I am a newly tenured professor and have a 6 year old child. I got pregnant and had my daughter while on the tenure track. I think that it is entirely possible to have a great career and also be a good Mom. But, there are some trade-offs that you have to be willing to make and it is essential that you have a partner that is as committed to parenting as you are. Here are the trade-offs.

1) You need good child care. My daughter has been in an excellent daycare/preschool since she was 8 months old. I have never once felt guilty for dropping her off in the morning. She loves it, her teachers love her, and she has friends, she is doing well in school (what more can you ask for).

2) You need to either pay someone to clean your house or learn to live with a messy house. Martha Stewart gets paid to live like Martha Stewart. I don't. I neither like housework nor am I good at it. I have come to accept this about myself.

3) You don't need to cook every night to be a good parent. See above.

4) You can be successful and have a rewarding career, but maybe not at the most competitive firm/university. I work at a "Research Extensive" university, am expected to be a scholar, and a teacher, and do service. However, the tenure expectations here are reasonable-I am not at Harvard, or UCLA, or Stanford. Some people might have the energy for that. I do not. I have come to accept this about myself.

5) I have only one child. If I had chosen a different career, or had started my career earlier I might have two kids. Unfortunately, niether the teunure clock, nor the biological clock can be ignored and they run a competitive race. I do know some women who have had two kids pre-tenure, gotten tenure, and have successful careers. But, I think they are the exception.

6) Finally, and I cannot emphasize this enough. It is much, much, much easier to do all of the above with a committed partner. I know that there are women (and men) who do this alone. My hat is off to them. I could not. My husband is a terrific parent and I could not have done any of this if he were not as actively engaged as he is.

The Stones said "You can't always get what you want. But, if you try sometimes you might find, You get what you need"

As a woman, I would update this by saying. You can get most of what you want, most of the time, but you have to be flexible. (not nearly as catchy)

out of curiosity, are you on the hard science or social science or arts side of the university? I have a biology PhD and gave up on the academic track because (for me) I didn't think it was a good idea to plan on getting pregnant for the first time at 36, which was when I thought I'd end up having my first job after post-docing. Whatever your specialty I appreciate very much what you wrote!

I am a social scientist, although my department is housed along with the hard-sciences in the liberal-arts and sciences college at my university. I was very lucky that at 36 I got pregnant after only a few months of trying and had a textbook easy pregnancy/delivery and had/have a healthy girl (now 6).

I think that it can be harder for women in the bio-sciences than in the social sciences for a variety of reasons-still very few women in positions of power (and men in the bio-sciences can sometimes be a little less socially sophisticated than in the social sciences), and tenure is predicated on grant-getting, just to name a few. However, I do know of one woman at my university (her son was in my daughter's class) who is in evolutionary biology and has two kids. She just got tenure too. In her case, I think it helped that her husband has worked at low-pressure, lower-paying jobs and does the lions share of the housework. I know that she had to "educate" her department chair about the nature of maternity leave ("no, I can't/wont be spending my days writing").

I do think it can be done even in the hard sciences as long as you choose your institution carefully.