Astronomy
There's a koan in academia for when is the best time to have a kid:
- Yes, these choices have impacted our productivity.
- Yes, decreased productivity has repercussions for this transient postdoc phase.
- Yes, as a community we need to be thinking about 'stop the clock' type policies for postdocs given the coincidence in timing with childbearing years and the increase in the number of postdocs we go through before accessing tenure positions (if we remain in academia).
All career routes face this issue of reconciling early career progress with starting a family. I thought it might be useful to share our approach and highlight the perks of flexible schedules, autonomy, and a few supportive policies.
Finally, a question for you all: At the 2008 winter AAS the CSWA hosted a panel discussion, "When is a good time to have kids?" Although 'all times are equally good - have kids when the time is right for you' was the refrain, there was the sense that if you have all your ducks in a row, during grad school may be best.
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Astronomy
Postdoc Parenting Work-Life Balance
There's a koan in academia for when is the best time to have a kid:No time is the right time, all times are equally good (bad?)
My husband is also a postdoc. We have a 9 month old. This is a glass half full kind of post, about how we've taken advantage of the flexible hours, the autonomy, and a few supportive policies to pursue parenting and work on our own(-ish) terms.
The short of it is that at least one of us was home with our daughter full time until she turned 4 months old and at least one of us continues to be home with her four days a week. Here's how we do it:
Family leave:
I took 6 weeks paid maternity leave + vacation/holiday time to reach 3 months paid leave total. My husband took 2 months paid leave (whoohoo NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship paternity leave!). We offset our leave so that one of us could be home with our daughter until she turned 4 months old (i.e., I took months 1, 2, and 4, my husband took months 1 and 3). Granted, other countries are way ahead of us on this, but we feel so lucky to have had this option here in the U.S.
Childcare:
At least one of us is home with our daughter Mondays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we have a nanny who has a 2 year old. They're both wonderful. I work on Saturdays and am home on Mondays. We split Fridays. Fridays take discipline, and we've only managed at best a 7-hour workday each on that day (we each take one of the following shifts as our work hours: 7am-2pm or 2pm-9pm). I also pause to nurse and we both pause to put her to bed.
The upside of my working on Saturdays:
- Fewer distractions at work since few people are in.
- We each get 1-on-1 time with our daughter -- great for bonding.
Downside:
- Missed interactions with colleagues on Mondays.
- We only get one weekend day together as a family.
- Yes, these choices have impacted our productivity.
- Yes, decreased productivity has repercussions for this transient postdoc phase.
- Yes, as a community we need to be thinking about 'stop the clock' type policies for postdocs given the coincidence in timing with childbearing years and the increase in the number of postdocs we go through before accessing tenure positions (if we remain in academia).
All career routes face this issue of reconciling early career progress with starting a family. I thought it might be useful to share our approach and highlight the perks of flexible schedules, autonomy, and a few supportive policies.
Finally, a question for you all: At the 2008 winter AAS the CSWA hosted a panel discussion, "When is a good time to have kids?" Although 'all times are equally good - have kids when the time is right for you' was the refrain, there was the sense that if you have all your ducks in a row, during grad school may be best.
Is this still the consensus 7 years later? If you have the choice/option, is grad school still considered the timing that has the least negative impact on career trajectories?
A few relevant posts / literature:
A few relevant posts / literature:
- Do babies matter - Gender and family in the Ivory Tower by Mary Ann Mason, Nicholas Wolfinger, and Marc Goulden
- Fathers in academia & here
- Having children in grad school & here
- Seeking support through social media
- Ann Hornschemeier's series of posts on work-life + nursing & here
- More on pumping at work
- Staying competitive after family leave
Please add more in the comments.
- Maternity News
This map is from @Amazing_Maps, and it surprised me. I knew that our maternity (and paternity) policies in the US are far behind those of Europe, especially the Nordic countries. But we're no more advanced than Suriname, Papa New Guinea...
- 2 Careers, 2 Kids, 1 Marriage: Part 2
Last week I wrote how my wife, Ellen, and I met in the graduate dorm at Caltech, got married, managed to complete our PhDs on the same month and land a pair of jobs. This year, the difficulties (and pleasures!) of simultaneous young kids and young...
- Guest Post: Eliza Kempton On Support For A Working Mom With Facebook
Eliza Kempton has recently started a job as an assistant professor of physics at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. Her research is on the atmospheres of extrasolar planets, focusing on low-mass planets known as super-Earths. Eliza is also...
- Guest Post: Graduate Student Mom
The below blog post is from guest blogger Hannah Fakhouri, a graduate student in astrophysics at UC Berkeley: Greetings! My name is Hannah and I'm guest blogging this week about being a graduate student and a mom: I am a seventh year...
- A Metric For Workplace Environment Culture: How Long Do Mothers Nurse?
If you think you have a positive culture at work for families, how would you measure it? One might be to determine how long, on average, the mothers of young children nurse their children. The workplace environment has a significant impact on the nursing...