I’m a postdoc in Mariia Yuneva’s Oncogenes and Tumour Metabolism Laboratory, focusing on understanding how tumours change their metabolism to grow and disseminate and become the deadly disease that they are.
I took six months of shared parental leave when my twin daughters were born, shortly after the scheme was first introduced in the UK (before I started working at the Crick).
It was seen as pretty unusual at the time, but I grew up in Germany where it is increasingly becoming the norm for fathers to take time off work to care for their children. So I never considered not taking parental leave.
Spending time with my children was and continues to be great for our family life. But I also think in the long run it has made me a better scientist. Taking time away from the lab, whether that’s on parental leave or a sabbatical, allows time for reflection and when I returned, I had a new vision to pursue my experiments.
I did stay in touch with the lab throughout my leave and as a result, my science slowed down very little. That’s not to say that it disrupted my time with my children (babies do sleep a lot!) but that my peers were very supportive and kept my projects going so that when I returned, I was able to pick it up again.
I would say that most of the systems are now in place for fathers to take parental leave, and that’s a great thing. However, cultural attitudes still have a long way to go and that’s the message I want to spread. I didn’t always receive a positive reaction when I took advantage of the shared parental leave scheme, and had to jump through a lot of hoops to prove that I was doing it for the right reasons.
It is only once these invisible barriers have been removed that we will see widespread uptake of shared parental leave. Personally, I believe parents have equal responsibilities and if I had another chance, I would do the same again.
I’m a postdoc in Andreas Schaefer’s Sensory Circuits and Neurotechnology Laboratory, interested in how the brain processes information and particularly the role that sleep plays in shaping neuronal communication.
I’ve had two babies (the second one as a Crick employee), and took eight months for each of them. I wanted to follow advice to exclusively breastfeed for six months, which would have made it difficult to return to work any earlier.
My husband took four months of shared parental leave from his work and we overlapped for one month for each child. Although I could have happily taken the whole first year with my babies, I equally valued the time they got to spend alone with their father.
It is hard to establish maternity cover in science in the way that it exists for other jobs because of the specific skills that are needed for each project and the personal drive that we feel to do our own experiments. But this does not mean that support is impossible, and I am lucky that my group leader feels the same. Andreas encouraged me to think creatively about ways in which the Crick could help support my projects while I was away.
Our plans didn’t get put in place in the end because of COVID, but the fact that the Crick is open to providing some flexible support, tailored to individual projects, is fantastic and definitely worth exploring for future parents.
The one upsetting but unavoidable thing is that science doesn’t stop for you. I had a bit of a scooping situation after my first maternity leave, but a positive came out of it too: with a new perspective on sleep after having a baby, I was in the lucky position that this can shape my research!
I became interested in how I was reacting to sleep deprivation versus the way my husband was. I got especially lucky because Jonny Kohl joined the Crick right after my first maternity leave and we now have a collaboration to study sleep changes in pregnant and nursing mice. Jonny has just had a baby too, so I expect he might have a renewed interest in this project!
You often hear that parents have increased efficiency and I’ve found that to be true. After spending months getting every task interrupted at variable but short intervals, you suddenly find that you can do more in a single hour than you ever imagined.
Also - and this is not specific to having a baby – I think clearing my mind of the day-to-day aspects of my projects made more space for creativity. Both times that I have returned to work I have felt renewed curiosity, which is my primary reason for doing science in the first place!
I’m a group leader of the Chromatin Structure and Mobile DNA Laboratory at the Crick. In my lab, we study how HIV infects human cells and how cells can resist viral infection. Ultimately, our aim is to inform further development of anti-HIV/AIDS drugs. I’ve been running my own lab for 16 years now.
As a group leader, I am responsible for all of the research that happens in the group as well as our collaborations within and beyond the Crick. I oversee each individual project and often help design experiments. My job also includes looking after the lab’s budget, applying for external grants, and recruiting and evaluating lab members.
My wife is a scientist too and leads a research group of her own. Although she was willing to stay at home when our daughter was born, her paid maternity leave allowance plus the aggregated remaining annual leave did not cover the six-month period we wanted to keep our newborn at home. And of course, I was desperate to spend more time with our baby daughter, even though I was extremely nervous about taking time off work.
The Crick's flexible approach to shared parental leave allowed me to take several weeks during the final few months before our daughter could join a local nursery.
Being a group leader at the Crick, I am naturally very conscious of time. It’s not easy to press pause on my work, and our research projects tend to be extremely competitive.
However, shared parental leave allowed me to take my leave in blocks, meaning I was able to stay actively involved with my lab and return when I needed to. I am very lucky to have a great team, including two senior scientific officers, on whom I can fully rely on.
I was able to spend valuable time with my daughter and I noticed only a minimal loss of productivity at work. The time I spent with my baby is irreplaceable, and I will always treasure these memories.
