an unattached academic’s household of 1

I spent my postdoc years with a colleague who turned into a really good friend, let’s call her V. She, like me, and many other postdocs and young faculty, was living solo. I don’t have hard numbers, but this is roughly the norm within my broader circle.

In 2016, she attended a conference in Denmark (she was still a PhD student wo was about to graduate). She was able to visit an institute in Sweden too! During that trip, V was introduced to the concept of a “fake family” by one of her colleagues there. Basically, as a single person, you have to manage your work-life balance as if you had to take care of your family. Just as how others come home to a parent, a partner, a child, a pet or the many combination of that, you should get home and take care of your fake family. Japan, where we were working, isn’t exactly a place with a good reputation for work-life balance. Sure, it can be a case-to-case thing, but the culture really puts a premium for working long hours.

When she became a postdoc, we worked a fair amount together. Work inevitably piled up, and life became hectic, we always tried to remember to take care of our “fake family”. One November, when it came time to file our tax documents, we had to fill up the “members of the household” field with just our own names, and write down the number of our household as “1”. It was then that I realized, my family is not fake at all. Yes, I had a partner at that time, who lived long distance from me. Yes, I have parents, siblings living in another country. But the reality is, my household is made up of 1. I am my own family. I would discuss this with V a lot, especially when we were burning out from back-to-back experiments or business trips, or deadlines. In a culture where people still came to work even when they filed for holidays, we told ourselves not to do subscribe to that. We reminded each other not to feel guilty for taking days off. We have to take care of our families. Because burning out hurts me, it hurts my family, albeit my family of 1.

When I shifted from thinking “I have a fake family” to realizing that “I have a family of 1”, it taught me to set healthy boundaries. I learned that I had to take time off, disconnect from work, and take care of my family, as anyone should. I tried to manage my time and energy in a way that would keep my family healthy, and in the best case, happy.

I began my faculty position just as the pandemic hit. And because I had to move to a new city, a new institute, I ended up having no community in the worst possible time. My household of 1 was left feeling very isolated. It was extremely difficult to set boundaries in a time when work and home was just smooshed together. It was so surreal. It felt as if we were given so much leniency, but was it really? Work still had to get done. We all had to be creative in practicing self-care, but I really had a hard time – frankly, the worst time.

I’m taking a break to rebuild my family, and just recently, I’ve also been preparing for it to become a household of 2. Certainly, the healing process already began as things are slowly returning to normal, but I made a decision to give myself true rest, so that I can come back better than ever. If we could do all of that under stress and burnout, imagine what we can achieve when we’ve rested and recharged.

Please take care of your families, no matter what your ‘family’ looks like to you. Your household of 1? Treasure it, love it, treat it right.