Balancing Act – Dr Gemma Lace

In this unrestricted, no-holds-barred interview Dr Gemma Lace provides a candid and comprehensive picture of her day-to-today life as a working mother and academic. Starting with the decision to start a family, working through pregnancy, school days, times of being a single mother and now as a mum of three in a blended family with a husband who works 7-days a week.

Back in 2018 Dr Gemma Lace was a guest on one of our very first podcasts, the topic was ‘Managing Family Life and a Research Career’. Gemma, along with Dr Jo Barnes and Professor Tammaryn Lashley talked about their experiences as mothers and the balance acts, they have to pull off daily to be successful at work, and at home. Earlier this month they came together again, 5 years later to reflect on how things had changed over the years.

This interview is a follow-up to the podcast, adding details that we hope will inspire others, help deal with challenges and remain within research.

---

Can you introduce yourself?

I’m Dr Gemma Lace, I am an Associate Dean Academic Student Experience, at the University of Salford and I work 5 days a week, and probably somewhere between 40 and 60 hours. I am 39, my husband is an environmental consultant, and he works away a lot of the time, so I’m often on my own. Adding to that I have three children, aged 10 and 12, and my eldest is my stepson, and he is aged 18.

What stage were you at in your career when you decided to start a family?

I’d just submitted my PhD, I was doing my corrections and working as a postdoc. I had a couple of short contracts, and then I got a local fellowship called Sir John Stokes Fellowship, which was either 10 or 11 months. That is when I started to think about having a family and it happened much quicker than I was expecting.

Can you describe the thought processes and emotions you went through when deciding?

There was strategy behind it because I needed to think about security. Am I going to be entitled to maternity leave? Am I going to be able to get a mortgage? Because on the short-term contract, we were renting at the time. Am I going to be able to get a mortgage without having that permanent contract, or at least a three-year contract? The job market was not great at that time. There were very few postdoc positions and we just decided to face the situation and deal with it. We were never really worried too much about having the perfect life. We were both from a background where we were quite happy to be adaptable and do whatever we needed to do to make things work and 10 months seemed like the best offer I was going to get at the time. And I thought if at that point we were to fall pregnant, that would also give space to start looking for other jobs whilst I had a young baby and that would give a chance to really reflect on my career and what I wanted moving forward.

Did you work throughout pregnancy? And did you take any time off during pregnancy?

With my first, I worked up until I was eight months pregnant, which nearly took me to the end of the contract. I would’ve worked longer, but for medical reasons I was advised that I needed to go on maternity leave. I did work exceptionally long hours and extremely hard during that time. Looking back now, I would never have done that. I would’ve set some clear boundaries. But I always remember sitting in tissue culture in the summer with my feet in an ice box and my lab coat on backwards so that it was covering my front. And I had some really good friends and support in the lab that I was in who would come and lovingly apply damp blue roll to my back to keep me cool because tissue culture was really hot. It was about 32 degrees. And so, they would come, and they would check on me. They used to line up cans of pop outside the tissue culture lab so that I didn’t get dehydrated. I had a good group of friends that looked after me because it was really, really tough.

When I finished, I had one month left on my contract, which meant that I could get statutory maternity, but that was it. And I think it was about £425 a month, so it’s not really anything to live off long term. But the aim was then to just try securing a job and put the little one in nursery when a job was found. I wanted to take six months off maternity leave, so we’ve done a bit of squirreling in the background.

While on maternity leave, I found a new job, in a new city. I ended up taking nine months off as the new job was a Teaching Fellow position, and the start date was the next academic year. So, I had had my daughter in the January, and then I started September / October. Straight into a new teaching role.

Did your partner take time off to help?

He took two weeks off, that’s all he was entitled to. So, it was me and the baby going solo.

How did you negotiate returning after childbirth?

I didn’t need to worry about the job I left. Because I only had a month left … I’d been quite strategic and saved all my annual leave. So uses the leave to cover the last month on my contract and didn’t have to return (In the UK you accumulate annual leave even while you are on maternity leave). Clean cut, leaving me free to start my new job.

My new employer was really supportive. They knew that I had a young child. They wanted to go through that and understand what they could do to support the transition because we were moving cities as well. So, I think having a really supportive workplace put my mind to rest. They were keen to help me navigate the world of childcare vouchers, and understand if I needed flexible working arrangements etc. As I mentioned the new position was actually a teaching only position. So that was my first challenge, how do I pick up my research when I’m being employed to teach? Research was my passion, but a teaching position was available and funded.

