Can I be a good scientist and a good mother? This haunting question shapes the lives of many academic women.

This book examines the double-lock linking maternity and academic careers in contemporary Italy: how motherhood--and even its anticipation--shapes recruitment, evaluation and stabilization, and how academic competitiveness and precarity, in turn, reshape fertility choices and timing.

Drawing on narrative interviews with two generations of scholars and engaging with international literature, it shows how institutional cultures and gendered expectations reinforce structural constraints while normalizing unequal trade-offs. It identifies pathways to rethink academic careers so that excellence and parenthood can coexist.