29_Parenting as an Academic during COVID-19_Dr. Jennifer Paxton.mp3
29_Parenting as an Academic during COVID-19_Dr. Jennifer Paxton.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
29_Parenting as an Academic during COVID-19_Dr. Jennifer Paxton.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Emily:
Hey there. This is your host and final year PhD candidate Emily King, whether you're returning or are a new listener, thank you.
Emily:
Welcome to Voices of Academia, the podcast, where researchers from around the world open up about their mental health. They might laugh, cry or say things you disagree with, but this is lived experience, not professional advice. We do cover some sensitive material, but it's worth it to normalize difficult conversations, reduce stigma, and help people feel less alone. Today we travel to Edinburgh in Scotland to meet Dr. Jennifer Paxton, a senior lecturer in Anatomy PE of a tissue engineering lab. Wife and mother. I didn't feel like I needed to highlight in the title. The parenting as an academic during COVID 19 is a mental health struggle. If you've had a parent home school entertain, create space for and let's be honest, tolerate your kids during this pandemic. You're a champion.
Emily:
During our discussion, Jennifer opened up about working through initial feelings of embarrassment, guilt and anger in response to professional contact. Seeing her home life in online meetings and lessons. She highlighted specific frustrations of being a parent in academia. She also courageously opened up in the final 15 minutes about her decision making process for having a child. She, like many of us, was putting off major personal milestones because of the pressure of academia.
Emily:
We'll get into the episode in a minute. But first I have three quick announcements. I say about 5 minutes in that we've not had someone on the podcast speak about parenting before. That was true at the time as this episode was recorded in September of 2021. But since then, episodes 25 and 26 have been released, in which Dr. Andy Frost spoke lovingly of how his daughters help him manage anxiety. It's a touching listen if you want to check it out. Secondly, I've recently connected with a sound engineering student to help me with editing the podcast. I'm completely self-taught and have been producing this podcast single handedly for over a year. My new podcast editor will relieve the pressure, probably make things sound better than I ever could, and allow me to focus on what I do best. Chatting to people about the deep stuff. If you like his work, give me a shout and I'll connect you. Finally, if you find this podcast valuable and feel like you have some spare change, you can join our podcast supporters and support the podcast app at buymeacoffee.com/VOApodcast. Thank you.
Emily:
So that's the admin done. Let's get into it.
Emily:
Hey, Jennifer, welcome to the podcast.
Jennifer:
Thank you.
Emily:
So we met you were one of the first people to sort of come forward and indicate that you were interested in being a guest on the podcast way back when, we first kind of indicated that that's something Voices of Academia was going to expand and do in October of 2020. Around that time, you also contributed a really fantastic piece to the blog about your experience returning from maternity leave. And I feel like you hit on some. I'm not a mother, but I feel like you hit on some really key points about personal struggles that can arise when returning from maternity leave into an academic career. But there were also elements of humor as well, so I really enjoyed reading that. I think you're a fantastic writer.
Jennifer:
Thank you.
Emily:
And I wanted to I wanted to provide a little bit of a recap for that for the listeners today to give some context to your story as we sort of talk about what's happened since then for you over the last year. You mentioned at the start of your blog that there are frequent conversations focused on the impact having children can have on a woman's career progression, especially in academia. And also there's a lot of positive discussion claiming that women can sort of have it all and that children should not and are not a barrier to women making it in their career. But you chose in this piece to touch on your own personal battles with motherhood, combined with your career and your sometimes destructive mind, as you put it. And I know you've had a really positive response from that since then. It's obviously something that a lot of I don't even know if it was just mothers, but, you know, new parents kind of could relate to. You wrote that the real issue no one really talks about is what happens once you go back to work after maternity leave. The guilt, the anger, the fatigue, the imposter syndrome, trying to reestablish a new type of work life balance, feeling like a failure at everything, both home and work. And you actually considered leaving your job altogether. You did acknowledge that postnatal depression is now a pretty well known condition, and you did have postnatal sort of mood check ins with a health visitor as a new mum, but those slowly sort of dropped off over time. And by the time you returned to work, your daughter was ten months old. So depression from that postnatal just perspective just just really wasn't on your radar.
Emily:
You said you initially returned on a part time basis and you were trying to wrestle the control of your own projects and responsibilities back into your realm of control. And that was really tough. You know, you were really working hard to reclaim a career that you'd strived really hard for and quite a long time for. And I think the way you framed your guilt sort of around work and family responsibilities was actually, as I was rereading it just before recording this like it was it was heartbreaking. And I could feel from reading that how the thoughts and feelings you were having at the time could have worn away, would have worn away at anyone's self worth, really difficult trains of thought to come up against, but so powerfully communicated in that piece. Yeah, I guess like I want to thank you for writing that and being so open and vulnerable in that blog space, because even for me, I'm terrified of having children, partly because I really just don't know how people manage everything. So even for me, without children, that was so educational and so helpful. We will put a link in the episode description for listeners to refer to that, but today is really a kind of a follow up piece and also to focus on a slightly different aspect of your story, what it's like to be a parent in academia, particularly during COVID times, because I think that's something a lot of parents in academia will be able to relate to. So a bit of a long spiel, but I think it'll add some context to you and your story. And I wanted to ask you why you'd like to share this part of your story on the podcast today.