How hard was it to drop work and go on maternity leave?

For my first child, it was easy, I had was working alongside someone else who was on maternity leave. So, the work just handed back to them, as they returned as I left. But with my second, I was in the throes of being a lecturer at that point, and I had picked up my research career and that’s where it was more challenging. And I had tried again to be a bit strategic in the timing. And not everyone can do that. I know not everyone has got the ability to try and become pregnant at a certain time. Pregnancy and fertility are a challenge for many couples. But I was lucky that I managed to time my maternity leave so I would take one trimester off. However, I did work in my maternity leave. I went on maternity leave in the May, and the baby was due June. Again, for medical reasons, it was pushed a little bit early. But I remember going onto campus with an empty buggy when I was very heavily pregnant to pick up my marking, which was in two nappy boxes. About 400 scripts I had to mark and taking them home with me to mark. Which I look back now and think, what was I doing? Why did I do that? That was not a good idea. But yeah, I did work in my maternity leave.

Were you keen to return to work after the birth of your children?

Yes, I was. For both of them I was ready to go back. I absolutely adored being with the kids. Absolutely loved it, but it’s really hard. No one gives you that warning of how exhausting it is to not be in control of your own sleep, to not be able to go to the toilet on your own and how difficult it is to breastfeed and eat at the same time. That lack of freedom, which I think as a PhD student, you have that element of freedom. You plan your own work, you plan your own experiments, you juggle things. I used to have three or four experiments on the go, and I thrived off that, but it was all in my control. Whereas you get a little person in your world and all of a sudden, they’re the centre. Everything focuses on them. And it’s a real shift in how you operate. And when all that control is taken away, it’s really quite overwhelming. And so, I was quite ready to go back and to get some element of control back to my life. And I missed the interaction. I missed supporting people. I missed generating ideas and conversations with adults. I didn’t thrive in mum groups.

I felt like there was quite a lot of judgment for me wanting to go back to work. I remember there was a lady in the group who wasn’t talking to me, she didn’t know my background. They were talking about another mum who’d gone back to work, and they were saying, “I don’t see the point in having children if you’re just going to go back to work.” I just sat quietly and was just dying inside. Not all groups will be like this, but I think the group that I went to, there were a lot of people there that just didn’t work anyway. They hadn’t been part of a research group. They hadn’t experienced the buzz that you get from work and contributing to something bigger.

I didn’t have mum friends, and I was the first out of my friend group to have kids so at the time, I had to just figure it out on my own.

In your second time of maternity, how were your academic responsibilities and research covered?

I did have support from my line manager, but it was very much left for me to work out cover. There’s a genuine fear about going on maternity leave that you’re going to get replaced. I was on a three-year fixed term contract, and in the last. So, I was really worried that by taking maternity leave, that someone else was going to come in, and be fabulous, and then I wouldn’t have a job to come back to. So, when I went to speak to my line managers and the dean of school, I went in with a plan.

I only had one PhD student at that time, and I decided to continue to support them through monthly meetings. I talked with her about her workload while I was away, to make sure that she wouldn’t be doing anything that would make her feel isolated and unsupported. I also organised for others in the lab to provide some support and supervision.

Teaching was harder to organise, it worked out that I would go on maternity leave at the start of summer, so I suggested some things move, and others waited until I returned… and they agreed. So, I basically had the summer off, then through to Christmas, and returned in the new year. Missing just one semester of teaching. And I think my line manager was just happy that I’d given it the thought and made the plans because then it wasn’t too disruptive. It did make things difficult when I returned because there was a tsunami of work.

Was six months maternity long enough?

It was short, and difficult because my son felt so much younger than my daughter had. He still felt like a baby. But he was also a really social baby, and he immediately loved nursery. My daughter was doing the whole crying and reaching out for me and having me crying in the car park. Whereas my son, because he was a baby, he just accepted it. And I think he almost transitioned easier because he was a little bit younger.

Did you keep in touch with work during maternity leave?

