Ryan Watkins
BIO
I'm a research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute (USA), specialising in studying the Moon. I have two daughters, ages 2.5 years old and 8 months.
Twitter: @Ryan_N_Watkins
Instagram: @ryan.n.watkins
Ryan N. Watkins
“I have spoken up for the change I want to see.”
I have always known that I would be a working mother. I’m incredibly passionate about my work, but have also always wanted a family.
When I became a mother, my identity as a scientist never changed. I don’t identify as one or the other – I am both a mother and a scientist, and I am passionate about both.
For my career, I have to fund 100% of my own salary by writing grant proposals. This is a hard “game” to play, as most programs only have a 20% funding rate. This requires submitting multiple proposals a year and crossing your fingers that you’ll bring in enough money to do the work you love – and even then, the funding is only for 3 years and you find yourself having to plan your professional life in 2-3 year increments. I have spent both of my pregnancies racing to get proposals submitted before my babies were born – my second came just days after I got two submitted!
I secured an Associate Research Scientist position immediately after obtaining my PhD, but I had to obtain my own independent funding before I could become permanent staff. During this time, I was serving as a postdoc with my former PhD advisor.
I found myself nervous to tell my advisor that I was pregnant because he had seen women leave the field after having children. I was afraid he would automatically assume that would happen to me, and spent probably too much energy convincing him and other colleagues that I could be both a mother and a scientist. Luckily he was very supportive, yet there are still days when I find myself fighting the desire to prove to the world that I can do both, and do both well.
I distinctly remember getting the informal notification that my first grant was funded two weeks before my first daughter was born. I got my official promotion to permanent staff two weeks after coming off maternity leave. Talk about crazy timing! However, I was only funded for a little over 50% of my time. This ended up being a blessing in disguise, as it allowed me to spend two days a week with my daughter. I worked part-time for the first 18 months of her life, at which point we put her in childcare full time because I needed those two extra days to work on grant writing (even though I still wasn’t funded at a full-time level!).
With both of my daughters, I only had 12 weeks of maternity leave. With my first, I was itching to go back to work and get back to the science I loved. With my second, I found myself wishing for more weeks to stay home. Perhaps it was because I now realise how fast the time goes, or because I knew she was never going to get as much one-on-one time as my first did throughout the week.
One of the hardest parts about being a working mother has been finding the right amount of work-life balance. It can be difficult to leave work at work when deadlines are looming and when proposals need to be written. Some days the balance seems to be there and everything is great, and other days it can be more of a challenge.
But just like science, we are constantly testing new ways to make this life work, and refining our approach when it doesn’t! I have one of the more positive stories, in that my colleagues and my family have all been incredibly supportive during my pregnancies and early parenting years. My company is so supportive that we actually have “family chats” every few months, where we meet virtually and talk about various problems we face as working parents (dads participate, too!).
I’m lucky that my employer changed their maternity leave policy just to help accommodate my needs. I requested space for pumping at a conference, and that conference now makes it a mandated policy to provide space for nursing mothers.
I have spoken up for the change I want to see, but there is still much progress to be made. Many conferences in my field still do not offer childcare, and several don’t even have space for nursing mothers.
The US has terrible maternity leave policies, and the paternity leave policies are even worse. There is not enough support for working mothers, especially those in STEM fields. As a relatively new mother in science, I have found myself heavily advocating for change in regards to support for working mothers, and I won’t stop until I’ve seen significant advances in retaining mothers in the workforce.