Jennifer:
Okay. Well, first of all, thank you for your really kind words on my blog post. It was a hard thing for me to share, but I felt that it was so important to do so because the way I felt, if any one person was feeling the way that I had felt, I was able to help them with that, then it would have been worth it. I think it's important to say that when I wrote the blog post, it was very therapeutic for me. It was something that I felt really reflected on the journey that I've been on and the struggles that I'd had. But that's not the end of the story. I think it's really important to keep sharing how things are going now, as you see as a parent, how these balances have to shift over time and how it is an ongoing struggle in academia. I can't deny that it is, but it's about how we can best discuss this openly and support others who may be feeling that they're alone because you're not alone. There are hundreds, thousands of other people that probably feel exactly as as you're feeling.
Emily:
Thank you. And yeah, I really want to thank you for wanting to be open about that. We haven't had any discussions yet on the podcast about being a parent in academia, and that's something that I say. In my supervisors, I say it in some of my colleagues is a real struggle. So I think this will be a really helpful conversation today and particularly at this time during the pandemic and the extra hurdles that that kind of presents. So if listeners find your story quite relatable today and then potentially like to learn more about your story, where can they potentially find you online?
Jennifer:
I have a Twitter account, Dr. Underscore Giuseppe as my handle. I've also got a lab website as Paxton Lab and I have numerous university web pages as well.
Emily:
Awesome. And we'll put a link to those in the episode description as well. So Jennifer's Twitter handle is at Dr. Spelled D.R. underscore Jay Z P. So, I mean, at this stage, we really don't know much about each other. And I really like to sort of get to know people, you know, outside of their academic careers before we sort of get into some other parts of their story, I'm interested to know and as I'm reading this, I'm kind of like, Oh, what's your favorite way to spend a day off? And the reason why I'm kind of like, Oh, is because I know you're a mom and I know you're a senior lecturer and I know you're a researcher, and I know we're in a lockdown. And I imagine your days off have shifted dramatically since becoming a parent, but also since the lockdown. So let's get this one a go.
Jennifer:
Yeah, well, I mean, for me, it's very easy to answer that question. A day off is a deal with my family. There's there's there's nothing better. And it is difficult, I will admit. But trying to put my phone away, trying to just embrace the day and not be constantly checking my phone, my emails to see what's happening on that side of things. But I deal with my family, particularly over the summer, with spending a lot of time at the beach. One of my daughter's favorite things to do is to just run into the sea and get soaking wet. But yeah, that's...It's easy for me to answer. It's probably not so easy for me to always detach myself enough to fully embrace the day off. But certainly that's a deal with my family. Is is just the best.
Emily:
Yeah. And that's actually something I want to ask you about in the next episode about how you've tried to put those boundaries in place when you're at home to be focused on home and when you're at work, be focused on work, because I can absolutely see how that would get blurred for anyone, particularly a parent though, and during COVID times. So we'll try to touch on that in the next episode. And yeah, I can relate. I'm an absolute beach bum and I'm soooooo like frustrated at the moment that we have a restriction in Melbourne where we can only go five kilometres from our home. So I can't get to any sort of ocean or any sort of bay. There's a lake nearby. So that's my my compromise at the moment. So I'm very, very jealous. What about what were you like as a kid?
Jennifer:
Oh, good question. I was quite a serious child. I think my parents always described me as inquisitive, always questioning things, and that stereotypical description of an engineer taking things apart, taking my toys apart, wanting to find out how things work. And also, according to my parents, very good at arguing. Very good at arguing that my dad always says you'll never win a fight against Jennifer. So I can see that I was probably quite challenging as a as a child. I definitely had strong opinions. Yeah, I can see a lot of that coming out in my own daughter. No, I actually pity my parents. Sometimes I re-live conversations or incidents that have happened with my daughter and they just nod and they say, yes, we've experienced that with you. So look forward to the next ten years Jennifer.
Emily:
So I can obviously say how that kind of led you into research. Did you ever consider becoming a lawyer because of that other side of you?
Jennifer:
Yes, that had been something that was early in my my secondary school education. That was something that had kind of been floated about being a lawyer. I don't know if it was my great ability to argue. I don't know. But I quickly found myself more into the sciences and this kind of idea of just wanting to find out how everything worked and investigate things.
Emily:
So you've mentioned in your bio that part of your role is as a P.I. in a tissue engineering lab, and you aim to build new body parts in the lab for implantation. I'm really fascinated by that. So could you tell me a little bit about that?
