Wife, mother and PhD student - the balance is possible

Up until now, I have remained quiet with news of my personal life having set up this blog to track and store useful information regarding the research subject of my PhD at the University of Southampton. However, there has been much debate on twitter (find me @ecologyWatkins) and in the news on the state of the integration of women in the top level of academic and science careers, and as I near the end of my PhD life, balancing a career with a family has never been more in the forefront of my mind.

I recently tweeted "Why postdoc life with young family is not an easy option MT:@AstroMeg: in 6 years I have worked from 10 desks & moved internationally 4 times". 

I think this encapsulates the issues with pursuing an academic career if you already have settled, have a family and have ties to any particular location. Without the freedom to pursue national and international positions, finding funding and career opportunity as an early career academic seems flawed and particularly challenging. So how do you juggle, as a woman, a family life and a career? 

Unfortunately I do not yet have the answer, but no matter how relaxed I become of the situation and think that sexist traits can surely no longer exist in 2013 I get a nasty reminder. One academic, who shall remain nameless, recently admitted that he would not have appointed a female PhD student if he had known before hand that she had a young family, but would not have thought twice about appointing a male in the same position. How can this possibly be the case?

So today, I describe how life has changed for me since giving birth to my daughter almost one year ago and how it is possible to juggle a successful PhD with raising a family. 

Having been married for 3 years, my husband and I decided we wanted to start a family. My daughter arrived during my second year of PhD after I had already taken a 3-month suspension to pursue a policy placement secondment at the National Assembly of Wales. I took 5 months maternity leave (generously funded at full stipend rate by the University) and resumed my studies at the beginning of January of this year, 2013. Currently myself and my husband undertake full childcare duties between us whilst both undertaking full-time employment. Luckily my husband does shift work and has managed to squash his full-time hours into around 3 days a week and alternate weekends. I work from home mainly and manage to go into Southampton (which is a hour and a half trip each way from home) one day a week. I fit the rest f my work around my daughters naps and in the evening/weekend.

In real terms, with the knowledge that I don't have the liberty of time to waste I have found that I have never been more productive! My life is busy and full and I have forgotten what it is to be bored(!) but otherwise I have found the balance of childcare and work quite feasible. My daughter is now almost 1 year old and it is only now that we are considering some alternative childcare arrangements to allow me some extra time to make the final push in my last year and get my PhD done. In fact I am on track to hand-in my thesis early and have my viva and corrections submitted by the time my funding runs out at the end of May 2014.

I know of two other female students who have successfully managed to juggle motherhood and PhD life and in my experience, we tend to be the most organised, productive and committed students (although I know I can't say that definitively for all PhD students who are mothers). We no longer fall into the trap of being too absorbed by student life and social activities and in fact all three of us are probably in the top tier in terms of getting the thesis handed-in either in or before the deadline. In fact, of the 20 students in my PhD cohort (we are started a 4-year integrated PhD in the Doctoral Training Centre within the Institute for Complex Systems Simulation at Southampton in 2009), myself and the other 'mother' in the group also still manage to attend more group events and compulsory workshop sessions than many others who do not have such family and time commitments.

In short, I am as committed to my PhD as I was before I became a mother. I am still on track to submit my thesis early. I continue to attend conferences and have recently won runner-up oral presentation prize in a postgraduate conference and have had a recent paper acknowledged as a good example paper.

My answer therefore to those who baulk at the idea of employing a young mother in an academic career: judge us on our outputs, not on our inputs. Judge us on how we perform academically, judge us on our competence in our chosen field and judge us on our ability to conduct effective, robust and novel research. To judge us on anything else is to fail the women in our society. To judge us on anything else is just plain wrong.