How being a scientist helped me to be a good mother

Last year I became the mother of fraternal twins. I love being a parent, but in a profession rife with gender inequalities, I am also aware of how my transition to motherhood will affect my career. What I didn’t realise, however, was how being a scientist would help me to be a good mother to my two children.

We often hear about the difficulties facing women (and mothers) in academia. At my main university in Denmark, men still hold more than 75% of professorships, 85% of top management positions and receive 76% of the total funds paid out from Denmark’s Basic Research Fund¹. To exist in this environment, women often need to do better and work harder than their male colleagues. So how does one fit in starting a family?

Even in the most balanced relationships, women pay a higher price for their children. During pregnancy, most women experience some level of illness, sleep deprivation and pregnancy-related complications. They take time off for scans, classes, medical appointments and prescribed rest. Safety concerns for the developing foetus can interrupt or stop laboratory and field work. After birth, many women experience the “hidden” medium-term and long-term complications of pregnancy and birth, including depression (11-17%), urinary incontinence (8-31%), anal incontinence (19%) and lower back pain (32%)². When women do return to work, they may need to schedule time for pumping into their workday and often come to work exhausted from nighttime feeding. Attending and presenting at conferences as an expectant or new mother is often not possible³. Moreover, women typically carry a larger mental load than their spouse and can be unfairly criticised for this with the label “mommy brain”⁴. Sadly, many department chairs—aware of the unequal load of parenthood—do not appropriately recognise career interruptions during hiring and tenure evaluations, and seem genuinely flabbergasted when there are then fewer women candidates available for recruitment at the more senior levels⁵.

Becoming a mother undoubtedly impacts our careers as scientists. But women also receive messaging that being a scientist influences their ability to be a good mother. We can be made to believe that we have left it too late⁶, returned to work too soon and that the time demands of the job are simply incompatible with the traditional view of motherhood. What I have come to realise over the last few months, however, is that being a scientist has laid the groundwork for me to be a fantastic mother to my two children. By sharing my experiences, I hope I can help to write a new narrative and highlight to women scientists the unique strengths and abilities that will prepare them for this stage of their journey.

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As a cell biologist, I am accustomed to repetitive tasks. Recurrent cycles of feeding, changing and putting my babies to sleep during the first few months of their lives therefore felt somewhat familiar and manageable, rather than overly burdensome and monotonous. Having spent most of my adult life formulating and testing hypotheses in the lab, my mind easily came up with new theories for why things may be going wrong or why the babies may be being fussy, and I have been able to experiment with possible solutions. Importantly, I know how to persevere with a hypothesis and not give up on a good idea too soon, a problem that many desperate and time-poor new parents can fall victim to. I am accustomed to working extremely long days, late nights and weekends. My friends are used to long stretches of time without seeing me and me turning up late to social events. Being a scientist has even helped me to develop a taste for cold coffee, which only makes me smile when I order a flat white and both babies instinctively begin crying.

I am particularly good at multi-tasking and managing my time. My many years at the bench have made me incredibly proficient at opening bottles with one hand, sterilising and labelling things, and protecting myself from spills. I can forecast, plan and mitigate risk better than most parents. I am almost always prepared and when I’m not, I learn quickly and pay attention to the serendipitous wins. I understand how drugs work, when vaccines are due and when to be worried about a fever. Contrary to the conventional view of scientists as cold, unemotional beings, most of us are extremely creative and playful, a trait that has obvious benefits when raising young children. Those of us who engage in teaching are accustomed to teach Socratically, which I believe will be helpful as my children begin to ask questions about the world around them.

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Gender inequalities in academia are a huge problem—for all women—and this requires urgent attention from our university leaders⁵. But to those women scientists apprehensive about the kind of mothers they may be, my message is simple: your efforts in the laboratory are likely to help you in ways you may not have yet imagined.

Acknowledgements

I am supported by grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC, #2003832), the Novo Nordisk Foundation (#NNF20OC009705) and the International Brain Research Organization (PG24-9230796649).

References

1.         Mænd og kvinder på de danske universiteter – Danmarks talentbarometer 2019. (2020).

2.         Vogel, J. P. et al. Neglected medium-term and long-term consequences of labour and childbirth: a systematic analysis of the burden, recommended practices, and a way forward. The Lancet Global Health 12, e317–e330 (2024).

3.         Chalmers, S. B. et al. Towards inclusive and sustainable scientific meetings. Nat Cell Biol 25, 1557–1560 (2023).

4.         Callaghan, B. L., McCormack, C., Kim, P. & Pawluski, J. L. Understanding the maternal brain in the context of the mental load of motherhood. Nat. Mental Health 2, 764–772 (2024).

5.         Davis, F. M., Elias, S. & Ananthanarayanan, V. Scientists with intersecting privilege must work towards institutional inclusion. Nat Cell Biol 25, 789–792 (2023).

6.         Nowogrodzki, J. PhD parents: the pros and cons of having a child during your doctorate. Nature 637, 749–751 (2025).

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