After the euphoria of submitting my PhD thesis waned, I began to struggle with the familiar anxiety about my career prospects in the difficult academic job market. While reading blogs on post-PhD blues has been a comfort, I was not able to relate to some fellow-sufferers’ sense of loss after handing over the thesis. To the contrary, I grappled with unexpected demands on my time that disrupted what I had expected to be a stress-free, laidback period of writing for future publications and research projects. I’m hoping these experiences may resonate with some post-PhDs, especially with those who were student migrants and have returned to their home country.
After submitting my thesis for examination (meaning no longer a student, no student accommodation, and a soon expiring student visa), the following evening I was on a flight back home to Sri Lanka. The sudden shift from Singapore to Sri Lanka was disorienting to say the least. While thesis writing is a lonely experience, I felt a greater sense of isolation upon my return to Sri Lanka. The library, the student lounge, my go-to stall for comfort food – the physical landmarks of my PhD experience – were no longer available. Little pinches came in the form of emails on various talks that I couldn’t attend because I was in another country. Yet when in Singapore, updates on the latest family gossip and gatherings always made me pine for Sri Lanka.
Although occupying a liminal space is inescapable as a migrant, I worsened the situation in my naïve attempts to maintain an academic-like routine despite the utterly contrasting milieu of my home. With the “good you have submitted, now think about publishing” words of my supervisor ringing in my ears, I was eager to churn out a few articles from my thesis. Being away from the rigour of the university setting, I was rather worried that I would ‘let myself go’. By this time, I had secured a 6-month teaching post-doc for which I was preparing material, while also applying for post-doc positions.
During the final six months of the thesis writing, my movements revolved mainly around my apartment, the Geography department, the library and the food court (no gym, I brisk walked from one place to another). Back home I realised that my individualistic routine of work (and Netflix) collided with the rhythm of the household. In other words, I preferred to come down for dinner on time rather than be questioned by my grandmother as to why finishing a tricky paragraph had kept her waiting at the dinner table. I realised that I was getting a taste of the much-discussed academics’ struggle to maintain a work-life balance. Somehow I didn’t expect to experience it so early in my career, partly because most blogs I avidly read focused on struggles of parenting; we rarely talk about obligations to other family members.
Apart from the occasional visits home, living in another country and being married to my thesis (some clichés do hit the nail on the head) meant that I had kept my family duties on hold. Returning home made me feel strongly that I am much more than a PhD student, I am also a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece, a cousin and a friend. Although I treasure the company of family, relatives and friends, it was always accompanied by the nagging anxiety ‘is this enjoyment at the cost of securing a post doc or sending an article to a journal sooner?’ In addition, I couldn’t set boundaries on my time as ‘work’ and ‘pleasure’ without offending my family and friends. I was supposed to be on ‘holiday’ after finishing my PhD, so why should an unexpected visitor stress me so much (unannounced visits are still common in Sri Lanka)?
But a care crisis, where my 92 year old grandmother had a serious fall and required one month bed rest (meaning my mother and I provided intense caregiving) was the turning point of how I handled the constant tussle about spending my time on work or family. The sheer necessity to be both physically and emotionally available for my ailing grandmother made me realise that I am capable of pushing work-related thoughts out of my mind. What had been lacking was the incentive to do so. During that month, I didn’t have the time to contemplate on the possibility of missed opportunities. I simply applied myself to the task at hand. Now that my grandmother is up and about again, I catch myself returning to the old habit of worrying. I try to hold on to what I managed to do right – live in the present moment. I don’t always succeed but the pangs of guilt are less frequent.
My work on gendered eldercare relations within transnational families (published in Gender, Place and Culture) makes me wonder if some post-PhD blues are gendered. My male colleagues rarely shared these issues; many said a PhD gave them an elite status among their family and community members. I suspect they were more at the receiving end of care (and adulation). If not for some frank discussions with female post-PhDs, I would have attributed my situation to the idiosyncrasies of my family and social circle. Despite returning home with a PhD, my friends felt pressured to prove that they were equally capable in other aspects of their lives, especially in roles deemed to be natural to women. My own struggles to balance work and family are due to both gendered expectations of care and my gender conditioning to feel responsible for the well-being of my family and obligated to fulfil certain societal roles e.g. serve biscuits and copious cups of tea to visitors. Feminist politics on care does not give a go-to solution, it’s not supposed to, but it does give credence to my quandaries to fulfil commitments to those I care for and myself.
Menusha holds a doctoral degree in Geography from the National University of Singapore. She is now a postdoctoral faculty in the Humanities and Social Studies Education Academic Group at the National Institute of Education. This is an Institute of the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
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