Being a mom and science is really difficult.
There's a constant pull of work and life that you have to balance and it's never 50/50.
And so, having a network of moms that support you, and tell you you're doing a good job,
when you think you're doing a horrible job, can mean the difference of staying in
science and keeping your career and pushing forward, versus falling out of the pipeline.
So I have two young kids there are seven and eleven.
And I had my first daughter when I was in this postdoc academic phase of a
career and then I had my second child when I was a young professor.
And at the time, having young children and a new career and felt a little unstable.
At the time when I had my first baby, I had a postdoctoral fellowship.
And with it came time for maternity leave, but that time was unpaid.
We were barely making it as it was. My husband was also a postdoc at the time.
So we really couldn't go without my salary and because of that, I was back at work,
at some level, about two weeks after I had my first baby and and it was terrible.
This was an idea that Becca came up with, of like, wouldn't it be great if we could
really rally a lot of people who have had similar experience, and share what
would it really take to make these kinds of professional networking environments,
places that we could go and have success experiences.
There's a lot of initiatives nowadays to bring women into STEM fields,
but there are not a lot of initiatives to keep women in STEM fields.
Especially with the lack of postdoctoral funding,
and lack of resources targeted to keeping young mothers in science.
There's just not a lot of support there for everything from child care, to
nursing rooms, to all of the ways that we need support.
I remember one moment at a conference where I had just given a presentation, and I had
my young daughter with me, and a senior colleague came up and said, "That
was a great presentation Bri, just make sure you don't have another kid,
because that'll kill your career."
I wanted to write this paper because I didn't want
other women to have to endure the pain that I endured.
I feel this maternal protectiveness over my my sisters in science.
I want them to know that 46 of their sisters
hear them and see them and are going to make it better for them.
That they are not alone.
Your reputation as a scientist is extremely important.
You want people to trust you, and trust your work.
You want them to know who you are,
and you want them to be really interested in the questions that you're
asking, why they matter.
How can we fully contribute, if our basic biological needs
as women cannot be met?
The thing that was the most profound about bringing this group together,
wasn't necessarily what each of us contributed to the actual text, but what
I think, was meaningful and why it's getting attention, is because it shows
that not only that there's need to be thinking about these things, but it shows
that it's actually not that hard to rally a community of like-minded people
to really get in the mud together and explore those topics.
Our contributions are so valuable we have so much to bring to the table. Science needs us,
and our perspectives.