Yes, I did. I tried to make sure that my keep in touch days aligned with the big departmental meetings where decisions were made because I remember missing one and then in my next meeting found that I’d been landed with a bunch of stuff that I really didn’t want to do. I was like, right, okay, this isn’t going to happen again. And I made sure that I was part of that, and I made it very clear that I needed to be part of that discussion and it wasn’t fair to decide about my workload, my career when I wasn’t in the room to voice my opinions on how that was going to impact my career.

So, I think those meetings are really important and voicing your concerns and saying if you’re worried that something is going to be taken away from you or something is going to be given to you, being able to articulate that clearly in writing, if possible. Sending an email saying, I’m really keen to keep hold of this teaching. I’m really keen not to be pulled into this work, which doesn’t align with my career. Setting those clear expectations and boundaries and capturing that, I think it’s a useful thing for you to feel safe and it’s a useful thing to ensure your needs are met because sometimes it’s just how academic institutions work. They’re thinking about the greater good, of course, which is acceptable. It’s normal. But it’s important not to be left out of those key discussions.

What support systems did you rely on with your day-to-day responsibilities as a mother and scientist?

I was really lucky. I always felt really supported. I remember having a conversation with the dean of school who said, “If you need to take a nap, take a nap.” And it was the last thing I was expecting her to say, and it came a pleasant surprise. At the time, there was only one other person on the team that had a child. So, there was a little bit of, everyone was trying to do everything by the book. Everyone was … I won’t say panicking, but they were desperately trying to get it right because they weren’t used to it.

I remember being a bit concerned at first about telling everyone because I thought, well, there’s a lot of people that I work with who either don’t have kids and have been here for a long time and they don’t have kids. There are a lot of people here who have got older kids and are maybe of the mentality of, well, I’ve done it and I’ve survived it; therefore, they need to do it and they need to survive it.

I’d heard all sorts of horror stories. Not from my current place of work, but from friends who were working in research where they’d not had support and they’d been told to make a choice. At previous places I’d worked one particular comment stuck in my mind, “Congratulations, I’m so happy you’re pregnant. It’s a shame though because you did have a promising research career ahead of you.” So, I’d had some negative experiences and I’d had some friends that had gone through some really horrific experiences. But in my new position, I didn’t get any of that. All I got was positivity.

Did you also get support at home to cope with the work and schedule?

When I returned to work, it was full-time. I was really dependent on childcare. I’m an only child and my mum had Parkinson’s disease. She used to offer to help, but I was in a bit of a position where I really didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but she wasn’t in a position to be left alone with a child. Thankfully, I had another uncle who used to come over with my mum and supervise her. So, there was one day a week where I used to get family members to come over. But on those days a week I would be clock watching and be worried and knowing that I just wanted to get home. But I felt a bit torn there.

My partner was working. It was a real struggle. We only had one car and nursery opened at eight. But for him to get to work on time, he had to leave really early. So, we used to get dropped off at McDonald’s opposite work at 7:00 in the morning. And we ended up befriending the entire management team at McDonald’s. Well, my daughter did anyway. And so, we used to spend an hour in McDonald’s … Well, four days a week. We would have breakfast, and wait for nursery to open, the staff were amazing. I’m actually still friends with the manager of that McDonald’s because she was just such a lovely human. She was so kind to my daughter. It got to the point where we would exchange Christmas presents, Easter presents. In a funny way, they formed part of my support network as well. They were always there on a morning and helping me out. Any parent will know, there can be nappy catastrophes and vomit catastrophes, and they used to help out with that kind of stuff.

At the end of the day, we used to get picked up by my partner who had to navigate the Manchester horrific traffic saga that goes on at rush hour. So, we used to get home pretty late, and it felt like we weren’t spending a lot of quality time with my daughter, which is why I’ve always been of the mentality of work hard, play hard, rest hard. I will work really, really hard through the week, but my weekends are my weekends. I do not work weekends. I will never work weekends. If there’s a big deadline, a grant deadline coming up or a marking deadline coming up, I would rather work late once kids are in bed or my current preference is I get up early and work before the kids are out of bed so that I feel like I’m in control of my day. It’s all about my family, about being with my humans. It’s all about getting outside in green spaces and resting and recovering so that that cycle can start again.

Did you learn any lessons from your first child that helped when it came to having a second?

