After having my son, I did not officially start maternity leave until two weeks after I returned home. Mainly because I had a huge proposal due that needed final touches. But let’s be honest, as an academic you can never truly step away from your job. There are graduate students that need guidance, proposals to be written, and way too many commitments. However, I tried as best I could to focus on my son and I loved every moment with him in those first few months. But motherhood is hard especially in the beginning. For one thing, your hormones are on a roller coaster after birth and caring for a new born has a steep learning curve that no class/friend/book can prepare you for. My point is maternity leave ( and I am not dismissing paternal leave, but I can not speak from that perspective) is just as much about the care of the mother as it is about the baby. You and the people around you have to learn how to care for you which is not always easy. And no mater who you are, you are a different person after having a baby. About a week after my ML was over, I had a rush of anxiety mostly because of the uncertainty of the future. I was scared that I would not be able to handle all of the responsibilities of an academic as a new mom. And boy was I right………my job got ten times harder!!! After working all day, I was use to coming home and relaxing before finishing up things I could not complete during the workday. But when I got home, I was propelled into motherhood from changing diapers to entertaining a new born (which is not easy), pumping then washing those pump parts, and finally washing and preparing bottles for the next day. I barely had time to eat or think before it was close to midnight. And forget doing more work all I wanted to do was go to sleep. And this was everyday. Thank God my son never had a problem sleeping through the night because I would have died, lol. For the first few weeks I felt like I was drowning. I was exhausted, sleep-deprived, and frustrated.
It wasn’t until the beginning of the Summer that I had an “a-ha” moment. I remember thinking…this is unmanageable. I am operating like Aeriel pre-motherhood but I am no longer that woman. I have a child now and I can not do it all. I have got to re-prioritive. Once I accepted that I was not the same person and that was ok….I felt myself slowly coming out of the water. I also had to look at examples of women I knew were successful before and after motherhood such as my mentors Dr.s Ashley Spear, Jenifer Locke, and Michele Manuel. I wrote down a list of things that needed to change to accommodate my new role as a mother. The first thing was making it very clear to my research students that they would have to become more independent and accountable for their projects. The level of hand-holding I was doing before had to end because I no longer had the bandwidth. Secondly, every email did not require my immediate response, some things could wait until the next day. I adopted the 48 hour response rule and it has been great! I turned off the email notifications on my phone so that when I was home I could focus on my sweet boy without feelings of guilt and anxiety. That same month I started writing my NSF CAREER proposal and yes, it was much harder to write than any other proposal I had written, but I was motivated. I refused to accept that I could not do it just because I was a mom. I would carve out a few hours everyday to write and sometimes it would be hard to focus but I was committed. And I got it done.
I had to accept that early morning meetings did not work for my new lifestyle. I moved all of my standing meetings to after 10AM (including my class start time). And would only make exceptions for critical meetings. And this was hard for me because pre-motherhood I would get to work at 8:30AM. But this new schedule gave me time to spend with my son in the morning before work which was very important to me. It also gave me a moment to myself in the morning……which is hard to find as an academic and a mother. I made it a point to be upfront with my needs. When I was still pumping, I would make it clear to folks who invited me for a seminar or workshop that I would need a private and clean space to pump and a place to store my milk or ice for my chiller (buy a CERES chiller, you will thank me later).
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. One thing I have not mentioned up until this point is that I have the most supportive mother and she picks up a lot of the slack. At the beginning, it was hard to be away from Mansa especially for over night trips. I had an experiment at CHESS when he was around three months old and it was torture. So the first conference I went to after ML, I had my mom come along so that I did not have to be away from him for an entire week. Recently, my son and I traveled to the SWE conference in LA together and it was empowering to be around other working moms (FYI, SWE conference provides daycare service at a subsidized rate). The same way you have to set new boundaries with your research group, you have to do this with other students as well. One thing that I changed was office hours (OH). I asked students to email me if they were coming to OH and to inform me on what they would like to discuss before hand. This gave me time to prepare and be more efficient.
I do not have all of the answers and I am still failing and learning. There is no book that tells you how to balance motherhood and your career. We are all learning as we go. And some days are better than others. What I can tell you is that my son motivates me more than anything/anyone ever has. The funny thing is that opportunities I did not think I was prepared for, I now go after. I want to be limitless because I want him to be limitless.
From Aeriel, With Love
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