I am writing this piece in a bit of an impulse. It has been several months now since life was normal. I used to have childcare support and I could often go outside to work, to run errands or for any other reason. Now, my 2‐year‐old daughter wakes me up at about 6:30 AM and I play with her until lunchtime. She takes a 2‐hour nap in the afternoon, a period I use for remote work meetings. When she wakes up, I stay with her until around 7:00 PM. Then it is TV and dinner time for her and work time for me again. She typically goes to bed at 8:30 PM, and I stay in her room until about 9:30 PM. At that point, I am exhausted. I can rarely work at that time. I have been in self‐isolation at home with my elderly mother, who is at high risk for SARS‐CoV‐2 infection. Of course, it does not help that I no longer can count on external childcare and that in my country the response to COVID‐19 has been the second worst in the world, with potential to become the worst soon.

I decided to write this essay while reading one of those e‐mails that make your hands shake and increase your heart rate. It was a message from Dr Alessandro Prinetti, Chair of the ISN‐CAEN Committee, informing the result of my ISN‐CAEN Career Interruption Re‐entry Grant application, which I had applied for last April. As I opened his email and I read those words we are always happy to see in the computer screen: “I am delighted to inform...”. I confess that I stopped reading right there, and after cheerfully sharing the news with my daughter, my husband (by email) and my mom, a little movie started to play in my head.

Being a first‐time mom, a scientist, professor, mentor, wife, daughter and the main childcare provider has been very challenging. I met my husband in Boston 10 years ago during my sabbatical at Harvard and we have been married for 4 years now. Because I am a tenured professor in Brazil and he owns a company in Boston, we had to resort to a long‐distance relationship. Many colleagues do not readily acknowledge or fully understand some of the challenges of being a mom and how it influences the career of academic professionals, so I will describe them briefly.

Our daughter was born in December 2017 and I stayed out of the lab on maternity leave for 6 months. During that period, working on cognitively demanding tasks requiring a lot of attention was difficult, to say the least. Breast feeding and waking up at odd hours at night made me feel tired and sleepy and, because my husband was away most of the time, the regular chores of taking care of a newborn baby were doubled on me. However, because the graduate students I supervise had their theses and dissertations timelines, I still felt compelled to mentor them, in addition to writing grants and submitting papers, but the outcome was not the same as it used to be in the past. I felt first‐hand what most Universities/Research Centers now see as a major problem for women in science. Maternity has been shown to negatively affect women’s scientific career in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics areas) and definitely contributes to gender imbalance and women underrepresentation in STEM Jobs (Cech and Blair‐Loy, 2019, Huang et al., 2020). Cech and Blair‐Loy’s (2019) longitudinal study performed in the USA revealed that 4–7 years after birth or adoption of their first child, a striking proportion (43%) of new mothers leave full‐time STEM employment (as opposed to 23% of new fathers). In addition, a significant proportion of new parents in this group—38% of new fathers and an impressive 71% of new mothers—cited the reason for departing from STEM jobs as “family related” when compared with respondents that have no children. This scenario clearly illustrates how challenging it is for new mothers to sustain full‐time careers in STEM. Indeed, I faced many situations that made me think about quitting my job. The above‐mentioned study concludes that full‐time work in STEM fields is particularly difficult for new parents, especially new mothers, to combine with childcare responsibilities, and suggest that organizations and public policies should engage in legislative, institutional, and cultural changes in order to change this scenario.

In addition to the impact of motherhood on my career, there is also an unprecedent economic and political crisis in Brazil with terrible consequences for science and scientific careers. The federal investment in science and education in Brazil has all but stopped. Personally, my time to write grants is much more limited now and because of my teaching load (approximately 9 hr per week for 15 weeks per semester, this is in one of the country’s top research universities), administrative meetings, student mentoring in the laboratory, and family duties, I could not find a way to further increase my work hours. Of course, since March2020, given theCOVID‐19 pandemic, the negative effect on women in STEM has been even worse (Langin, 2020). I had to move to my mother´s house, because she is elderly and belongs to the high‐risk group (by the way, another factor that disproportionally impacts women in STEM is taking care of aging parents). As with many other families, I no longer have access to childcare. Thus, I have to care for a two‐year‐old full‐time, work during her sleeptimes, and take extra care in the household to avoid any of us contracting SARS‐CoV‐2 infection. I try to schedule laboratory and administrative meetings during my daughter’s nap time but, when it is not possible, I have to rely on my mother’s help. In fact, I am writing this text during one of these short breaks. On the top of everything, as many other academics, I have to prepare remote classes. I dream of the day that I will have 4‐6 straight hours to dedicate to my academic duties and, more importantly, to lab projects. I love being with my family, but the impact on my career is noticeable and I would certainly struggle to be able to maintain a research lab. In fact, there is a worldwide concern that the COVID‐19 pandemic will further deepen the gender gap and gender inequalities in scientific careers, above all for mothers of young children (Staniscuasky et al. 2020). In the case of Brazil, a study performed with 15,000 women in science (graduate students, post‐docs and PIs) showed that the pandemic is hitting mostly the scientific productivity of mothers of children under 12 years old (Parent in Science, 2020)

