“You can be who ever you aspire. Just trust yourself and you will manage to achieve everything you want in life. Take ”water” as a symbol and imagine how you can move through life and find the right shape to that perticular situation. Either you can live forceful as a river or soft as a raindrop or calm as a lake.”

Our third mum of our “Mums in tech”-serie is Monika Paule. She is currently living in Lithuania with her husband and her 6 year old son. She is an Associated Professor at Vilnius Tech University, CEO & Co-founder of two companies, one gene editing company CasZyme and one edtech company Paulai Tech who develops a platform for kids education on STEM related activities.  On top of that she has also founded ’Women in Biotech’ initative in Lithuania recently. When she is not busy with above, she is spending time with her family and her son, who identifies her not only as a mother, but also as a scientist. ”My mum knows everything cause she is a scientist”, he sometimes tells her.

“We did it, I could say together”

My conversation with Monika was very inspiring. She shared her personal story and reflections of being an active professional and mother at the same time. ”It is a very though life but possible and worth achieving”, she says. Her motherhood story started when she was finalizing her PHD and working full time with several professional activities while at the same time expecting and having her son. She had a plan to finalize her PHD while expecting and having her son but the plan got prolonged and she finally defended her PHD when her son was 2 years old. She says that the aspect of having a child probably slowed her down a bit but that the main reason was not the child, but rather a demanding supervisor and the fact that she also stayed on with her other professional acitivites.”It probably slowed me down but at the same time I had the precistence to finish cause, you know, to say that you have not finished because you have a small child, I dont think its a sufficient argument.”

‘The child is a great motivator”

She continue to tell how her son actually was a motivator to continue and finish her work rather than an obsticle.

”You are in the world, not on your own anymore. You are reponsible for another person and you want to build a good life for that person, for my son in my case. It really a big motivator because sometimes thinking only about yourself, you would say ”Stop its enough”, ”I take a year off or whatever” but you can not actually do that when you have a child so it really is a motivator”.

The child also makes you prioritize your life in a different way, she says. You are not alone anymore and you have to choose were you spend your quality time in between your professional life, your family and your personal needs and hobbies. Its like a scale on if sometihng is worth doing or not, because if you do something for your family you are not doing something for yourself or your professional life and vice versa. She continues ”you also become extemely efficient”. She tells the view a professor that she met had that opened my eyes regarding hiring mothers.

“I remember one professor who said when I was expeting my son that he always want to hire young mothers to his lab and I said ”what it doesnt make sence”. Because they want to go home to their kids, they have to be extemely efficient to do the job during the day, he explained. And they want to keep the job cause they have the responsibility of their children and they need income. So they are really motivated and efficient. I do not need people in the lab who just hang around, I need results, and young mothers are the perfect candidates for that. I totally agree, that is the motivation, you have to do everything extemely efficient.”

Monika continues by emphasis on how important it is to involve your child in your work and to let them know and teach them what you are doing. She said her parents did the same with her, probably without thinking about it and now she is involving her son as much as possible in her work. She brings him to the office and to the lab to let him see how people are working. This to give him the understanding on how real life operates, what work is and to have important meetings, to have deadline etc. It also give the child an understanding of what they might want to do in the future. It is extremely important that you dont feel like you have to seperate work and homelife totally but to integrate it to some extent, she says. She also mentions that the pandemic has actually made it easier for the parents to explain and how their children what they are working with.

“You dont have to seperate everything, you know the saying ”you have to leave your work when you come back home”. It doesnt happen like that. We dont change our heads – ”I am not with my work head and now with my family head”. We are one person. If the kid know what is happening, you dont feel as much quilt if you have a deadline and can not give so much attention to the kid. If the kid understand that, its this mutual understanding that we are in this together. The same if the kid has something important happening in school, of course the parents have to dedicate time and assist. It is important that both sides understand that.”

