Finding my new normal

“We all are different and you should do what works for you” is the common advice I received from my well wishers and mentors.?

“Are there any female faculty members who made it through tenure after having a baby early on - within the first two years of starting their tenure clock?” was the question I always thought about, even more on difficult days, whether it was at work or at home.?

The objective of this article is to share my experience as a new mother while on the tenure track so that there is one more data point out there. I am an immigrant with no immediate family to help us out. The daycares we reached out to as soon as we learned about the pregnancy still get back to us to say that we are on their waitlist (thankfully, we got into a daycare after seven months of waiting). We could not secure a qualified nanny during the tail end of COVID until about seven months after birth, and my husband is equally ambitious about an academic career. While worrying about the biological clock ticking away, my son was indeed a pleasant surprise to us! So, how did I navigate this roller coaster of a ride?

As I learned recently, Bottom line upfront….BLUF.?

What helped me find my new normal??

• Accepting that I cannot be my old self and I should not set myself up for failure by targeting to be that old self. Thanks to a colleague of mine who was quite honest with me about this.?
• Accepting that it is okay to let go of financial savings if it can help me and my partner stay afloat while balancing our ambitious aspirations and personal life. Thanks to a mentor I recently met who made it a point to openly discuss this aspect with me.?
• Identifying what I need from others and asking for specific help. This is equally important at home and at work.?
• Having a core support group, especially in my professional circle helped me navigate this new normal. One person cannot answer all the questions a new mother would have, let alone a new mother on a tenure track! In fact, I first heard of and received an example baby registry from my department mentor who is a senior male faculty in my department.?

An academic’s professional life can be broken down into three components - teaching, service, and research. I didn’t have to think about teaching during my maternity leave. So, I will not discuss it here.?

How did I handle service?

My service primarily comprises serving on my department’s undergraduate committee, conducting outreach activities, serving on review panels, performing journal editorial work and supporting conference meetings in my field. With the support of the editor-in-chief, I could continue my editorial work with a reduced load. I opted to be a co-organizer on a couple of symposia to not lose touch and I provided support at my pace. In the hindsight, I should have dropped this entirely. I soon realized, every minute matters, especially when there is no daycare and with an infant who was up every three hours until he was about 8 months old. I was not expected to do any department service during my maternity leave. So, I dropped it entirely. Fortunately, a senior colleague of mine continued to work on the initiative I was leading for the department’s undergraduate committee and made significant progress. This allowed me to pick this up and progress to the next stage as soon as I returned instead of switching over to a new initiative.?

How did I handle research?

It is true that an academic can never stop doing research. I remember taking a print out of a winning early career proposal to the hospital since induction can take time and I thought I could distract myself with that. Well, that didn’t work. Back to the point, my regular research activities primarily comprise - advising students, writing proposals, writing/helping students with manuscripts, attending conferences/workshops/meetings, replying to emails, engaging with industry and potential collaborators, and hosting lab tours. I dropped the following activities without much thought - attending conferences, workshops, meetings and lab tours. I tried to catch up with emails and I don’t think I will even do that if I could go back in time.?

My students were very understanding and they were flexible with meeting times and signed up to meet virtually for almost 7.5 months. They uploaded meeting notes in a timely manner and diligently responded to the comments I made offline when I reviewed them while my son was napping or when my husband was on baby duty. All of this helped me not lose track of their work, and I could provide my input in a timely manner. This also helped me and my students make progress on manuscripts that we were able to submit early in the Fall semester. They also put on a good show at a major conference in my field and led several lab tours/outreach activities in my absence. Most importantly, each one of my students owned their work. I would say this was the most critical support I received to keep making progress with ongoing research.?

While I managed to submit a proposal with the help of my co-PI within two weeks of my delivery, I would probably not do that if I could go back in time. I was supposed to work on two early career programs - one got through the white paper phase and the full proposal was due within two months of my delivery. In the hindsight, I should have dropped this completely since it was constantly running in my head and in the end my husband's hospitalization due to COVID for several days before the deadlines made me eventually drop that effort. Later, even me and my son got COVID and an entire month was gone just dealing with the sickness at home. That backtracked me by several months and I ended up not submitting any proposals. Retrospectively, I should have accepted that my situation is different from others who can get help from family or were lucky to find a qualified nanny or managed to secure a spot in the daycare early on. So, I should have been more realistic about what I could accomplish and accordingly set myself up for that. In summary, I had no bandwidth to work on things that require initiation from my side.?

The first conference I attended was the Gordon Research Conference on Physical Metallurgy. Both my son and my husband joined me. Bless my husband, who was stuck in a dorm room with a 6 month old in a playpen for an entire week. After that, we chose to not travel with our son. Fortunately, things started to fall in place. The daycare started in the Fall. We also found a nanny who could help for a few hours on the weekend. While that is a good chunk of our income, I remembered that I accepted to let go of savings in return for some balance in life at the present moment. With this arrangement in place, I was able to travel back to back not worrying about childcare for 16 days, attending conferences, giving talks, attending a roadmapping workshop and even doing major recruitment outreach. My husband was also able to do his work. So, yes, I bought the ticket to travel by hiring a nanny and letting go of our savings!?

What else did I do??

I started saying no to many things. My priorities are raising funds to sustain my group, submitting papers that give me intellectual satisfaction, educating the next generation of engineers (I selected one outlet for this goal and stuck with it), and reasonably supporting the community that I am part of both in my institution and externally. Anything that doesn’t directly correlate to these priorities goes to no category.?

I have become more strategic and focused about my core research activities. I started to focus on impactful problems that I can solve with the existing skills in my group. While setting up these self-constraints were making me more creative and resourceful, this also meant I started saying no to or not thinking about problems that are still interesting to me, but would require developing new skills in my group. I convinced myself that I am in this for the long run and there will be time to explore more as I progress in my career.?

What am I still working on???

I am still learning to be efficient with my time.

The sickness saga begins with a cold, ear infection, fever, managing work and childcare when the nanny and daycare are not available. My husband and I have gotten better at communicating about our shifts and handling the child care independently so that we can still have focused work time incorporated into our routine on those days. So far, we found that breaking our day into 2 hour intervals and taking turns every 2 hours allows us to get 6 hours of effective work in a day when we have to stay home with our child. This limited availability (three 2 hour windows in a day) forces me to prioritize, which is making me more efficient.

I am learning not to feel guilty when I am away from my child. I remember being proud of my mother for being independent and it helps me to think that my son will be proud of me when he grows up. Emotions aside, I started to spend quality time with him to make up for the time away. I also learned to make the best use of my time while traveling because I better have a good reason to stay away from my son for several days.

Parting thoughts

Motherhood gave me a new confidence in my abilities and the clarity to get my work done. I learned to pick my battles, advocate for myself, ask for help, and, most importantly, understand others' perspectives. While I first felt apologetic for having a baby before the big promotion or tenure, it did not take long for me to hold my son in my arms and express gratitude that he is in our lives, making us better people both at work and at home.