
{"id":2533,"date":"2019-05-07T09:11:07","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T09:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/how-i-survived-my-first-semester-as-assistant-prof-after-having-a-baby\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T06:35:21","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T06:35:21","slug":"how-i-survived-my-first-semester-as-assistant-prof-after-having-a-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/how-i-survived-my-first-semester-as-assistant-prof-after-having-a-baby","title":{"rendered":"How I survived my first semester as Assistant Prof after having a baby"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 10pt\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Default Alt text\" class=\"responsive\" data-file_info=\"%7B%22fid%22:%228113%22,%22view_mode%22:%22default%22,%22fields%22:%7B%22format%22:%22default%22,%22field_file_image_alt_text%5Bund%5D%5B0%5D%5Bvalue%5D%22:%22Default%20Alt%20text%22,%22field_file_image_title_text%5Bund%5D%5B0%5D%5Bvalue%5D%22:%22Default%20Title%20Text%22,%22field_image_tags%5Bund%5D%5Btextfield%5D%22:%22%22,%22field_image_tags%5Bund%5D%5Bvalue_field%5D%22:%22%5C%22%5C%22%5C%22%5C%22%22%7D,%22type%22:%22media%22%7D\" src=\"http:\/\/insights.cactusglobal.com\/sites\/default\/files\/How%20I%20survived%20my%20first%20semester%20as%20Assistant%20Prof%20after%20having%20a%20baby%20image.jpg\" style=\"\" title=\"Default Title Text\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 10pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:115%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">First of all, the job as Assistant Professor is all mine, but the baby is very much shared with my husband.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 10pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:115%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Earlier this year, I gave birth to a baby boy and two months later I started my new position as an Assistant Professor in biology at\u00a0San Francisco State University. Several people have asked me how I managed to combine the baby and the new job and not go insane (*).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 10pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:115%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">The first semester is over, our baby is 6 months old, and I didn\u2019t go insane. I taught a class, submitted a paper, wrote a grant proposal, went to a conference (baby and husband came along!), and served on a search committee. In fact, I enjoyed the semester (but now it is time for a break!).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 10pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:115%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Here are some of the things that made it possible:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 10pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:115%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">1. My husband, because he never thinks that taking care of a baby is something that only women should do.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 10pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:115%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">2.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/susiearmitage\/tech-companies-offer-workers-the-most-paid-parental-leave#.rqV14Ozne\" style=\"color:blue; text-decoration:underline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a>, the company where my husband works, because they give men and women four months of parental leave to be taken any time during the first year. Knowing that my husband\u00a0could take time off during my first semester as a professor made a big difference, because we didn\u2019t know how things would work out with work, teaching, nanny, and the baby. Without the generous parental leave from Facebook, I would not have started my job this semester. Instead, I would have started the new job 6 months later. Also thanks to his parental leave, he and the baby could travel with me to the conference I went to on the East Coast.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 10pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:115%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">3. My\u00a0colleagues at SFSU,\u00a0because they did not put any pressure on me this semester. They understood when I missed department meetings or when I didn\u2019t show my face on campus for days in a row. Maybe it helped that many of the professors in my department are women with kids.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 10pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:115%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">4. Professional help. We live far away from our families, so we depend on professional help with childcare. We had a night nanny early on, which really helped us get some sleep. Then, when the baby was two months old, we hired a full-time nanny. We could not have combined work and parenting if we wouldn\u2019t have hired these amazing professionals.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 10pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:115%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">5. Saying no. I only taught one class. I did no reviews. I started no new projects. I accepted only one student in my lab and this was only in the second half of the semester. I didn\u2019t buy furniture for my office space yet. I didn\u2019t go to our departmental seminars. I only had lunch with colleagues a few times. These things will have to change next semester!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 10pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:115%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">*I think that often, behind such a question (\u201chow do you do it?\u201d) is the tacit assumption that I, as the woman, do most of the caring for the baby. This is not the case. My husband does just as much, if not more.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 10pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:115%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">My husband and I were both at home for the first two months after our baby was born, but I usually hear: \u201cWow, you went back to work after only two months?\u201d whereas he hears: \u201cWow, how cool that you were home for two full months!\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 10pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:115%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">So if you are wondering how it was for me to go back to work after two months of being at home with our newborn, you should really be asking my husband the same thing. Maybe he\u2019s interested in writing a blog too.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><i>Dr. Pleuni Pennings (<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pleunipennings\" style=\"color:blue; text-decoration:underline\"><i>@pleunipennings<\/i><\/a><i>) is an Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, San Francisco State University. This story was published on December 19, 2014 on Dr. Pennings\u2019 blog, \u2018<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/abetterscientist.wordpress.com\/\" style=\"color:blue; text-decoration:underline\"><i>Being a better scientist<\/i><\/a><i>\u2019 (available <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/abetterscientist.wordpress.com\/2014\/12\/19\/how-i-survived-my-first-semester-as-assistant-prof-with-a-new-baby\/\" style=\"color:blue; text-decoration:underline\"><i>here<\/i><\/a><i>) and has been republished here with her permission.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First of all, the job as Assistant Professor is all mine, but the baby is very much shared with my husband. Earlier this year, I gave birth to a baby boy and two months later I started my new position as an Assistant Professor in biology at\u00a0San Francisco State University. Several people have asked me [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1429,"featured_media":33313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2414],"tags":[2667,2676,2454],"new_categories":[],"new_tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-2533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiring-researcher-stories","tag-faculty-experiences","tag-parenting-in-academia","tag-researcher-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How I survived my first semester as Assistant Prof after having a baby<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Earlier this year, I gave birth to a baby boy and two months later I started my new position as an Assistant Professor in biology at\u00a0San 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