I think I’ve learned to be more flexible with the second child. With my first, everything was around her. Everything dropped and I forgot myself. I forgot to look after myself. I forgot my relationship. I forgot who I was before I had kids. And with my second, he slotted into the family. Bless him. He slotted in and everything became much more fluid. I took the pressure off. There’s so much pressure out there for parents about making sure you puree organic sweet potatoes and make sure that you check in on milestones. And I just took the pressure off and focused on enjoying the kids and enjoying family time together. And that has always stayed my priority. I absolutely adore my job and I work really, really hard at my job, but family will always come first.

I did have conversations with other researchers who were moms and parents, and I felt that some of those conversations weren’t useful. I lost track of how many people told me, “Oh yes, I remember when I wrote this grant when I was breastfeeding, and I was up at four o’clock in the morning writing this grant.” And I thought, I don’t want to be that person. I want to do my research in a way that keeps me passionate about research. I don’t want to be doing it at four o’clock in the morning.

Did you ever consider changing jobs? Perhaps something less stressful?

Never. I absolutely love my job. I remember working it out after the childcare costs and what I was working for was about 60 pound a month once we’d taken childcare off. But it wasn’t about the money, and I think work for me never has been about money. It’s always been about value and what you’re contributing to society and what you are personally getting a massive buzz from. And I think sometimes people can get so focused on the money and really, it’s about happiness. You spend so much time at work, so much of your life working that you’ve got to be in a job that you love. If you don’t want to go back to work, if you’re not craving going back to work, if you’re not missing the buzz and the reward from working, then you’re probably in the wrong job and should be thinking about what your options are and what it is that does make you tick. But for me, it was always about continuing what I was really passionate about. My passion is really if you break it down, is supporting other people. So, the best bit of my job is supporting students.

How did things change as your children got older?

My first husband and I separated when my eldest was four and my youngest was two. And then I was on my own with two little kids, for around 18 months, and that was quite scary. It got harder the year after the separation when I had one child in school and the other at a nursery. Nurseries take the kids for a little bit longer and can be a bit more flexible whereas school is strict, start times, finish times. So, navigating the world of afterschool clubs and morning clubs and all that lot became part of the routine.

I was able to work quite flexibly around that. And I think that is one of the benefits of an academic career is that you can often work flexibly. So, I could leave work early to pick the kids up and then pick up my work at home. I think now that the kids are older, and since the pandemic, things have become much more flexible. Many people who don’t have kids will work at home and it makes it a lot easier to shift a meeting to a Teams meeting if you do need to nip home and do the school run.

Having flexibility to manage your diary is really helpful but it has taken me a long time to figure out a schedule that works. I get up at half five, work for a few hours, then do school runs, go onto campus if needed, then come back, pick the kids up, and then make sure all my afternoon meetings are scheduled as Teams meetings and plan accordingly. I can use afterschool clubs. If I’m required at an on-campus meeting or if I’m teaching, then childcare can be used. And then once the kids are in bed, I can mop up any stuff that I need to do. So, when I do close that laptop and have a little bit of me time at the end of the night, I know that I’ve certainly put the hours in, but I’ve also done it in a way where I can make the kids tea and sit with my kids and help them with the homework

When I met my second husband, I also acquired another child. He was 12, so he also needed the school runs and the pick-ups and drop-offs so that all got factored in. At the time my partner was working away from home around 20% of the time. So, not much fell on me, but now he’s probably away 70-80% of the time. So, I have to do everything, however the 12-year-old is now much older and at college, so he mostly looks after himself. But it does still mean that I do all the school runs and plan my time accordingly. I usually know six months in advance when he’s going to be away so I can structure my time, I can put blockers in my diary, and I can plan my time accordingly. And then when he comes back, he is usually home for around two weeks. At that point I can relax, and he does everything. He does all the school runs. I get the time to really cram the work, do the big stuff, and we try to manage our diaries accordingly so that if he’s got big stuff planned, then I’ll be the one that picks it up. If I’ve got big stuff planned, he will be the one that picks it up. So that’s how we manage it now.

Do you still find time to attend conferences?

Absolutely. Because I’m divorced and the kids do go spend time with their dad. So, if there is something that I need to do and be away at, that works. Before we were divorced, we made it work as well so I would go away. I have to say it was really difficult when the kids were younger. When they were really little. I probably avoided it a bit. And for years, pre covid, every time I got to be part of a conference organisation committee, I was harping on about can we not record these sessions? Can we not make this more accessible for people who cannot commit to that, who don’t have the option? We have researchers who are single parents who might not have a support network where it is just impossible for them to go and attend a conference for a few days. And I think that’s one of the benefits that we’ve seen after Covid is that things have become more accessible.