Different institutions are starting to recognize the disproportional impact that women in STEM are subjected. If we want to be inclusive and keep academia diverse, initiatives to support teaching load reduction, paid leave, flexible working hours, paused grants during maternity leave, and no‐cost grant extension are needed. Most importantly, institutions need to provide affordable childcare if they want to maintain women in STEM. Scientific societies, such as the International Society for Neurochemistry (ISN) also have an important role to support diversity in science. Initiatives to foster Neurochemistry and consider the needs of primary childcare providers are a welcome support.

Being awarded with the ISN‐CAEN Career Reentry Grant was a breath of fresh air and has been—and will continue to be—invaluable to me, especially in the present pandemic scenario. In addition to support critical experiments for my students, it reassures me that I am in the right direction and makes me proud that the scientific society I belong to cares for parenting scientists. This makes the challenges and sacrifices that I am facing daily worth it.

When a woman scientist takes a maternity leave, there is a great chance she will face reduced productivity, therefore more funding mechanisms such as the CAEN Reentry Grant offered by ISN are invaluable to help bridge productivity gaps. In such daring times for science, particularly in Brazil, support to help women maintain a minimum level of productivity is not just welcomed, it is a moral imperative if we are serious in our quest for equal opportunities.

I am extremely thankful to ISN for supporting scientists that are primary childcare providers and have had maternity or paternity impact their careers. On behalf of all parents working on neurochemistry I want to acknowledge ISN, and concluding by noting that such initiatives to support diversity in science are in the best interest of science itself.

我有点冲动地写这篇文章。距离生活正常已经有几个月了。我曾经有托儿服务，我可以经常外出工作、跑腿或出于任何其他原因。现在，我 2 岁的女儿在早上 6:30 左右叫醒我，我和她一起玩到午餐时间。她在下午小睡 2 小时，这是我用于远程工作会议的时间。当她醒来时，我和她待到晚上 7:00 左右。然后是她的电视和晚餐时间，又是我的工作时间。她通常在晚上 8 点 30 分上床睡觉，而我则在她的房间里待到晚上 9 点 30 分左右。在那一点上，我已经筋疲力尽了。那时我很少能工作。我和年迈的母亲一直在家自我隔离，她感染 SARS-CoV-2 的风险很高。当然，

我决定在阅读其中一封让您的手颤抖并增加您的心率的电子邮件时写这篇文章。这是 ISN-CAEN 委员会主席 Alessandro Prinetti 博士发来的消息，通知了我去年 4 月申请的 ISN-CAEN 职业中断重新进入补助金申请的结果。当我打开他的电子邮件时，我读到那些我们总是很高兴在电脑屏幕上看到的文字：“我很高兴通知......”。我承认我在那里停止了阅读，在与我的女儿、我的丈夫（通过电子邮件）和我的妈妈愉快地分享了这个消息之后，一部小电影开始在我的脑海中播放。

成为第一次当妈妈、科学家、教授、导师、妻子、女儿和主要的托儿服务提供者是非常具有挑战性的。10 年前，我在哈佛休假期间在波士顿遇到了我的丈夫，我们已经结婚 4 年了。因为我是巴西的终身教授，而他在波士顿拥有一家公司，我们不得不求助于异地恋。许多同事并不容易承认或完全理解做妈妈的一些挑战以及它如何影响学术专业人士的职业生涯，所以我将简要介绍一下。

