I was advised to never ever use childcare responsibilities as a justification for unavailability, e.g. when rejecting meetings at late hours. Well, because, someone could think that I am not serious about science or that my kids are more important to me than my science, or something like this 🙄
But when a male colleague tells about skipping a meeting because his child is sick, everyone goes like "ah, he is such a good father!" (and a good scientist of course, anyway)
