Hi Postgrad Forum!

Just to expand on the thread title...I'm thinking of taking maybe a year or so off after finishing my PhD to have a baby but would like to go back to academia eventually. Has anyone else had a long break like this? What was your experience? Do you have any regrets/advice? Did your career end up going in the direction that you thought it would or are you doing something totally different now?

I'm hoping to submit early next calendar year, about 3.5 years into my PhD. I'll be 31 next year and my husband and I would like to start a family soon. It's still too early to have applied for postdocs starting in 2017 but I'm thinking of leaving applications for this year in case I get pregnant. But there's no guarantee I'd even be able to get pregnant so it seems like a bad idea to not even try applying. But I do worry about accepting a great opportunity and then having to turn it down later. I can't help but feel like there's still negative judgments on women who take time out to have families and I don't want to inadvertently burn (or lightly singe) any bridges.

I was thinking "maybe I can turn my PhD into a book draft and brush up on my languages!" while I'm home with a baby and not affiliated to a university but that's probably really unrealistic! I know women react *so* differently to being pregnant and then nursing. I guess I'm worried about 'losing momentum', if that makes sense.

I'd be so grateful to hear from anyone who's been through something similar! Thanks!

You mention turning the PhD into a book so I'm guessing humanities / social science discipline? If so, you don't see many project-based postdocs advertised - it's mainly individual fellowship schemes eg Leverhulme or (for now at least) Marie Curies and those do allow maternity leave to be taken. If that's what you were thinking of why not apply and if you got one then try for a baby and see what happens? They need so much prep and backing from a university that I would have thought better to do that groundwork minus a baby than with.

Some women are blessed with a fast recovery from birth / easy baby and maybe can keep up publishing but it's impossible to know where you'd be on the wide spectrum as you say. If you already have some good publications a year's gap is not a problem but if you don't have a record already then it probably would be damaging. But that's something you can judge.

I think it's not so much having a baby that hurts career prospects as the fact that it tends to increase geographical inflexibility - I'm in a social science discipline - there will maybe be 30-40 lectureships advertised per year and usually 150 well-qualified applicants (nearer 300 for the Oxbridge / good London unis). The odds are already against everyone and if you are tied to a place because you need family childcare support then they just become much much higher. Would you be ok with a non-academic career if it doesn't work out?

Hi bewildered, thanks a lot for taking the time to respond.

Yes, I'm in the humanities - sorry for not mentioning it before. I think I need to look in more detail at fellowship schemes though I have some idea about them. I've already declined to apply for a British Academy postdoc starting in 2017 *not* because of family stuff but because the deadline is very early and my CV definitely wouldn't be strong enough. Hopefully by the time I've done my final final hand-in next year, I'll have a couple of peer-reviewed publications and some teaching under my belt. It's difficult to know what's 'enough'.

Your point about geographical inflexibility is a good one, and not something I'd considered. (Un)fortunately, neither of us really have family nearby anyway so that wouldn't be an issue but of course there are other reasons why I couldn't just up sticks.

I like to keep an open mind and I would be okay with a non-academic career but I've had a largely positive experience of academia so far and would like to give it a go, as it were. However, the post-PhD employment landscape seems to be filled with such doom and gloom that I don't feel particularly optimistic about anything to be honest. I think that's probably why I put such a heavy emphasis on a 'work-life balance', so I don't feel like my whole world has been shattered if I can't find a job!