According to EC website, Lithuania has a maternity benefit of 70 calander days prior to the birth and up to 56 days after birth while paternity benefit is paid to the father 30 days after the child birth. All paid almost 80 % of the salary. Monika explains a little bit about the cuture and situation in Lithuania from her perspective. She tells that the general understanding around parenthood in Lithuania is quite well and favorable and that she is very happy about the fact that it is also getting normal for fathers to say e.g. ”I have to end the meeing because i need to pck up my child” or ”I have to work from home because my child is sick”. The view towards who is responsible to take care of the child is getting more equal. Some employers and social groups might fall outside this but the tendency is positive. Also in her own company, they are very family oriented with two founders who have small kids – they plan their agendas taking into account picking up the kids, the kids get sick etc. Its a very important part of their company culture and they want to pass it on to their employees.

”It is a very touch life, but you learn to prioritize what is important”.

Monika went through many things when they founded the company, among others – she faced a very challanging situation having a first meeting with the strategic partners while her son got into the hospital with a very sever condition. A very difficult situation for anyone and what she learned from it (from a business perspective) was to stay calm, be transparent but still remember that you have to deliver.

“You have to stay calm, you dont have to hide from the others about something that is happening. I mean, we are all human. So as a professional, yes i will show up in the meeting and yes i might not be 100 % perfectly prepered but if you know your things, not too perfect slides wont change anything. If you trust yourself, you know how to deliver things. And sometimes its just good to pospone something. I mean if you have an important meeting but its a total disaster happening you can always pospone something but just be sencare why you are posponing it. Something has happened and we can not do that anymore. I think, after covid this will be way more acceptable – because we realize that sometimes we can not change the circumstances we are in. “

Tips for Companies: 

• Hire a mum. She will be efficient when she is working cause she want to go home to her family as soon as possible.
• Get a private health insurance. This helps your employee get well quicker because they get to the doctor quicker. What you are paying for is to have your employee back as soon as possible and that is really worth doing. Also the general health situation in the company is better which is beneficial for the company.
• Create a mutual understanding between the employee and the employer. The company can be very supportive & flexible but the job still have to be done. It doesn’t matter what it is, is it family or intensive hobbies, you have to give a certain level of trust and flexibility.
• Find a balance and let your employee find their balance, then you will have understand and support.
• The saying ”you dont have to everything 100 % quality, 80 % is enough” is totally true. If you try to be perfect everywhere, you wont be perfect in anything. Unless you are doing just one thing in life, throughout your life.
• In a start-up or as a founder, try to keep things rolling and think about how you can combine your days to have half the foot at work rather than shut down completely. E.g. working partly from home while home with a sick kid.

Tips to a woman who want a career and a family

• You dont have to destingwish a hard line between work and family. Involve and explain to your children about your work and they will understand when you have a big deadline and can’t be as present, the same way as when they have a big thing at school – you will priortize that.
• Be realistic on what you can do and set up priorities. Try to focus on whats valuable.
• Get support from others. Trust them and they will help you. Trust your kid, the grandparents, your partner or any other person in your life.
• Try to plan your day and if nesseccary try to combine things. Dont leave everything to go with the flow because there is no way you can manage that.
• Try to adapt to the new situation and find a way how you can move on in all things you are doing. E.g. if you dont have time to read books – maybe you have time to listen to them while you are making your dinner

“Maybe not tomorrow, maybe you will need a little bit longer. You will reach your goals when you are ready and when its the right time.”

Author: Camilla Wikström

Our second mum of our “Mums in tech”-serie is Liwah Wong. She is living and working as a climate scientist for the mercator research institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) in Germany. She is working on circular economy and is related to both Climate KIC and EIT RawMaterial in her work. She has a little one year old at home, Kaya, brightening up her everyday life to the fullest.

“I am not stopping and never will be, I am just slowing down a bit. Just hold your breath.”

The first biggest highlight from the conversation with Liwah, is that she mentions she is lucky to be in the academic world. She tells me that the academic world is able to provide you with a good work-life balance, at least to her and around the time she became a mum. She also let me know she worked in Singapore before and that there, it isn’t a big thing with work-life balance and her friends working outside the academia got only 2 months maternity leave while her university where she used to work, provided four. So why is it more flexible in academia? Is it because research has a longer process and work in a different phace? And what can other sectors learn from academia?

