Dieke van Dinther
BIO
I’m an immunologist currently doing a postdoc in Madrid, and I’m a mom of a one year-old boy.
Twitter: @diekevanD
Instagram: @dintheresting
Dieke van Dinther
“I love my work and I need it to be happy.”
I had my son during the final year of my PhD. To be honest, I think it really helped to speed things up, because I was working towards a clear deadline: my maternity leave. My boss felt the same pressure, so we worked towards this goal together. With her support and team effort, we got my most important paper accepted and a second paper submitted in the first week of my maternity leave. So, when I got back from maternity leave, the pressure for my first-authors ship publication was gone! I knew that it would all be fine, because of this.
My parents and my sister were around for baby-sitting and my partner took one day a week off from work (papa-day) to take care of our son. So, he only had to go to daycare twice a week, which was a big relief for me. Sadly, I had to skip most of my planned bi-weekly “mama-days” to finish my thesis.
Towards the end of my PhD, I had to arrange our international move to Spain, my partner had to find a job, and I had to finish my thesis to be able to start working as a postdoc. There was financial pressure. All this with a toddler who was sick or teething every 2 weeks… it was a highly stressful time. But, I got everything done on time and reminding myself of this makes me feel proud now.
I had 5 months to spend with my kid before starting my postdoc. I was happy to join some meetings in my new lab- it was fun and motivating! Spending a lot of time with my child and getting to know my new field of work in a highly competitive lab was at times wonderful, boring, stressful, fun, annoying and scary.
During my PhD my state-of-mind really changed.
During the first year of my PhD, with the help of a psychologist, I was able to change the idea that my life depended on how successful I was as a PhD student. It took me another two years to internalise this and realise that a PhD is nothing more than an awesome job. A job that motivates me and improves my life.
I know I’m lucky to be in this situation, where I get paid and have all the other benefits of having a job. Becoming a mother made me realise this even more. My research is just a job, in that my life doesn’t depend on it, but I love my work and I need it to be happy.
Now that I have started working as a postdoc in a new country, new field, with a new boss and new colleagues… I have to find a new balance. My new boss doesn’t take a single day off to spend time with his children, which my previous boss did. So the pressure here is different. He’s super supportive but doesn’t by the same example as my previous mentors. Here in general, I know fewer mothers in a similar situation as I am. This makes it harder to find a balance for myself.