When Jerry Strauss, M.D., Ph.D., started his scientific career in the 1970’s, no one was talking about the notion of a work-life balance. Research was a monastic tradition of long hours and little glory, and Strauss accepted that.  

“I worked like crazy and my family life was a blur -- I don’t even remember my children growing up,” said Strauss, dean of the school of medicine at the Virginia Commonwealth University. “But it was worthwhile because I was trying to achieve something, to solve medical problems through my work in the laboratory.”  

Looking back, Strauss doesn’t regret his decisions, though he concedes that the next crop of researchers is trying to achieve more of a balance between work and family life. One of those junior investigators, John White, Ph.D., commented at a gathering of Careers at the Scientific Interface (CASI) award recipients at the Burroughs Wellcome Fund in Research Triangle Park, NC last summer that he didn’t want his personal life to be a blur, sharing that he had a nine-month old that he didn’t want to miss growing up. 

According to a recent survey of scientists and researchers working around the globe, that work-life balance is difficult to achieve. A majority of the 4225 active researchers surveyed said that family responsibilities clash with their professional duties at least two to three times a week. Though the survey was administered by the Association for Women in Science (AWIS), it found that men and women alike are struggling to find a balance.     

Strauss and his fellow BWF panelists Rai Winslow, Ph.D., and Dana Pe’er, Ph.D., a CASI recipient, have all experienced the demands of running a lab, doing good science, and having a life. To each of them, succeeding in that balancing act meant giving something up.  

“I absolutely could not sacrifice my daughters and my time with them -- I am a very involved mother both one-on-one and in their school,” said Pe’er. “I could not sacrifice my science and I put my heart and soul into that. So I pretty much sacrificed myself, my sleep, and my workouts. In fact, I think since my Burroughs Wellcome interview I’ve gained about 70 pounds. My sacrifice was my health.”  

Even though Pe’er chose to make family a priority, her career has flourished, and she is now an assistant professor of biological sciences at Columbia University. Columbia is one of many universities and academic institutions with flexible workplace policies such as parental leave, stop the tenure clock provisions and child care centers. Yet many researchers don’t feel that their places of employment are truly family-friendly. In the AWIS survey, one third of researchers said that ensuring good work-life integration has negatively impacted their careers. Some even delay having children (nearly 40% of women respondents, 27% of men) because of their jobs.

In 2011 the White House and the National Science Foundation launched the Career-Life Balance Initiative, a ten-year effort to promote gender-neutral, family-friendly practices. For example, the NSF will allow researchers to delay or suspend their grants without penalty in order to care for a newborn or newly adopted child. Even with such policies in place, it is still difficult to quantify how much effort is necessary to make that critical discovery, publish that paper, or secure tenure. Working parents are constantly going to be faced with choices on where to spend their time, even if some decisions like stopping the clock are made for them at the institutional level.  

“I was so driven to work in my lab, that it was really hard for me to achieve a balance,” said Winslow, a Raj and Neera Singh Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. “Long days, long weeks -- I was completely out of touch with my family. But I truly think that is the level of devotion you need to succeed in this very tough game, particularly at this time. I still tell my students that if you are going in the academic direction, you have to be totally serious, totally committed to what it takes to succeed.”  

For those with that level of devotion, a scientific career can be very rewarding. Any given day, your sweat equity could result in a discovery that rewrites textbooks or improves health. The job involves a great degree of intellectual freedom and flexible hours, paradoxically making it even easier to achieve that work-life balance as compared to other professions. Strauss, whose wife is a corporate lawyer, often took advantage of that flexibility by bringing his son to the laboratory with him.  

“I guess I should qualify when I say my life was a blur because it doesn’t necessarily mean a bad blur. It was just happening very fast. I spent a lot of time in the lab, but I also was able to spend time with my kids and my wife,” said Strauss. “I think it is a different model than some may choose today when so many are compartmentalizing their work and family life.”  

Within that compartmentalized approach lies the mantra that you can have it all, just not at the same time. You may not be able to coach little league and secure your first R01 at the same time. Similarly, those extended travels or sabbatical may have to wait until the kids have grown and left the nest. Still, family-friendly policies are making it possible for working parents to do more, and in creating them, many institutions are also reaping benefits.  

“Establishing these policies creates an institutional halo that attracts a higher quality of graduate student or postdoc,” said Strauss. “If you have someone who has to take leave in your lab, it can be a hit in terms of productivity, but in the overall scheme of things, we all have to create a work environment that recognizes the events that take place in the usual lifespan of the people who work in our laboratories.” 

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--By Marla V. Broadfoot, Ph.D. 
Dr. Broadfoot is the author of A Place at the Bench:Women in Biomedical Research.