Jennifer:
Sure. So what our lab does is to try and grow new parts of the musculoskeletal system. So we're really interested in bones, tendons, ligaments, cartilage. And what we do is that we can grow artificial tissues in the lab using different materials, using different cell types. We can stimulate them with different chemicals or exercise regimes. We have little machines called bioreactors that can stretch the tissues as if they're exercising and all that kind of. It sounds very Frankenstein and sometimes you will be getting a haircut or something. Someone else say what you did? I start to tell them, and they're kind of backing away from me, but I absolutely love it. It's something that I was I was introduced to during my masters, and it was the one field of research that I just instantly clicked with. I thought, This is what I want to do. This is what I want to do for the rest of my career. And I'm lucky in the sense that I do get to do that. I get to direct the research that the lab is doing and that that part of it is is amazing. I love it.
Emily:
And do you think that inquisitive part of you from your childhood drew you to research or what do you think it was that sort of drew you to that as your career path?
Jennifer:
I think it probably was the inquisitive nature. I think at my time at university, I just loved learning stuff. I loved finding out new things and thinking about things more deeply. And I think when I finished my undergrad, I just automatically followed the post-grad route because I just felt like I wasn't finished. I still had more that I wanted to learn. And I think that is one of the beauties of an academic career, is that you are constantly learning. It can feel overwhelming at times because there isn't an endpoint you can't ever see. That's me done. I know everything. Now I'm going to just stop. You can't. But for me, that is part of the appeal because it keeps things interesting. You can keep developing, find out new things and and that is something that I do enjoy. I get annoyed about it sometimes, but it's that little fire in me that just keeps wanting to know more. I think that must have come from her was as a child.
Emily:
Yeah, I can definitely relate to that. I actually rated my top three values a couple of years ago and my I mean, first of all, it's relationships and then health. But my third one is learning. It's just so important to me. And definitely through my PhD, I've had to learn to become comfortable with saying I don't know. And that's something I think is really challenging to do. But yeah, it's so true. Like you just you can't you will never learn. Even within our specific research niches, we'll never be able to learn anything. And that's both frustrating and amazing.
Jennifer:
I guess I completely agree with what you said there about that, being able to admit that you don't know and it's probably something that we can touch on later on talking about, you know, mental health and stuff. But that's for me, that was one of the big things is is actually accept that I don't know everything, but I know how to find out and I know where to go. And that goes for everything that goes for academia and in life as well. You can't be an expert in everything. Stop trying to be.
Emily:
Yeah, definitely. So we will shift gears now into your sort of academic mental health story. And I say this every episode, but I can't talk about mental health without acknowledging that wearing the second year of a global pandemic. And so I know it's a loaded question, but I did want to ask how you are given the pandemic and everything that's going on right now, because I know it's so different for everyone.
Jennifer:
Yeah, it's I think the term I'm okay is probably the best description of things at the moment. It's not been an easy time at all. And I think the biggest thing to see is that it's all key. I think that I'm I've reached the point where I can acknowledge that there are other things going on. There is a global pandemic and therefore things like my standards, my overall ability to perform at my best is going to be reduced. And that's taken quite a long time. I mean, we've been in this situation for 18 months now and it's taken a long time for me to actually be able to acknowledge that and see there are things going on outside my control. So I think that I'm okay. There have been definite struggles and many of the ways and the tactics that I had used previously to try and protect myself from a lot of the feelings of being overwhelmed and fatigue, guilt that will probably touch on later. I've had to completely readjust how I can deal with these things based on the pandemic. So yeah, it's it's been an up and down while I'll be honest with that, it's not been smooth at all.
Emily:
Yeah. I mean, I think that's sort of the response that I tend to get. I think a lot of us are kind of surviving and a term that I know has been thrown around a lot is languishing, which is kind of I mean, particularly, you know, we're in lockdown again here. So I kind of just feeling a bit aimless. They don't describe it as depression, but still just less joy in life. And it's it's just so different to what a lot of us have ever experienced in the past. And I think what you touched on there about your managing strategies is something I can certainly relate to. I had built up a lot prior to the pandemic that had helped me deal with my own mental health concerns. And I've had to completely start again from the ground up because a lot of those management strategies were no longer available to me. So I would be keen to talk a bit more about that again in the next episode when we talk more. More about some of your support strategies.
Jennifer:
Absolutely.
Emily:
So this episode won't be released for another few months. I just want to acknowledge the listeners that at the time of recording, it's currently September 2021. And so Jennifer, your daughter is about four years old now and you released your blog about a year ago on returning to work post maternity leave. As I said, this is a little bit of a follow up to see how things have progressed for you as a mother within academia, potentially sort of touching on some of the struggles you've faced as a mother over the last year and what impact that's had on your mental health. So there's a few questions in there. I know, again, it's kind of a loaded question, but just from your experience of of the last year, I'm happy for you to talk freely about what that's been like as a mother in academia.