我们的女儿出生于 2017 年 12 月，我休产假离开实验室 6 个月。在那个时期，至少可以说，从事需要大量注意力的认知要求高的任务是困难的。母乳喂养和晚上在奇怪的时间醒来让我感到疲倦和困倦，因为我丈夫大部分时间都不在家，所以照顾新生儿的日常琐事加倍了我。然而，因为我所指导的研究生有他们的论文和论文时间表，我仍然觉得有必要指导他们，除了写资助和提交论文，但结果和过去不一样了。我亲身感受到了大多数大学/研究中心现在认为科学界女性面临的主要问题。2019 年，黄等人，2020 年）。切赫和布莱尔-洛伊 ( 2019) 在美国进行的纵向研究显示，在第一个孩子出生或收养后 4-7 年，有惊人比例 (43%) 的新妈妈离开全职 STEM 工作（而新爸爸的这一比例为 23%）。此外，与没有孩子的受访者相比，该组中相当大比例的新父母——38% 的新父亲和令人印象深刻的 71% 的新妈妈——将离开 STEM 工作的原因视为“与家庭有关”。这种情况清楚地说明了新妈妈在 STEM 中维持全职职业是多么具有挑战性。事实上，我遇到过许多让我考虑辞职的情况。上述研究得出的结论是，新父母，尤其是新妈妈，在 STEM 领域的全职工作尤其难以与育儿责任相结合，

除了母亲身份对我的职业生涯的影响之外，巴西还发生了前所未有的经济和政治危机，给科学和科学事业带来了可怕的后果。巴西对科学和教育的联邦投资几乎停止了。就个人而言，我现在写赠款的时间更加有限，而且因为我的教学量（每周大约 9 小时，每学期 15 周，这是在全国顶尖的研究型大学之一）、行政会议、实验室的学生指导和家庭责任，我找不到进一步增加工作时间的方法。当然，自 2020 年 3 月以来，鉴于 COVID-19 大流行，STEM 对女性的负面影响更加严重（Langin，2020）。我不得不搬到我母亲家，因为她年纪大了，属于高危人群（顺便说一下，另一个对 STEM 女性影响不成比例的因素是照顾年迈的父母）。与许多其他家庭一样，我不再获得托儿服务。因此，我必须全职照顾一个两岁的孩子，在她睡觉的时候工作，并在家里格外小心，以免我们中的任何人感染 SARS-CoV-2。我试图在女儿午睡时间安排实验室和行政会议，但如果不可能，我必须依靠母亲的帮助。事实上，我是在这些短暂的休息中写这篇文章的。最重要的是，和许多其他学者一样，我必须准备远程课程。我梦想有一天我将有 4-6 个小时连续致力于我的学术职责，更重要的是，到实验室项目。我喜欢和家人在一起，但对我的职业生涯的影响是显而易见的，我肯定很难维持一个研究实验室。事实上，全世界都担心 COVID-19 大流行将进一步加深科学职业中的性别差距和性别不平等，尤其是对有幼儿的母亲而言（Staniscuasky 等人。2020 年）。以巴西为例，一项针对 15,000 名科学界女性（研究生、博士后和 PI）的研究表明，这一流行病主要打击了 12 岁以下儿童的母亲的科学生产力（科学界的家长，2020 年）

不同的机构开始认识到 STEM 领域的女性受到的不成比例的影响。如果我们想要包容并保持学术界的多元化，就需要支持减少教学负担、带薪休假、灵活工作时间、产假期间暂停补助金和免费延长补助金的举措。最重要的是，如果机构想要在 STEM 中保持女性，就需要提供负担得起的托儿服务。国际神经化学学会 (ISN) 等科学协会在支持科学多样性方面也发挥着重要作用。促进神经化学和考虑初级儿童保育提供者需求的举措是受欢迎的支持。

获得 ISN‐CAEN 职业再入学补助金是一股清新的空气，对我来说一直而且将继续是无价的，尤其是在目前的大流行情况下。除了支持我的学生进行批判性实验之外，它让我确信我的方向是正确的，并让我为我所属的科学社会关心育儿科学家而感到自豪。这让我每天面临的挑战和牺牲变得值得。

当一名女科学家休产假时，她很有可能会面临生产力下降的问题，因此更多的资助机制，如 ISN 提供的 CAEN Reentry Grant，对于帮助弥合生产力差距非常宝贵。在科学如此大胆的时代，特别是在巴西，支持帮助女性保持最低水平的生产力不仅受到欢迎，而且如果我们认真寻求平等机会，这在道义上也是必要的。

我非常感谢 ISN 支持作为主要儿童保育提供者并且对他们的职业生涯产生过产假或陪产假影响的科学家。我代表所有从事神经化学工作的父母向 ISN 致谢，并在最后指出，支持科学多样性的此类举措符合科学本身的最大利益。