Oh, has Dr. Isis got a secret for you!!! I can't tell you who, because I have been sworn to secrecy, but one of you little muffins has a bun in her...muffin?
A croissant in her bun?
A bun in the donut of her cupcake...growing into a pie?
Figure 1: Let's just let the baked goods metaphors go. It's making me feel awkward and hungry. PS: Click that link. Yum!
One of you is going to have a baby. And, as one might expect you to be, you're a little nervous about the prospect of having a baby and a career. You wrote to me:
Ok, so. I am very quite possibly showing up to new job preggers. Ok. Not panicking.You blogged that during talks you stay on target, are calm, or something like that -- a mantra that I liked but the specifics I have forgotten. Is there a similar mantra for showing up to a new department fully gravid? I have heard the 'there is never a good time, so do it' from so many people that we decided to go for last one before my ovaries shriveled into nothing, but I am nervous about showing up with full belly, given that I am the hot new hire (omg, an R1/medical school where they expect the $$$).
It's early, very very early, too early to even tell the family, but I really appreciate your take on things, and I like that you are willing to be scrappy if necessary. I want to be more scrappy.
First and foremost, congratulations to you and all the other new mommys who read my humble little blog. I welcome you to the club and only pray that those that come after me in the great mommy cult are more equipped to deal with that first tantrum in Target than I was.
Video 1: The psychology of the tantrum.
There's one lesson I hope to teach you right off the bat. Motherhood is like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which says that you can never simultaneously measure an electron's position and velocity. You cannot simultaneously please your child/family and science. There are simply not enough hours in the day to be everything to everyone. So, my life is a constant juggling act, trying to keep everyone as happy as I can. Last weekend, for example, I returned from a long period of travel. I knew that I needed to be available to the lab when I got back because we had a deadline we were trying to meet. However, I knew that I needed to spend the weekend at home after being away. It made for a very stressful Monday, but it was important to spend the weekend with my family and I did.
Regardless of how you choose to allocate your time, I have learned recently in conversation with a group of more senior women in academia that there is something that we do that our male colleagues don't do -- we over explain, and that can color how people perceive us. For example, assume that you are chillin', getting ready to leave for your child's school play in two hours and someone says, " Can you attend this meeting in two hours?" A woman is more likely to say, "I can't. I have to go get my child and then attend his school play." A male colleague with the exact same play to attend to might say, "I can't. I have another commitment."
When this was explained to me by a senior woman in my field, it blew me away. I had never thought about it this way, and yet it made perfect sense. There really is no need for us to offer up bits and pieces of our private lives in order to explain the reasons we can't do things. You weigh the costs and benefits of every conflicting commitment and you do the best you can. But, most importantly, we do our best to meet our commitments without apology. It's not easy. You won't be perfect. Somedays you'll feel like a failure, but most days there's nothing like seeing your child grow and learn and being able to pursue a career that you find intellectually fulfilling. Living in these two spheres has to be the norm -- not the exception to the rule and not something we apologize for.
Each MRU and department is different. Some are more accommodating of parents than others. I happen to work in a group that are very accepting of family life and that makes all the difference. Having this environment has been integral to my happiness and I am not sure I could continue to work here if the environment was hostile towards my choice to have a family. I can't tell anyone to stay in or leave a position, but I have a very wise friend who frequently says that we aren't going to be laying on our deathbeds, wishing that we had spent more time at work.
We're going to hopefully be thankful for the amount of time we got to spend with the people we love.
Best of luck to you, little muffin. I wish you a happy and healthy pregnancy, a successful move, and a beautiful new addition. Your life is about to change in a major way.
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Comments
Dear Dr Isis, (sorry for the tangent) do you find that people (usually in positions of authority eg lab heads) ask of you to do things that they would not ask of themselves.
For example, I have been interviewed (and offered) a job as a post doc in a fabulous lab, but was asked in the pre-interview process whether I was planning on having kids in the next few years. With the imputation that I would not be hired if I was. This lab head and many other senior members of the lab have children.
I kind of get the feeling that having children was ok for them, but they expect me to be a slave to their lab and forgo or delay the prospect of having children for myself.
(I am also accutely aware that males who were interviewd for the job were not asked that question.)
Posted by: Dr X | October 15, 2009 11:50 PM
That's an illegal question to ask in hiring in the US, Canada, and Australia, Dr. X! I know the *science* in that lab may be fabulous, but it's not a *fabulous place to work* if people in charge are implying "having children was ok for them, but they expect (you) to be a slave to their lab and forgo or delay the prospect of having children".
