Motherhood
- 5 minsNews: Motherhood is great, however…
I have kept quiet so far about the biggest news of my life, simply because I honestly had hardly any time to sit down, breathe, and gather my thoughts. Now that I finally do, it feels important to write this down. This experience has triggered so many reflections that I fear, if I don’t imprint them somewhere, I might one day forget them. A wicked thought.
I found out I was pregnant by chance, and it came as quite a shock to my husband and me. First and foremost because we had been told we couldn’t have children. Statistics and odds, right? I should have learned by now that even when chances are tiny, they are never zero.
We loved every bit of it. The growing belly, the endless list of forbidden foods, the vitamins (how many I forgot to take…), the nausea, the decaf coffee (how much I drank), the routines, the sweetness and tenderness of it all. We even loved the birth. It was a fantastic, very primordial experience. Painful, yes—but beautiful, thanks to a wonderful Hebamme (from Venice, Italy) and the hospital tub. Thank you, Unispital, for making this possible.
Then came the two days, two weeks, two months of ups and downs: hardly any sleep, hardly any weight gain for my son—did I mention hardly any sleep? I was so worried.
I kept working, though. Not because I had to—my PhD supervisor was incredibly supportive and truly wanted me to enjoy every bit of my Mutterschaftsurlaub. I worked because it kept me from being chewed up by fear and anxiety. Strange, right? Running thousands of simulations kept my brain busy enough not to spiral into weighing my son over and over and checking ten times a second whether he was breathing at night. So yes—thanks to the end of the PhD for keeping me sane.
Sounds good so far.
What was not good were the many things in between. I’ll list a few as they come to mind:
– Train travel while pregnant. Commuting from the village to Zürich Stadelhofen and back, sitting on the stairs inside the train because people wouldn’t offer a seat—or looked at me sideways, as if their bag deserved it more. This happened so many times that I eventually upgraded from 2nd class to 1st class just to increase my chances of sitting down. Not cool—especially on a PhD salary, even in Switzerland.
– The Hebamme system. Hear me out. I understand this might work well under private insurance, but competence shouldn’t be a matter of luck. None of the three Hebammen we had noticed that my son had a tongue-tie, which was the main reason he couldn’t suck properly and struggled to gain weight. I still find this astonishing.
– The Kita system. Here I need to breathe deeply.
The system is, frankly, insane. It effectively forces mothers to reduce their workload. Why? Because no sane parent—unless financially desperate—would feel comfortable with the conditions many babies face.
In Switzerland you get about four months of maternity leave. Then: back to work. Fine. But who looks after the baby?
Realistically, there are three options: You stay home (financially unrealistic for years), you hire a nanny (very expensive, i.e. up to 40 CHF net per hour, but individualized care), or you embrace the Kita-system.
Kitas, or better known as “we put you on the waiting list” aka “you should have booked a place for your child once you knew you were pregnant”. No joking. How does that work: you place your baby in a group with ten or more children, supervised by at most two caregivers. That means a four-month-old with virtually no immune defenses is mixed with toddlers up to three years old. If lucky, someone holds them for ten minutes. Otherwise they spend long stretches in a bouncy chair while older kids run, kick, or bump into them. Yes—I have seen this. I could say more, but I don’t want to write in anger.
If this is the system we’re supposed to accept, we should at least question it before committing to it. I chose differently because I was fortunate enough to afford a nanny. I know how lucky that makes me. Many friends had to choose family over career and now hope to re-enter a hyper-competitive job market years later.
What puzzles me most is the silence. The lack of collective outrage. These are basic rights—about everyday life, about how we raise the next generation. This isn’t a blurred perspective of a 30-year-old Neapolitan in Switzerland. It’s the voice of a woman who cares deeply about ordinary life and the structures that shape it.
These are fragments, pieces—but together they summarize what I’ve seen.
On academia and research: Apart from one colleague who misinformed me about the risks of defending my PhD after giving birth (I’ll refrain from commenting further—some people simply shouldn’t hold positions in academia), I received extraordinary support.
- My PhD supervisor, whom I want to thank out loud: THANK YOU HARALD BUGMANN.
- My colleagues at ETH, in particular Olalla who is an incredible mother and incredible scientist.
- My current postdoc team (THANK YOU Resource Analysis at WSL!).
I was lucky to find an academic village that truly cares about my wellbeing and my son’s.
You give me strength—and that is all I need to keep moving forward.
Best, Gina