Jennifer:
So it's been hard. I think one of the biggest things has been the sheer unpredictability of what's happening. As you can probably tell from maybe what I've said before and talking about my career is that I really love my job. I really I love being able to succeed. I love making progress. And over the past, while it's just been completely stunted by what's going on in the world, and to add into that, this idea about being a parent means that you have to put your family first. You have to think about the well-being of your close family, your children, but also extended family. And so it has been incredibly difficult because there have been so many things that from a career perspective I've wanted to do, or perhaps I thought that I should be doing the unpredictability of knowing whether you're going to actually be able to commit to something in a week's time or not, because your daughter's nursery might be closed or she might have a completely innocuous cough that she has picked up, as all children do. But no, you need to take her for a test and you need to have the negative result before you can put her into her nursery again. So, I mean, undoubtedly, it has been challenging for everybody. You know, I can see that this is just on parents, but I find it particularly difficult just because I don't really know what each week is going to bring.
Emily:
So I guess, again, to give a little bit of context, have you been working from home for a lot of the last year?
Jennifer:
Yeah. So the last 18 months, actually, I've been working from home, teaching from home often with my daughter in the background. You know that I do remember one particular live lecture where she just ran into the room at the time she was really into trolls and she had a troll costume on and she came running in and, you know, challenging it. Let me see it. It has been challenging. So, yes, for 18 months it's been me in my spare room at home. I've been in for some teaching. I've tried to be in to see my lab members as well. You know, there are certain things, certain techniques that you can't show over a zoom you have to show in person. And we've been quite lucky in that, albeit restricted access. Our research labs were allowed to open after about the first six months of the pandemic year. So from that point of view, I've still had people in the lab, my students have still been able to collect data, albeit it has been a reduced or restricted access level. But yeah, I've been here, I've been in my my room kind of dialling in to meeting upon meeting upon meeting for the past 18 months.
Emily:
Yeah. And I think what you said about, about your daughter running in, in the troll costume in, in the middle of a meeting is something that a lot of parents will be able to relate to. And it actually ties in quite nicely with some concerns that another new academic mother, a PhD student, actually sent to me in a direct message on Twitter. As you know, Jennifer, when we were initially talking about having this conversation, we were trying to find some ways to tackle a different angle to what you tackled in your blog. And you gave me permission to take to Twitter and ask academic parents if there was anything that they would sort of like you to address. And this PhD student mentioned that both her and her partner were working from home because of COVID, and her new baby was only sleeping for an hour at a time. One of the things that she was particularly concerned about was her baby crying when she was in a zoom meeting. How did you feel about that in terms of I know for a lot of people, COVID and working from home blurred the lines between home and work for a lot of people. And I think, you know, a lot of people were kind of concerned about how to maintain professionalism, I guess, particularly in an industry, you know, academia, it often doesn't take into account people's home lives and kind of wants. Got to be a bit of a separate thing in the fact that we were having to work from home and have meetings at home. It gave colleagues and supervisors and and I guess maybe for you students a look into your personal life, which is something that probably hadn't happened very much prior. So what were your sort of initial reactions when you were working, teaching online, and your daughter would inevitably run into the room?
Jennifer:
I mean, initially it was horrifying for me. I think this is where it has a real impact on mental health overall, because I felt like I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed about having this distraction at home. I was embarrassed about having to admit that all my daughter's here. Apologies if there's an interruption. And then I started to get really angry that why should I have to apologize for having my daughter here? And so it fed back into all these horrible, horrible feelings about guilt and the fact that I somehow felt like I had to choose. I had to either be the professional. Dr. Paxton sitting at my computer, having a professional meeting it were teaching or I had to be mummy. And I got so frustrated that I couldn't seem to be both. I couldn't exist as both ends of that spectrum. So I had to find somewhere in the middle where I could be mummy and I could attend to my daughter's needs. I could excuse myself from a meeting or dispatch my cabinet off for a while. If I had to go and help her with something, I just had to find that area where it was okay. And you know, I should say that in the most part I found that people were very supportive of that. You know, I don't, I can't say that I've had bad reactions whenever I've said, well, sorry, my daughter's here. I just need to go and sort out the latest disaster or see what she's drawn on the walls this time or anything like that.
Jennifer:
But people understood and that helped because you would also discover that other people had challenges, other people had children at home that you actually didn't know they were parents. Or it could be the fact that somebody didn't have a private room. They were having to dial into meetings from their bedroom or their kitchen, and then they had a partner making a cup of tea in the background. So it wasn't just the parenting aspect, but I certainly felt in the beginning frustrated and embarrassed and then anger. That's what came along next, because I thought, why am I making excuses for this? Or Why am I trying to pretend that everything's absolutely okay when it's absolutely not okay and something needs to change? So in some respects, I think my partner's a primary school teacher and for some of the pandemic, he was working from home as well. And we did juggle. We said, right, I'll, I've got an important meeting in the morning, so can you take my daughter? And he'd be like, Yes, that's fine. And then we would swap. And that worked quite well for a while. But then there were times where he was back in school teaching and my daughter was at home and the nursery was closed or she was unwell and I had to just do both. There was there was no way that I could stop either of them. Realistically, I couldn't. So I just found a way to, to try and deal with things. Yeah.