She tells me a wonderful story on how she could pursue her career and participate in being a co-author of a paper while on maternity leave:  —until here it looks nice in the newsletter, not to long not too short and after this mentioning that if they’d like to read the whole interview chekc the website

“I always worked in academia, for the reason that I love scientific research on one hand, and on the other hand, I enjoy the flexibility (workplace/time). My job is pretty much result oriented – for instance – I was invited to be a coauthor of a journal paper two months before my due date. My team acknowledged that and still welcomed me on board. I initiated the first step of the journey (extracted 3244 papers from Web of Science and Scopus using Machine Learning) and went straight into my mandatory time-off 6 weeks before the due date. My teammates took care of all the subsequent tedious work until 6 weeks after my delivery and then I took time to take over some work mainly according to my own willingness and wellness, as the final boost to the submission before 2019 ended. The whole publication journey officially ended on 6 October when our paper was accepted as a report to the IPCC AR6, and to be honest, my teammates did most of the ‘dirty works’ during my maternity leave. The fact is, being part of the IPCC report has been my dream since the Paris Agreement in 2015, I am very grateful that my pregnancy and motherhood are not the stumbling block, but indeed the endorsement of my milestone. My baby is the youngest witness. I will definitely stick with academia unless corporations offer comparable flexibility.”

Another thing I find fascinating that she is mentioning is the role models – the female leaders showing the way. She first mentioned when New-Zealand’s sitting prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, brought her kid to work. New Zealand current prime minister Jacinda Ardern also gave birth to her first child, while in office. The first woman in history giving birth as head of office – Pakistan’s late two.-time prime minister Benazir Bhutto gave birth while in office, back in 1990.

“I won’t give up my ambition, and not by any means I shall jeopardize my child(ren). So I actually became a wee bit more visionary – if a female world leader can bring her baby to the parliament, other women can bring their babies to work too. Thanks to COVID, I have the best unintended testbed. It has not been easy but it has not been impossible. I know it is still very controversial to bring babies to work, but I hope this pandemic does evolve humanity. Women’s capability can never be judged on motherhood. If one puts the blame on a baby, s/he has a problem, it’s time to reflect on her/his ability.”

She afterwards mentioned another European female leader – Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany.

“Germany is doing relatively good compared to many countries around the world. When Angela Merkel became the Chancellor, I already made up my mind to go to Germany for my studies. My gut feeling has been telling me that a country with a female leader can’t go wrong. I have been right so far. My potential next destination is New Zealand.”

Finally, I am very fascinated by Liwah also mentioning the mental health of mothers and how important it is to acknowledge and enable more possibilities for help. Do companies provide any support for women with regard to this aspect? Please hit me with an email if your company does.

Tips for Companies: 

• In Belin it is very hard to find a nursery but there is an in-house nursery in some companies where parents can leave their kid while at work. Big corporations and companies could provide some relief to parents with kids in that way.
• Otherwise, there could be a private room for parents who need to bring their kid to work for one or the other reason to not disturb the colleagues. But ultimately after COVID, there should be a possibility to work from home. 
• More companies can give the opportunity to parents on parental leave to take a leadership course or extend their studies during their parental leave. The parent can then come back to work with a new certificate and knowledge and even get a promotion. 
• Finally, if you haven’t done so yet, change the word mother and father to parent in any of the internal policies. Then mothers and fathers will automatically have the same benefits.

Tips to a woman who want a career and a family

• Only when you are sure it’s the right thing for you, everything will work itself out. No one is getting in the way of anyone. Your life, your choice. 
• Motherhood might take away quite a bit from you but it will give back triple. A baby’s world is very simple – only you & me. The kid is loving you so much more than you can ever imagine. For this one and only time in your life, you are his/her everything. You have all their trust. There is no reason why you shouldn’t enjoy and embrace the moment. Everything else can wait. 

Author: Camilla Wikström