Where do the boundaries lie?

I've been finding it difficult to draw boundaries in my life since becoming a post-doc. I look at the other post-docs with whom I've worked closely. They seem to fall into two camps: those with a family (and kids) and those without. The ones with families seem to have much less trouble separating their work lives from their personal lives. They work at work, they don't work at home. Weekends are for relaxation and spending time with family.

When single, the expectations are different. If you're at work, you should work. If you're at home, well, you should work, too. Weekends? Just time for more work. Time spent doing something for yourself that doesn't accomplish something for work should make you feel guilty. If you're single, you should be chained to the bench and not desire any sort of life beyond that.

On some level, I understand that mentality. The point of a post-doc, in the current academic climate, is to get as many good quality papers as possible to help springboard you to a better position. In that regard, it would make sense to work as hard as you can to make that happen, especially if a family is something you want in the future. Work hard now, while unencumbered, so as to reap benefits later.

But. What if there isn't a goal of a family? Is it wrong to want to learn what excites you, in addition to science? Find those things that make you happy? Start now, before you have the responsibilities of teaching and of training your own students and post-docs, trying to figure out how to achieve some sort of balance? Broaden your mind beyond the confines of a narrowly, intensely focused sub-sub-field?

A recent study at, I think, Berkeley, showed that the majority of post-docs reported being depressed, taking anti-depressants, and (almost every single one) sometimes being too depressed to make it in to work. Part of that has to be the current climate--post-doc periods become longer, tenure-track jobs more scarce, funding more difficult to come by. Also, as a group, we're fairly poor, some of us with large students loans, others with the expenses of children.

Once upon a time, you graduated with your PhD, did a post-doc where you worked really long, hard hours, then started a tenure-track position, where (at least it's my perception) tenure was a less difficult hurdle to clear. It was more feasible to try to hold off on starting a family, or settling down and developing hobbies or other interests outside of science when the period of time involved was a few years. For many of us, our PIs came of age during that period, hence the expectations placed upon us to be like them.

However, as post-doc periods stretch closer to 10 years than 3, that doesn't work. If you wait until you achieve the coveted tenured position, kids may well be biologically out of the picture and you will have spent a large percentage of your life single-mindedly pursuing a single goal. Maybe that's OK. If the goal is an important one to you, if the question you seek to answer excites you, maybe that's enough to make it your entire life.

But what if it isn't? What if you need a little more? What if that single minded pursuit isn't healthy for you? Then what? The guilt of not meeting expectations isn't healthy either, nor is the worry that you've not done enough to ever be able to get a real job. Perhaps I would be less bothered, and more willing to totally give myself over to the work, if I loved my question more. Maybe. But I think, for me at least, that the key to balance lies in learning where to place the boundary lines and how high to build the fences. In learning when to give in and when to push back. How hard to push. And I wonder--is this a harder life lesson for women than men? I wonder...