Emily:
And I, I actually do wonder if this kind of forced working environment will help to bring a little bit more humanity to academia. Because I've certainly seen senior researchers attending seminars from their bedroom, and I've actually really enjoyed getting to say my supervisors in their home environment and the kids will pop into our lab meetings sometimes. And I actually really enjoy saying that side of them because, you know, as much as they've actually brought their boys in a couple of times in the past, it's it's pretty infrequent and I don't know why, but in academia, we just we just don't talk about our home lives very much. I'm assuming it's because we've just got so many deadlines and just 1,000,001 tasks that need to get done. And it's really hard to find the time to have those kinds of discussions, but I actually really value it and I think it brings something beneficial to the industry. So I guess that's my positive hopeful note for that. But in terms of getting to that point of you had to do both. I mean, how what was that like?
Jennifer:
Well, as I said, I had gone through this whole myriad of emotions really before I got to the point of acceptance. And I did I felt incredibly embarrassed and and almost ashamed of having other responsibilities. To be perfectly honest, I think that when it comes to my work and my professionalism, I've always I've put on a bit of an act. I see it as my armour. I go in as Dr. Paxton, and I just have a very kind of straightforward way of dealing with things at work. It is my armour and I think people would be quite surprised to see me at home. Because I'm a very different person. I'm a lot more relaxed. I don't feel like I have to put on this armor all the time. And so I think having to break that down was the biggest challenge I had to go through all the really, really horrible feelings of of guilt and anger and frustration. But then slowly I just started to chip away at that and just acknowledge that, hey, this is me, this is just me, this is who I am. Yes, I'm an academic and yes, I'm a mom. But I need to find a way to coexist with these and not apologize for either one, because it's not fair on my daughter that she's you know, Mommy's in a bit of a bad mood because I've got this meeting. And why are you not being quiet? That's that's not not fair on her part, which she should have been about three at that point.
Jennifer:
But that's not fair. She doesn't understand why is she getting this bad tempered mummy at home? I really didn't like that at all. But then the flipside of it is that I also don't want my colleagues, my students to not see the professional me. I didn't want that barrier to come down, but I think over time it just had to. And I would probably say that relationships in the workplace are probably better than they were before because I stopped trying so hard to pretend to be this perfect person that nothing was going to frazzle me. I was completely on top of all my deadlines. I was doing everything perfectly. You know, I'm the most capable person here. I think it's helped to just go, Oh, things, things aren't okay here. And because as soon as you start to open up and just show that bit of humility, you find that other people will do the same. And suddenly these normally quite static professional academic meetings are suddenly a bit more human. There's a bit more or are you doing, you know, oh, it's been a tough week. This has happened. This has happened. And you get all that out of the way and then you can concentrate on the work stuff and that's fine. But I would definitely see for certainly the more local team, I would say that we all understand each other a lot more and we all understand what additional pressures that each individual member of the team has, which makes the team work better.
Emily:
Yeah. And from my perspective, you know, I actually sort of like I said before, it's been good for me to see a different side of my supervisors. And I think I've said this in a past episode as well, but I really respect people in positions of power that are willing to show that they're not superhuman. Because I actually, from my perspective, I think when more senior researchers are putting on that mask, it actually alienates me as a junior researcher because I feel like it means that I have to aspire to this perfect and actually unattainable level, because that's what these sort of mentors are showing me. So I feel like it almost like puts up an unrealistic expectation. And I think it's great that, you know, people have, I guess, been forced to, but potentially become a little bit more comfortable in showing, you know, that they're just human like they're just like anyone else and that that's okay even at senior levels, you know, I think that's really good for junior researchers to see. But I did wonder like from your in your opinion, like, why do you think it is that people feel a need to put on that armor and be, you know, in quotes, professional in the academic sphere? Like, why do you think people feel like it's a negative thing to show their weaknesses?
Jennifer:
That's a really good question. I think it's probably just historical. I think that in general, that's what most of us have been exposed to in the past. There has been this very one dimensional. If you're in academia, then that's your first love. You know, you've got to want to love it. And I think from quite early on in my academic career, I certainly felt like I was fighting against these feelings all the time of If I don't want to do this 100% of the time, does that make me a bad researcher? Does that make me a bad academic if I don't want to work every evening and every weekend because all I could see around me were people doing the same thing. So you start questioning your own ability to actually progress in the career, your own commitment, your own self worth even. And there were times back in my training that I was really exposed to some very, very toxic working environments where I was definitely made to feel less committed to the career as a as a whole sphere, you know, because of things like getting married, announcing my engagement and being told that that was such a shame. That was such a shame because I've got such a great academic mind that for me was just this point of, I can't believe that.
