Letters from OPN Readers

“Retaining Postdoc Mothers in an Academic Career” (OPN, December 2016, p.19) lacks any mention of a group critical to the authors’ goals: fathers. Keller and Garry’s proposal for a postdoctoral fellowship for new mothers highlights several reasons why additional support is needed after the birth of a child, such as the reduced ability to work long hours, handling the logistics of childcare and navigating a period of significant personal transition. Yet all new parents, not just mothers, experience these issues. Their proposed solution leaves many new parents out of the equation, including fathers of all types, adoptive moms and lesbian non-biological mothers.