It is still difficult with the networking. I think with virtual conference attendance, it’s not the same as chatting to someone by their poster or going to approach someone. But we’ve also got social media as well so I do a lot of training and events with students about how else can you reach out to especially the big PIs that you might not dare approach in person. I’ve also been an advocate of making conferences and networking opportunities more accessible, not just for childcare reasons, but for people who have got other barriers such as neurodiversity or disability.

Did any of your career aspirations or goals change after becoming a mother?

The role that I’m in now is the one I thought I would have when I was in my 50s, I have my dream job. I’m the Associate Dean it’s all about supporting students. It’s about looking at the barriers that our students face and putting in plans to mitigate those to make sure anyone who wants to be successful can be. And it is unbelievably rewarding, but it comes with of drama. I have to pick-up all the unexpected issues. I’m in charge of all kinds of student facing procedures, complaints, disciplinaries. Any issues that a student has. It can be quite a reactive job, but I absolutely thrive on that. It means I get to be the mother of about 8,000 students and also support the staff. I get to work with really smart people who have got really great ideas. It’s fantastic. But I got here earlier than I was expecting, which is fantastic.

I think quite early on in my research career, even when I was working as a postdoc, I knew that my favourite part of the job was the ideas generation. I’d kind of got to the point where I didn’t enjoy being in the lab as much, but I really enjoyed the process of writing grants and hearing about other research and reading papers and thinking of what we can do to tackle dementia. But I more than anything, loved supporting others to do that. I loved helping students get confidence in their own ideas and their own approaches and taking ownership of where they wanted to be in their life. And that was the same with teaching. I really adored teaching. Absolutely loved teaching and that interaction with others and helping people to think and to learn and to explore where they want to be, so I just followed that.

Did your colleagues ever judge you for your choices?

There were a couple of comments, particularly about my decision to take a teaching only position. There seemed to be some element of reduced respect for a teaching role rather than a research role as if that was a step-down rather than a step up. Whereas I always saw it as a step to the side so that I could get the experience. I always had it in my head as a PhD student, I wanted to be a lecturer. I wanted to do research, I wanted to teach, I wanted to have that combination. But I worked with a lot of researchers who really did not enjoy teaching. They saw it as a chore. They saw it as a thing they had to do every now and again and it was a pain. I worked with others who absolutely, like me, adored it. And I just accepted it as a difference of opinion. I never let it get me down. I’ve always been able to understand that we all come from different spaces, and we’ve got different goals, so I just tried to put it to one side.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed?

Oh, always. Yes. Always. And I’ve got I have a tactic for dealing with it. I’ve had the same tactic for the last 10 years. I to listen my body, notice when I’m getting tired. Notice when I’m getting ulcers. Notice when my mood’s changing. And when that happens, put everything down, stop, and then start picking things up in order of priority.

I always start my week and end my week by looking at the week ahead. Making sure all the key things are in there. Family stuff first, what do they need from me, what is going to keep the house ticking over, and then work. I don’t worry about cleaning and stuff like that. Life’s too short for a clean kitchen and matching socks. But I put everything down and then I pick things up in order of priority.

Researchers are often concerned about financial and job security, how have you coped?

For me, it’s always the stability issue that’s always been a concern. I’m not bothered about not having money. We didn’t have money growing up, and I didn’t see that it was that much of an issue as an adult either.

I remember when I was doing my undergrad, I had three jobs and the money that I had left over for myself after paying all bills was £35. That’s what I had. And with that £35 I used to go out five nights a week. I used to make a pint last me a full night and I used to have a brilliant time.

So, the money thing wasn’t that much of an issue. We lived in small places, in bad areas, but inside the house it was always warm. We always had a candle from the pound shop. We always had a cozy environment. We had fleecy blankets and that’s all we needed. We’d turn the radiators off in the rooms that we didn’t use them. I would budget the food, so we had nice meals, but they would be batch cooked. It was always in my nature to plan with finances and make sure that I had enough. As a student, I was paid weekly on Friday’s, and it was standard for me to only have 35 pence in my wallet on Thursday. I couldn’t afford the bus to get to Uni, so I used to walk, and it took me an hour and a half and that’s how it was. Not having much money carried through even as an early career researcher.