Jennifer:
This is actually been said to me because you're insinuating that the moment that I chose happiness and fulfillment in my personal life, that automatically made me less successful as an academic. And whatever choices I made in the future were going to be impacted. It was going to impact my career if I made any life decisions. So perhaps I had a little bit off track there. But I think it's important to say that as much as we are seeing these slight changes by cutting, I think because of the pandemic, we're starting to see a bit more of what it's really, truly like to be in academia. And you're seeing different sides of people and maybe it'll take a while, but maybe this is the start of a bit of a change in the culture where, you know what? It's okay to show that you love your family or that you have your weekends off, or that it's okay not to work every single evening. I really think that that pressure is there just because that's how it seems to have been for many, many years. So we need to change that. We need to make people see that you can still be successful in both areas of your life.
Emily:
Yeah. And you know, I hope it is the start of a change. I have a few questions. We're definitely coming close to the end of this episode, so I'll try to keep us on track. But I mean, you've just mentioned their success. You know, you can still be successful and be a parent. And I know at the end of your blog piece, you know, it talked about some of the successes that you've had. So you've won research grants that you wouldn't have had the confidence to write before you became a mother. You've expanded your public engagement and you've written an anatomy book. At the time that this was written a year ago, you had more that was on the way. You've received teaching award nominations and you were promoted to senior lecturer, you know, still definitely making strides in your career and things that would be perceived as success on the side of juggling this family life. So I think definitely telling those stories is important because unfortunately and this is a longer conversation, but you know, the way that academia is struggle is structured, in my opinion. It actually does mean that if you pursue anything outside of academia that it is going to take away from your ability to perform in the department that I'm in. Like you just you have to collect as much data as possible. And like every minute that you're not working is data that you're not collecting or papers that you're not writing.
Emily:
And, you know, the deadlines come and that's how you get your funding. And so there's a whole lot about the the structure of it and that kind of constant pressure to perform that I think does make it difficult to juggle other things. So that is definitely something that's going to need to shift as well. But I think it's interesting that you mentioned that people have been quite supportive of you when you've put those boundaries in place and said, No, I actually need to go and do this now, like for my family. And yeah, I just think as as we say, more and more examples of that, that's going to create a little bit of a chain reaction to and I think I'm getting lost in my own mind right now because it's going in so many different directions. But I hope you can see where I'm coming from. You know what I'm trying to say, I guess for for people, you know, talking about being a little bit more open in this sphere and people seeing a little bit more and having a realistic idea of what it's like to be an academic. So that makes me want to ask you what some of your frustrations are about being a parent in academia, sort of aside from from COVID and the lockdown and that difficult work environment.
Emily:
Because personally, when I've spoken to more senior academics, I've actually really appreciated, you know, sometimes they're like, I don't want to scare you off, but like this is what it's like. And, you know, it's kind of it's bloody hard and, you know, finances are tricky and you know, this is just realistic. And I actually really appreciate that. And I use that approach with incoming PhD students as well to just say, I think it's important for you to come into this with your eyes wide open. You know, you can't always be prepared for it, but at least I can tell you what it's really like in my experience and from some of the angles that people don't necessarily talk about. So for me with incoming PhD students, I talk about the emotional toll and the potential psychological toll that a PhD can take because I didn't know that before I started. So in a similar way, I think if you would be willing to share some of the things that frustrate you about being a parent in academia, that could be helpful for for myself as I consider whether I want to have children and if I would stay in academia for that. But yeah, for other people as well that are sort of considering that and what that might look like.
Jennifer:
Okay. Yeah, I think that is such an important thing to talk about because certainly when I was thinking about my future and in positions that I'd been in previously, I'd always. Put off having children. I, I didn't think that, you know, how could I possibly give any time or attention to anything that wasn't my career? I just couldn't see it. I couldn't see how I could add something else. Because when you're doing your PhD, I was I was very lucky doing my PhD and that I absolutely love my topic. I did work a lot. There's no denying that, as all PhD students do, but for me it wasn't an expectation that I did that. It was a sheer love for what I was doing. But I met my partner, year two of my PhD who had nothing to do with academia, didn't really know what I was doing at all, but he gave me that little bit of normality. So he said, you know, he was the one that said to me, I'm taking you out tonight. We're going to the cinema. No, don't do any work tonight. Do this. And suddenly I got a little bit of balance back. And at the time of my PhD, I had a great lab group, a very supportive PhD supervisor, but I still just couldn't see that future where you could add something else into your life and still have room for it. And then fast forward several years working as a postdoc.
