Career, interrupted.
May 30, 2009
by Tina Post-Doc
|This essay is cross-posted from the blog Raising Scientists. The author’s opinions are her own, not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
I just received notification that my grant application hasn’t been funded. I am getting used to rejection, and I somewhat expected it. It isn’t the rejection that is upsetting me so much as the reasons why. The reviewers were pretty positive; there were a few minor issues with the proposed research, but they thought that I had come up with a good collaborative project that would establish me as a leader in the field. They praised my principal investigator, they praised the potential impact of the research. Blah blah blah. The major concern they had was that, although I was very productive in my previous research career I had not, as of yet, published a paper as a post-doc, and that my non-productivity might be a warning flag as to the feasibility of my actually completing the proposed research.
Unproductive? Let me ask you this… where, on my curriculum vitae [resume] can I put that I got pregnant and gave birth… twice?
The powers that be in the scientific community have recently incorporated a ‘time-out’ waiver into the climb up the faculty ladder, so that women who have had children will not get penalized for a seeming ‘lack of productivity’. This is good. Except… that means you have to wait until you actually have secured a faculty position to have children. Only… most every female I know doesn’t want to wait that long… and they don’t. They start having children as a postdoc, as I did. So where is my ‘time-out’?
Maybe the lesson here is that I made the wrong choice. I shouldn’t have tried to do it all. I should have stopped working for a while. I didn’t, thinking that it would be the wiser move to keep going, even if at a crawl instead of at a run. Only, now everyone else is approaching the finish line while I am still at the starting gate. Can I ever catch up?
I doubt that you have to put it on the application. That is what they are already guessing.
Turning you down is a way of saying “you have other commitments at home, sweetie …. now take off your shoes and get pregnant again …. while we award the big bucks to some well deserving husband and daddy with a family to support.”
Thanks for clueing me in on one of the problems that my engineer daughter is likely to face …. as she advances her career. I’ll warn her. And we’ll ALL keep an eye out.
SYD
I really hate how business managers think that women can either be mothers or career workers, but not both, Motherhood seems taboo in the business world
I have plenty of publications but my record is still called “modest,” a derogatory term, because they have not come at as fast a pace as others in my field. It doesn’t matter. If you keep submitting solid grant proposals and keep publishing, even at a slower rate, you will be funded. A postdoc who has not published may never publish — at this point in your career, they cannot tell whether you are in that category or are someone who can and will do solid work albeit at a slower pace. With grants, there is too much money at stake to hand it out to someone without a track record. Starting with a smaller project, publishing that, then reapplying for a larger grant will do the trick.
As someone who worked at NIH, not as a reviewer, I agree with Alice. As hard as it is, you must publish something from your doctoral work, preferably at least two pubs. Was your doctoral work an intervention or a descriptive study? If descriptive, is it ready for a pilot study? That would be a small study with smaller funds but would get you ready for a serious publication in a respected research journal. I think Alice is saying start where you are, not where you want to be in ten years. Or at least, that is what I am saying. I have seen too many applications from new docs who are leaping too far ahead. Not saying that is what you did, and I don’t even know where you applied. Just talk frankly with the program administrator about your application that was not awarded and ask his/her advice on your next steps. Listen carefully.
all the good advice on getting funded puts up valid points. However, I read Tina postdoc’s story with the question how to solve the Gordian knot combining career and childrearing/ bearing.
And there are no good answers. late motherhood was discussed at a blogtalk a couple weeks ago. But that is not an option for everybody, and not every woman is at the pinnacle of her career, where she can just take a two year sabaticle for getting started with one kid.
we need to look at countries who had a declining birth rate (France is one of them) and got creative to make motherhood more attractive for career women.
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