My first husband and I had a couple of nice holidays, but we used to go for the cheap and cheerful, all-inclusive, save up, pay for it, and then not spend anything when we were away. Not much has changed. Me and some girlfriends went away last weekend to Ibiza, and we did exactly the same. We went all-inclusive and yes, old habits die hard, right? I’ve been used to cutting back. You never know what could happen. Times can change. Jobs can change. Mortgage rates can go up, there can be a cost-of-living crisis. There’s always a plan. There’s always something that you can cut back on. You can worst case, downgrade your house, sell a car. There’s always something that can be done.

I think having that backup plan is important. Thinking about maternity, I knew that I was going to be on £425 a month, so I’d squirreled away quite a lot. We were living in a cheap, rented apartment. We didn’t go out much, breastfed, bought our nappies at Aldi. We made it work.

Can you share any experience where your role as a mother and scientist have intersected?

I’ve managed to go into my kids’ schools and give talks on various things. Usually the talk’s about human anatomy. I’ve done quite a lot of dementia outreach. Gone into schools, spoke about brain health, healthy hearts, healthy brains. And when you’ve got kids, it’s easier to get into those spaces to spread some of those messages and to jump on the back of other events that are going on locally to reach out and say, “Oh yeah, my kid goes to this local school, and I’d like to come and speak to you about dementia.” It opens some doors and allows you to actually broadcast some awareness about dementia research.

All three of my kids been in the lab. The oldest actually came and did some of the various dementia outreach events with me. We did an event at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. And he came and was working alongside my students and talking. He was making brain hats and talking about the brain with the various people in the museum.

How many hours of sleep do you get?

Probably around 7 hours of sleep on weekdays, bed by 10–11.00 pm and up at 5.30am.

Do you ever feel guilty that work or family don’t get enough of your time?

No. I think in the early stages of my career there was always guilt. But then I guess my awareness shifted that I was more worried about what other people thought and how other people might be judging my workload. I remember one place that I worked used to have this big whiteboard. It was a competition of who was working most out of hours. PIs did check to see who had been in and who was putting in the hours and they would comment on that. It’s really unhealthy. Burnout should not be worn as a badge of honour. We should be working smarter, not longer. And there are days I’ve said that I’ll do these couple of hours after work when the kids are in bed. I’ll do it if I need to, which a lot of the time I do need to. But on the days that I don’t, I won’t do it for the sake of it. If I-

Did you ever face any institutional barriers to starting a family?

Well, it depends on circumstances, and it depends on contracts and what is available at the time. What funding pots can be tapped into to cover maternity leave and stuff like that. And it really is variable on the time of year, on what research you’re doing, what kind of projects you’re working, what is paying your salary – and I realise the UK is different to other parts of the world. So, it’s really variable. And I think it’s just important to make sure that you are in the loop. Make sure that you’re aware of what is available locally in your institution. Be aware of what your funders can provide and what advice they can give. And also speak to other people in the department who may have gone through a similar circumstance and be able to give you some advice because it’s so variable depending on where you’re working and what kind of contracts you’ve got.

How did you cover the career gaps on your CV?

I did have gaps. There were papers published that my name should have been on and wasn’t. I’d let it go. I accepted that’s what it was. But made sure that it would not happen to any of my students or anyone who was working in my group. And I learned from it. And I think that’s all you can do. You never know what’s going to happen. You never know what is going to get thrown of you. But I think if you can do anything and turn it into a positive of how you can change what is happening here and now, then that should be the focus rather than being concerned of what could have gone better.

When funders or employers questions the gaps, for maternity cover or publications I was honest. I’ve still got papers that are sitting waiting to be published and such is life. I think that many people will have gaps in their careers because of the pandemic as well. But those gaps don’t define you. They don’t show what you’re capable of and they don’t show your commitment to what you’re getting into. And so, you just can’t let them define you. I tried to turn their periods in a positive, explaining that I have been developing a different skillset. So being at home as a parent, you do develop a whole heap of skills, particularly around your endurance, your motivation, your ability to multitask, your ability to function on little sleep. And I think that there needs to be more consideration taken by funders of the implications of that. And it shouldn’t be frowned upon. It should be just accepted that is how life works. And someone who decides to have a child is still the intelligent, dedicated, motivated, driven person they were prior to making that decision and is still that person after they’ve had a child.