Jennifer:
No time, no time whatsoever. I put off getting married. I put off thinking about children because how was that going to fit in? When I get a permanent job, that's when I'll have children. And then that took a while. It took a while to reach that position of, okay, I've now got a permanent job, but then I got that permanent job and I thought, I'm even more busy than I've ever been before. And actually, I'm not just responsible for doing my own work of my research project. I've got all this teaching to do, I've got all this admin to do, I've got students to supervise. I've got to write grants for you to fund more work in the lab. I always liken it to having you doing business where you are completely in control of your lab finances. You have to think where that next pot of money is coming from, and the decision about having children was pushed further away and further away because I hadn't seen anyone else who had been able to do this successfully. So it was almost as if the more successful from outside perception, let's call it success from from that avenue, but the more successful I became, the harder it was going to be to add something else into my life. And it's something that I feel quite strange about sharing this, but I think it's important to see that my decision to have children, it was something that I had put off for so long and I knew that time was ticking.
Jennifer:
I knew that if I wanted to have children, I was going to have to start thinking about it fairly soon. Otherwise I would have missed the opportunity and the thing that swung it for me. I'm really sad to see this, but it was the fact that I had been working myself into the ground. I had been so committed to my job and so committed to this career that I had. As I said in the blog, you know, I had worked so, so hard for this. And then a senior academic member of staff commented that I wasn't achieving anything. And it broke me. It completely broke me because I had moved. I had come to a new university, I'd set up a lab. I taught hundreds of hours of teaching. And then I should say that this is not somebody that was local to me. This was somebody from a different area of the university. But had really and it's this real difficulty with academia is that your success is not measured on your day to day and nobody tells you you're doing a good job. You rarely you'll get a student say thank you after the lecture and it's like this beaming ray of light that, Oh, you like to think. Thank you for saying that. Good feedback is not something that we get. But oh, there's an awful lot of rejection.
Jennifer:
There's an awful lot of of your grant wasn't funded. Your paper's been rejected. You're not doing enough. And that was the feeling that I was getting from this external member of staff. They had looked at what I'd done over the past few years and they'd said, Where's your papers? Where is your grant income? And they hadn't concentrated on any of this stuff that I had been working so hard on establishing. And for me it really was that almost a moment of clarity. And I need to put myself first. I need to put myself my own family first. What is the point of working myself into the ground when it's not acknowledged? It doesn't help you climb the ladder. It doesn't help with this idea of success. So it was a real change in mindset for me. And that's why I am I'm sad to see it because I would hate to think that anybody else would put off such an important and fundamental part of your life why you would ever put something else in front of a personal decision like that. And I'd been doing it for years, actually, unknowingly. I'd always just been pushing it away and pushing it away. So for me, yeah, I had to really. Rock bottom before I could see that there was another way. And from that point onwards it was, no, I'm going I'm going to put me and my personal family life first and not my career. Yeah.
Emily:
And I genuinely want to thank you for sharing that because I can understand how that would be a really difficult thing to talk about. But I agree like it's so important to be open about those kinds of things because I definitely say a lot on academic Twitter, people asking about the best time during an academic career to have a child. And I don't think there is one. And I was going to ask you what your decision process was like when deciding whether to have a child as an academic and when to do that. So that's definitely something that I was sort of hoping to touch on. It definitely makes me sad to think that people put off these huge milestones, personal milestones, because of the way that academia is structured. But I absolutely know that that happens a lot. And I mean, even for me, I back when I was full time with my PhD, I got to this point where I realized that I was, you know, I did a similar thing to you. I was working myself into the ground and I realized that I was sacrificing everything, like I was putting everything on hold. I guess I'm in Australia at least I'm an older PhD student, so I'm almost 32 now and when I was full time I really wanted a partner, you know, like, but I didn't have the energy to date and I was so stressed I had like zero libido, but it was something that I really, really wanted and it was only when I went on into mission.
Emily:
And funnily enough, I met my current partner probably at the West Point of my life, which is weird but also great because it's shown that although it was really difficult to build a relationship in that time, I know that when we hit difficult points in our relationship, we know how to overcome them because we've kind of come from that as our starting point. So we've now been together for almost four years, but that's something that I was putting off, even though I really, really, really wanted it. So yeah, I definitely think that's a really important thing to mention. And again, you know, like with any interview, there are so many different places that we could go, but we've definitely sort of come to the end of our time without extending this out into a longer interview. So I guess the final question that I wanted to ask was it's sort of related to this point as well.
Emily:
And a lot related to the guilt that you've mentioned in your blog. You said you sort of felt guilty that you'd been away on maternity leave and you hadn't been making progress at work. And again, I think that probably has a lot to do with in my opinion, I would feel that way because of the way that academia is structured in that you kind of you can't take a break because you have to continue to collect data and continue to write and publish papers and get funding. But in my experience, I've seen like some academic mothers only take like a month of maternity leave because they're trying to balance, you know, this career that they've worked so hard for, trying not to lose the traction that they've built with that, but also wanting to have a family. And, you know, for that person that I'm thinking of, I imagine that would have been a hugely difficult decision to make to approach it in that way. And I don't judge her for that. But it's just an example of, you know, the different ways that people try to juggle home and work. And I just wonder if you did have another child, do you think you'd change anything?