I also don't think it's tangential.
Posted by: ginger | October 15, 2009 11:59 PM
I know it's illegal Ginger (and the job is in one of those countries), but it was still asked, and without reservation. I think we're kiding ourselves by thinking that it's not more common than reported.
Posted by: Dr X | October 16, 2009 12:55 AM
Great post Dr I. I Have been asked about children in every job interview I've been to, despite it being illegal. My boss here also seems to think that number of children should be on a cv (she has it on hers) while I think it's nobody's business at the cv stage.
Posted by: caro | October 16, 2009 5:35 AM
Great advice, Isis, though I would go further. Instead of saying "I can't," which still might be interpreted as unwillingness or inability, I just say "I am not available."
Dr. X, just smile and say you have no plans to have kids. Then do whatever the hell you want. Plans change.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 16, 2009 8:23 AM
:-)
I guess accidents do happen... :-)
Posted by: Dr X | October 16, 2009 8:43 AM
Dr Isis. Great advice and thoughtful post. When I was 7 months pregnant and a graduate student, I was heading out on job interviews looking for a post-doc. I was in the mail room of my MRU, when the chair of our department walked in. In our conversation, he said that he knew a lot of people who would never hire someone who was pregnant as a post-doc. Of course, not him - he would. He just knew people who wouldn't and wanted to prepare me. I had never felt so dejected and sad in my entire life and went on the interviews thinking I would not be hired. Well, I was hired and have a great post-doc and a wonderful mentor.
Twelve days before I gave birth I defended my thesis. I stood up in front of everyone wearing 3 inch heeled tall black boots my enormous belly silhouetted on the screen of my powerpoint. And, at that moment, I realized I could do it. I knew I could be a scientist and a mother. Of course, there have been times over the past 3 years that I have felt like I was a crappy scientist and a crappy mother, but I just think back to that day and it gives me the strength to push on.
Posted by: Sxydocma1 | October 16, 2009 9:45 AM
No apologies! I totally agree with your comment about over sharing. I often say I have another meeting or another appointment (instead of I have to take my child to the doctor/dentist, etc.). Sometimes I am explicit, eg when people try to schedule meetings regularly outside of daycare hours. This is when I want to point out that this is a major inconvenience for me and that it contributes to a non-family friendly environment.
Also just try to convey the point that you are working even when you are not in your office. I often "hide" at home to write grants or am gone for meetings, so then the perception that you are working even when you are not visible can cover for when you are gone for some family related reason, rather than worrying about being available/visible all the time.
Posted by: mommy engineer | October 16, 2009 9:54 AM
It's really odd reading this, because there were two guys working in my old lab (PI and PostDoc) who had families, and were both really candid and open about when they had do dissapear because of them. "I have to go collect my kids, can't make after 6" was a regular, and the best one I heard just a few days before I left was "I'll be off a lot this week, I'm on single-father duty."
Maybe I'm just lucky, but most of the guys-with-kids that I've worked with seem to treat it as just a normality that there's some times they just can't make because of them.
Posted by: Lab Rat | October 16, 2009 10:22 AM
@Lab Rat- I think it's like the issue of personal info on the CV. On the one hand, men saying they are married or have kids might help people see it as normal. On the other hand, if you're in an environment where it isn't close to normalized, people will be judged negatively for being married or having kids- and women much more so than men. So it's also a manifestation of male privilege.
Posted by: becca | October 16, 2009 11:02 AM
The time will come when you are pressured to drop the other commitment as a lower priority. If you pay attention, you can see the signs of this particular power struggle coming and you may have a chance to provoke it at a time which best suits you.
For instance, thirty-some years ago corporate management wasn't prepared for me to take vacation at a time I had (much) previously scheduled. After a long period of escalating pressure and obstinacy, I finally told them that if it was truly all that big a deal, I could agree if they would compensate all of the wedding guests for nonrefundable expenses.
After that, I never had to explain myself again.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | October 16, 2009 1:06 PM
I would really love hearing the (maybe nonexistent) story when someone asks in an interview what Dr X was asked and that person immediately ends the interview and hauls everyone over to HR. Fuck these people, fuck them for breaking the law, knowing that they are, and perpetuating this bullshit. They see no costs to their behavior and it's time to change that.
Posted by: lost academic | October 17, 2009 12:03 AM