Print This PostIt’s now been a good couple of years since I started blogging for Dementia Researcher, with the majority of my posts laying out my own experiences of juggling new parenthood and academia. Perhaps it’s unusual to be so candid about such things, but I certainly felt like there was value in offering an authentic account. I don’t feel like I ever sought to undersell the difficulties, but at the same time always wanted to communicate that it could, or should, be possible to manage both roles.
At the time of writing, it is the end of February. A couple of weeks ago, it was the International Day for Women and Girls in Science. Soon, it will be International Women’s Day. Partly because of the blog that I have (somehow, to a tiny degree) become known for, I had been invited to contribute to a couple of bits (events, communications) marking these two occasions. This is always the sort of thing I’m happy to do, for the very reason that – although it has been hard at times – I have had such a positive experience of pursuing my PhD at the same time as starting a family. Despite the expectations from some quarters in my personal life that becoming a parent would necessitate abandoning my academic pursuits, I continue to believe that you can do both, and am more than happy to talk about it. Possibly because of that slight negativity I encountered, I can almost feel like it’s my responsibility to let others in my situation know that it can and will be okay.
That being said, I’ve come to suspect that I may have been slightly naïve.
I didn’t think twice about starting a family during my PhD. This was in part due to a seminar I’d attended when I first started as a Research Assistant at my institution a couple of years earlier. The seminar had been arranged as a lunchtime event for an informal network of RAs in my institute. While not the focus of the event, per se, the speaker recounted her experience of going on mat leave during her PhD. The advice she gave was that, where possible, it’s good to work alongside your PhD, so that you’re in the best possible financial position, receiving both your stipend and maternity pay during whatever leave you take.
When I became pregnant, then, I felt reassured that things would be okay. I felt reassured that I could take maternity leave, and I would continue to receive my stipend for a generous proportion of that time. I knew it, not because I had checked for myself, but because someone had spoken about it in broad terms and I had assumed that what was true for one would be true for all.
For me, thankfully, it was. I headed to the relevant page on my institution’s website, which informed me that they would cover maternity pay where it was not otherwise available via the funder. My funder, for their part, is very transparent about their policies; a quick Google search directed me to their guidance, which answered all of my questions straight away and gave me any additional reassurances that I required. It was covered.
As PhD students (in the UK), we are so often given the message that we are viewed as equivalent to staff. The reality, though, can be quite different.
Fine, perhaps there are the same expectations placed upon us in terms of attendance at departmental meetings, or completion of mandatory training. But there are also huge differences. Some of those have benefitted me: In my case, I can be more flexible with my hours, for example, so if like this week my child is sick and I have to stay home, it doesn’t cause any major drama. Some of the differences, though, are distinctly non-beneficial. For example, the fact that one’s institution, like my own, could change their policy and decide to stop offering pay for parental leave partway through your PhD. Or the fact that funders are under no obligation whatsoever to provide it, and there’s not really a lot you can do or say about it. And not being directly employed, one cannot even fall back on statutory maternity pay.
I recently Googled a few different funding streams out of interest, and some of them are alarmingly opaque. I say ‘alarmingly’, because I do not believe one should have to email their funder or their potential funder to understand their entitlements when it comes to something as profoundly personal as parental leave. Maternity in the UK is a legally protected characteristic, and yet it is something one might have to expose in order to learn about their future financial security before the point of even applying for a PhD. I recently saw an advert for a PhD that made it explicit that candidates would not be entitled to pay for any parental leave taken. While I do applaud the transparency, I found it frankly depressing. The message I receive from that is that if you are of a certain gender, and of a certain age, this is not the place for you. As someone who started their PhD in their mid-30s, that would absolutely not have been the place for me. Maybe some see pursuing a PhD as something of a frivolity; an optional extra, so not something deserving of those additional benefits. But if you are serious about a career in research this really isn’t the case.
Usually, even where my blogs have discussed something a little harder, I like to end on a hopeful note. Today, I can’t seem to bring myself to it. Sandwiched between those two days celebrating women, all I feel is frustration – part of that being directed at myself for assuming that what applied to me applied to all, and that just isn’t the case. So instead, I’ll end by saying that we must do better. If we truly care about addressing gender imbalance, if we truly care about elevating women to positions of authority, it’s time for funders and educational institutions to put their money where their mouth is, rather than taking the easy way out.
Emily Spencer
Author
Emily Spencer is a PhD Student at University College London looking at improving how GPs communicate with people with dementia and their family carers about their future care. Emily previous had a 5 year career break to pursue a career as a musician, and has previously undertaken research on improving the care people with dementia receive from their GP practice, as well as end-of-life and palliative care provision in the community. Emily is also a new mum and will be writing about her experiences navigating motherhood and a research career.
Dementia Researcher
Rebecca Williams