Jennifer:
I don't know that I would necessarily change anything. I think I would just be far more aware of how things were going to change. You know, outside of my control. One of the things that you asked me earlier and I realize I didn't really cover it, was what are the frustrations of being a parent? And this does tie in very nicely because there is this kind of misconception. I would say that if you choose to have a child, you go on maternity leave for however long. And that's a very personal decision over what you feel you can take and also financial decisions, things like that. But the guilt and the frustration of being a parent does not stop. You have that child and you're committed to caring for that child and you want to be there to share in all the milestones of their life. And so my biggest frustration is having to always find an excuse for why that is an important thing, to take the time away from my academic career. And it doesn't get easier. It really doesn't get easier. So I can imagine having another child would just add to that really. And it's about being aware that you are going to be pulled in many different directions and often they're for really good reasons. They could be. You just want to. Spend time with them. I mean, they shouldn't have to apologize for wanting to spend the weekend with your child or children, but yet the way things are structured at the moment, you feel that you have to almost make that as an excuse. And I think it's about just being aware and setting your own boundaries. And what I've really come to realize is it does depend on who you speak to.
Jennifer:
Of course it does. But the more you open up and say, Oh, no, I don't work weekends, weekends, that that's family time, the more support you end up getting because people realize that it's okay to say that out loud. You know, I've been keeping that secret for so long, you know, and as as I'm sure we will cover later, the pandemic has thrown up all sorts of challenges with this idea of balance. But I think just being able to draw that line and be happy in your own decisions and not actually having to explain them to anybody else, I think for me it is the biggest frustration, but it's also the thing that's given me the most, I guess, freedom in a way that would be a way to describe it as just to, you know, that's my choice to make. I don't actually have anybody breathing down my neck telling me I need to work the weekend. It's all just assumed because of the structures that we have in academia. And guess what? If you do take the weekend off, nobody's actually going to know. So make sure you do it and celebrate it and help other people normalize the fact that you want to just switch your computer off and be that parent and be there and be present and not constantly checking your emails, which I need to get better at that one. But yeah, to sum up the original question, I don't think there's anything I would necessarily change if I was to have another child. I think it's just being able to reflect on what I know now and put in those boundaries from the start so that I, I don't get those overwhelming feelings of guilt that I experienced the last time.
Emily:
And I think it would be really interesting to talk to someone, perhaps in a future podcast episode that has maybe had two or three children and see what it was like for them within academia with the second and third sort of based on what they had learned. But yeah, we have really come to the end of this episode, so I'll say it again. But just like honestly, thank you for coming on the podcast and thank you for sharing some of this because I know it was difficult to share and I'm really looking forward to learning more about your story in the next part. So I guess, you know, today we covered some of your decision making process for for having a child within academia and when you would do that. And we covered a little bit of what it was like to return from maternity leave, but a lot of that was in your blog. So we really talked about what it's been like being a parent in academia throughout the COVID 19 pandemic and yeah, some of your frustrations as a parent in academia. So I think in the next episode would touch a little bit on maybe how colleagues and supervisors could better support parents within academia from your perspective, and also some of the changes that you think could be made to academic structure to help better support parents, you know, there'll be long term changes, but, you know, we have to have the conversation. I think it's important to get that perspective from people in a parenting role. So just a reminder for listeners, if you'd like to get in touch with Jennifer, she's available on Twitter @Dr_JZP, and there's a link for that in the episode description. To you listening, thanks for listening close to the end. Stick around for details on how to share your own story. And I look forward to having you back in a couple of weeks, to hear the next part of Jennifer's story.
Emily:
Jennifer will talk us through some of the support resources she's discovered, including strategies for being a more effective worker and learning to rely less on external validation. Bye for now.
Emily:
But before you go, you have some support, resources and information for how you can share your own story. If this episode brought anything up for you. There are mental health resources and emergency numbers available for various countries at www.CheckpointOrg.com/global. For information found in this episode, refer to the episode description or visit the podcast section of our website. www.VoicesofAcademia.com. If you like the podcast, please leave a review, subscribe or tell your friends it'll help more people find us. I'm part of the larger voices of academia volunteer team. We have a website, a Twitter account @AcademicVoices and also share stories in blog form with the option of them being anonymous. You can follow the voices of academia, blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Just head to our website. www.VoicesOfAcademia.com to sign up. If you have a mental health or wellness story to share, we absolutely want to hear from you. Whether you're a team leader, research assistant, postdoc student. Ex academic or any other type of researcher. Is it the link in the episode description or visit our website. www.VoicesOfAcademia.com for details on how to share your story. It's time someone gave you a voice.
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