadline or grade a paper on time, but it’s easy to slide down a negative spiral of complete exhaustion and poor health if you sacrifice your sleep, stop eating well and generally do not look after yourself just to meet some arbitrary deadline.
4. Learn to say “NO!”. A lot of academia runs on voluntary services and it is tempting to say “yes” to everything just because you feel flattered for being asked. However, if it seems impossible to meet the basic work demands already, please try to avoid heaping more on top of your existing work pile because you’re afraid of losing out on opportunities or that people will take offence. Everyone is busy and everyone knows that you can’t do it all. I’m particularly bad at this one☺
5. If you do really have to meet that one grant deadline, having a supportive partner and social network makes all the difference. If there is any way to have family/grandparents around to take the kids for a few hours, that makes all the difference! We are hoping to convince my parents sometime soon…