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For a good few years I have known that having a child as an early career academic might be risky.
It goes without saying that the pressure to produce written work, develop funding applications and conduct research means maintaining a work-life balance is challenging.
As some of the recent comments on these pages have observed, lots of careers demand personal sacrifice, but I side with those who see academia as a special case. Especially for those who choose to have children.
Academic life is sustained by networks, and we travel to conferences and workshops to sustain those. We routinely visit archives or conduct fieldwork too. There will be plenty who see this mobility as an enriching part of the job, but with a baby?
And there is the expectation, also noted by contributors to these pages, that we will give a bit more than a job might actually ask, that we somehow aren't contributing enough if we try too hard to maintain that elusive work-life balance.
For a woman in the postdoctoral phase of a career, does taking time out to have a child look like not enough commitment to the job?
I admit that in the past I've been rather unconcerned about this. Throughout my doctorate and the first couple of postdoc years, the career was what I wanted and the sacrifices seemed an acceptable price.
And then I started to wonder. The majority of my friends, even the "career women" in other sectors, have families now, I thought. My life is stable, my relationship happy. Maybe I want a family after all.
Risky business of taking maternity leave
It's now four years since I completed my doctorate, I'm in my mid-thirties, I hold a research fellowship, I'm hitting the right career markers… and I'm pregnant.
So what's the problem? I knew the risks, right? Absolutely not. Entitlement to maternity leave and pay are far from secure for early career academics who do not yet hold permanent lectureships.
My contract is permanent ('open-ended' in the HR jargon), but my fellowship funding is finite and my university, a Russell Group member which makes big claims about its equality and diversity credentials, immediately said they were not willing to fund maternity cover beyond the fixed period of that funding.
There was no way to anticipate this. No clause in my contract – and certainly no caveat in the university's maternity leave policy – warns fellows they will be expected to forfeit hard won funding and research time.
But I will lose a significant chunk of valuable time in my fellowship because I am pregnant and will take maternity leave during that period.
Is forfeiting hard won research funding legal?
Is it legal? Probably not. The test for discrimination can be formulated as a "but for" question. But for taking maternity leave, would I be entitled to this period of fellowship time? The answer is undoubtedly yes, so surely this is discrimination. Plain and simple.
The early career phase in academia is turning into a lengthy business. This period of working as a researcher on funded projects or holding a fellowship is not all negative. It's true, and frequently pointed out, that it introduces high levels of insecurity and pressure. But it can mean working with experienced academics on really interesting research and moving to different parts of the country or the world.
It can also mean the chance to develop and hone your research skills, and to build a profile without having the administrative and teaching burdens of a junior lecturer.
Yet as this phase of academic working life starts to stretch out into several years and multiple posts, what does it mean for our lives and for our employment rights? As I have discovered, for women who choose to have a child, it potentially means struggling against discriminatory HR policies and learning more than you ever wanted to know about statutory entitlements and employment tribunals.
It means that at a moment in your life when you want to spend time contemplating your lovely growing bump, you spend evenings with your partner chewing over how the finances will work if the university really do strip you of the employment you believed was secure. It means spending a good few nights wondering how you will salvage your career when your work plans are plunged into chaos.
Broader views about maternity leave in academia
My case is not unique. The local branch of the University and College Union (UCU) knows of other women who have faced this at my institution. Their cases were resolved in ways that mean they are not precedents, HR assures us. In telling friends and colleagues, I have also heard of similar cases at other institutions. And telling my story has elicited broader comments about maternity leave in academia.
One senior female colleague (who does not have children) told me that she openly complains about women taking maternity leave because the university often fails to provide funds for teaching cover, leaving the rest of the department with a higher workload which they are expected to absorb because academics are contracted on "indeterminate" hours (that argument doesn't hold when we strike, by the bye).
A senior male colleague related working with a woman who had "used" three periods of maternity leave to great effect, timing her return to work so that teaching had already been allocated and ensuring she was able to maximise the benefits of flexible working. That particular strategist is, incidentally, a highly successful young professor now.
I related the tale to my (non-academic) partner, who suggested that, particularly in the light of our own strained and muddled uncertainty, perhaps she was just smart and sensible.
We should be talking about maternity leave and academia. It doesn't just affect women who take the leave. It affects those they work and live with. The issues that are raised through this topic tell us something important, and not very palatable, about our working culture.
Is higher education losing sight of core social values?
There are financial pressures in academia, but losing sight of the values that the vast majority of us share – values such as equality, which universities claim to promote – is not worth the economising drive. A tough working environment and high standards do not necessarily come hand in hand with discrimination. In my view, our sector should be guarding its principles, not just its purse strings.
So how will my case be resolved? The university has made an offer. If my funding body will co-fund my maternity leave, it will cough up the rest. It's not settled, but there is, of course, some relief for me in the possibility of such an outcome.
It will nevertheless leave a filthy aftertaste: once again, no clear principle will have been established, discrimination will slip by, and someone else will deal with exactly the same situation in a few weeks or months. Pregnant fellows beware.
Would you like to write for Academics Anonymous? Do you have an idea for a blog post about the trials, tribulations and frustrations of university life? Get in touch: claire.shaw@theguardian.com.
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