A few thoughts on returning to work as a new parent

Julia here, director of NeuroEdit, with a more personal contribution than usual. There's been a new arrival in the NeuroEdit family – I’ve had a baby!

As I’ve been getting used to my role as a mother and dusting off the intellectual part of my brain in preparation for my return to work, I've been thinking about all you researchers who have returned to work as new parents – to the lab, to writing papers and grant applications, to teaching and lecturing, to managing junior researchers and supervising students – all while having a hugely important new priority in your life.

Editor in training, red pen at the ready.

I hope you’re fortunate enough to work in an institution that supports new parents, but I know from my previous career in research how demanding lab culture can be, and how difficult new parents can find it. Balancing the practical and intellectual sides of these two very different parts of your life (not to mention balancing a researcher salary with the costs of childcare) isn’t easy. During my time in the lab, I witnessed many friends and colleagues struggle, but until now I never fully understood the magnitude of the changes you cope with and the challenges you face:

• the guilt of leaving your baby with someone else;
• the doubts about whether it's even right to hand them over so you can go to work;
• the unpredictability of your new life (one day baby's happy and healthy, the next day you can't work as as they're vomiting all over you; one day baby sleeps through the night, the next you have to run a long experiment on 4 broken hours' sleep);
• the cries you can hear in your head before you realise it's just an illusion caused by the background noise of laboratory equipment;
• the gut-wrenching feeling of leaving your baby for a couple of nights the first time you go to a conference;
• the knowledge that your child-free colleagues don't understand any of this, no matter how hard they try, and the feeling that some don't try to understand at all;
• the split-second decisions your life is now made up of, like whether it's OK to rush out of the door with that comparatively small patch of vomit on your clothes or if you have to change and miss the start of the lab meeting... 

Parenthood has already affected my professional life in ways I never expected
I was one of those who couldn't even imagine giving up work in favour of nappies, feeding and baby-talk. NeuroEdit was my first “baby”. My work was everything to me, much like it is for many researchers. I even returned a translation, booked a new client and liaised with another client about an ongoing project while in labour. (I remember a friend of mine telling me about her lab colleague who continued pipetting until 45 minutes before giving birth!) I was convinced I’d be able to continue running my business after a couple of weeks’ recovery <hysterical laughter>.

Unsurprisingly (to everyone else), energy and brainpower became a distant memory as soon as my son was born. But mainly, all I wanted to do was spend time with him. I couldn't believe I'd found something I loved even more than my work. So although I did dip my toes into a few projects while on leave, and sent out several jobs to my brilliant team members who kept the company ticking over while I was away, the over-optimistically short leave I’d intended to take turned into a wonderful eight months. During this time, I allowed myself to focus almost entirely on a part of my life that seemed to be the polar opposite of my career – with surprising results. ​

For a while, I lost confidence in my professional abilities
This threw me, but it seems to be a common experience during parental leave – there comes a point where you start doubting whether you can actually do your job or if your brain has turned into baby purée. This doubt loomed over me for a while, until last month, when I met up with local editor colleagues (at a SfEP meeting - my happy place!). As soon as I started talking shop again, my passion and drive for work began to emerge from the mists of baby-brain. Relieved doesn’t even begin to describe it! I love my job. It was all finally falling back into place. 

​And now that I’m getting things back up and running, rather than new-parenthood being a distraction from work as I expected it would be, in many ways I’ve found the opposite.

Becoming a parent has improved my work

• My efficiency has skyrocketed. Procrastination is a luxury I can no longer afford. Previously, it didn’t matter if I fell down an internet rabbit-hole and ended up working late as a result, or if I stayed in the lab until midnight, because it was my own time I was eating into. But now it’s my son’s time, and suddenly it’s infinitely more valuable. (I know, I know… valuing my own time is a whole other issue!)
• I’ve become an ace at prioritising. As soon as I get to work, I now have no choice but to get straight onto the Most Important Thing and make sure it gets done. And of course, to do that, I need to know what the Most Important Thing is.
• It’s helped me switch off. I was obsessed with work. I’d find it almost impossible to switch off, and often the only proper breaks I’d take would be when I burned out. Now, as soon as I collect my son at the end of the day, I leave my work behind. Of course, I still jump onto my emails or update our website once he’s gone to bed, but for a few hours every day he has my undivided attention, and my brain gets a full and complete break from work. We take walks, we see friends, we stop and marvel at leaves and birds. This gives me processing time and leaves me raring to go the next day.

I’d love to hear your stories of how you're balancing research and new parenthood, or how your new life has influenced your work (for better or worse). Please share them in the comments below! 

Do you want to spend more time with your family instead of writing that paper or grant application? Feel free to send us your draft. We'll polish it up, make it concise and error-free, sort out the references, reformat it for resubmitting to another journal, reduce the word count - in fact, anything you need to improve your chances of fast acceptance - allowing you to spend your time on the things you love. Contact us.

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