{"id":198,"date":"2018-11-28T09:54:47","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T08:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/?p=198"},"modified":"2019-08-14T08:06:12","modified_gmt":"2019-08-14T06:06:12","slug":"sharing-the-caring-a-marine-biologists-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/2018\/11\/28\/sharing-the-caring-a-marine-biologists-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharing the caring: a marine biologist’s story*"},"content":{"rendered":"

*This time you can read an anonymous story where a marine biologist shares his experience.<\/em><\/p>\n

What is the nature of your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a background in marine biology working with plankton.<\/p>\n

Career as a researcher.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I finished a PhD in marine biology and continued as a postdoc. After obtaining a fellowship, I was offered a permanent position as a scientist.<\/p>\n

Please describe briefly your family commitments. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a wife (female) and we have three children aged 6, 14 and 16.<\/p>\n

How do you balance your work and family commitments? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I can have periods with lots of work or when I am travelling for longer durations (weeks to months) and during those periods I am focusing on work. When I am home, I take care of the transportation to and from kindergarten and also make shorter days if needed to take care of family commitments. My wife (not a scientist) has a hectic job and travels more often than me, but normally only 1-2 nights away, and then I am solely responsible for family commitments.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo by K. Toming<\/p><\/div>\n

What has helped you? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Flexible working hours is a must for balancing work and family. Personally, we are getting a lot of help from the grandparents with everyday tasks if needed (e.g. transportation of the kids).<\/p>\n

What has hindered you? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing systematically, but important deadlines will take a lot of time away from family commitments. It is important to be able to relax a bit and focus on the family after a big deadline has passed.<\/p>\n

What have been the most difficult moments in your career considering family and work-life balance?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That was when the children were small and I was at the same time on time-limited contracts trying to work to get a permanent position, which is often not that easy in science.<\/p>\n

What are your experiences of sharing family-care: (a) in your everyday life and (b) during field works?<\/strong><\/p>\n

(a) With flexible working hours, I think this works fine for us. When I am at home, my wife has the opportunity to work longer days if needed.<\/p>\n

(b) Being longer periods away is, of course, difficult, but we are fortunate to get a lot of help from grandparents during those periods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*This time you can read an anonymous story where a marine biologist shares his experience. What is the nature of your work? I have a background in marine biology working with plankton. Career as a researcher. I finished a PhD in marine biology and continued as a postdoc. After obtaining a fellowship, I was offered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":173,"featured_media":203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-work-and-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/173"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions\/264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}