There’s lots of evidence saying that women do not go for promotions and there are a number of reasons underlying that. What we need to be doing as institutions is making sure one of those reasons is not because there are already barriers there. That the positions and the application process is not creating barriers and that it will allow flexibility around working patterns and make sure that … There are simple things that institutions can do for all working parents that they may be not doing. Things like making sure that meeting times don’t coincide with school runs. I’ve heard horror stories of major departmental meetings happening between eight and nine o’clock when that is a time when anyone with a child will be trying to get them.

It helps when funders put out rolling applications too. So, it’s not working to a set deadline, but instead it’s accepting them all year. think adding that flexibility is much more beneficial because it removes those barriers that people with kids will be facing, particularly this time of year.

Did you every pass up an opportunity because of your circumstances?

A number of promotion opportunities came and went, and I didn’t go for them because there was a fear of how the increased workload might impact my family life. And then it was only through having discussions and taking it up with the people who were already in those roles saying, well, how would this work? How could it accommodate me as a mom? When I got this role, I got this role on an interim basis. I’d just lost my mom and my other half was working away all the time and he just started working away more and more and it was feeling more and more like being a single mom again. But I still had the same aspirations. I still had the same ideas of what I could do to make a difference.

And it was only through having the discussions and saying, right, well what could this look like? How would it work? What would it really mean? The role that I got was the interim position. I thought, well, you know what? I’ll go for it because unlikely I’m going to get it anyway. Because in my head, I’m too young, I’m not experienced enough. They’ll want someone with more experience than me. But I’ll go for it anyway, just so I can see what they’re looking for. And I was successful, and that process was really useful because it just opened my eyes a little bit and it made me think back on other opportunities that I’d not gone for because of that fear.

And sometimes you’ve just got to hit that fear head on and move towards it. And also appreciating that you can always change trajectory if it’s not working for you. There is that option of saying, well actually now this is not working for me. There’s no shame in that of being able to step away or step down or step to the side. And I think there is a real fear of getting it wrong and not continually to go up. But careers aren’t like that. They often involved side steps and down steps and up steps and then rapid plummets. And that’s all right because as long as you’re still growing in whatever position you’re in, as long as you’re still learning, then that’s a good thing. You learn from it, and you move on.

What advise would you give to your younger self?

My advice to my younger self would be to absolutely make sure I had time for myself, no matter what. And also, don’t take advice from people who you don’t aspire to be like, whose shoes you don’t aspire to fill. And to set boundaries around yourself and around your family so that you can work, you can live, you can rest, you can play comfortably without any feelings of guilt.

When you look back what are you most proud of?

I’m proud that all my kids are all alive with no broken bones. I’m proud of the role that I’ve got now and I’m proud of the work that I do now. I’m proud of the teams that I’ve got. But I’m most proud of my students and where they’ve gone and how they have all been successful in their own different shapes and forms and they felt empowered to go in different directions and irrespective of the direction they’ve gone make something of their lives.

What are your hopes and aspirations for your career and family life in the future?

I guess my hope will always just to keep that balance. To always feel like I’m not compromising, that I am achieving that dreaded word, work-life balance. It can be difficult, and it can tip, but being able to notice the tip and being able to correct it, I want to always be able to do that. My aspirations are that one day I will be working still in a student experience related position. Maybe a pro vice chancellor student experience to look at how institutions more broadly can be really supportive, inclusive spaces where people can go and be successful. And also, I want my kids to be happy. I don’t care what they do for a living. I want them always to remember me as being there for them, even though they know I work hard, they see me work hard, but they also get plenty of time with me.

When my children fly the nest, I think I’m more likely to do different things. I’m a real collector of things, and I’m really curious and I like learning. And so, I already do loads of stuff, and I’m very easily distracted and often see things that I like to do. I do life coaching, and I’d probably do more of that. I volunteer with the Red Cross, and I’d probably do more of that. I’m doing a yoga teacher qualification, so probably do more than that. So, I would probably do more stuff.

Life throws all sorts of stuff at you. It really does. I can’t think of a period in my life where there has been calm, where there’s not been some element of chaos, where there’s not been something that I’ve been navigating that has been going on in the background. And I think if you have come from that background, it just becomes the norm so actually you don’t get phased by it because you’ve got 100% survival rate so far so you know that you can overcome it.