When Daddy's Away
Posted by Elizabeth Foss in Homemaking on Monday, July 20, 2009 6:00 AM
When I was a little girl my father was a naval officer and I always said I’d never marry a military man because they traveled too much.
My husband isn’t a naval officer; he’s a television producer who specializes in live remote sporting events. It’s the “remote” that gets us. Until they start playing professional sports in my backyard, he’s going to travel to support his family.
We’ve been at this a long time now and I’ve learned a thing or two along the way. Mike is usually gone three days a week—sometimes more, sometimes less. Here are some ideas geared toward families who are regularly separated from Daddy a few days a week, due to travel for work:
Go along. Whenever you can, travel with your husband. When our first two children were little, the boys traveled well and we were able to stay together that way. As our family grew, that became impractical but I do have fond memories of our traveling days. Now, our children all enjoy individual “Daddy Trips” as soon as they are old enough to behave in a production truck. None of those trips would have been possible without the sacrifice that went into acquiring frequent flyer miles.
Don’t complain. When you are left at home and you feel the full weight of caring for your family on your shoulders, I know how tempting it can be to throw a pity party and invite everyone you know. Don’t do that—it will only make you miserable. Instead, develop a sense of empathy for your traveling spouse. He leaves his wife and children, misses many moments you are privileged to witness, runs through airports, eats bad food, sleeps in lumpy beds in noisy hotels. He aches for his family, but presses on in order to provide for them.
Seek support. On the other hand, do reach out for help and support. Talk to other women and network to gain support. Start a babysitting co-op with other women whose husbands travel. When my children were all little, one of the greatest oases of comfort was a friend with similarly aged children. We shared dinners frequently and then bathed all the kids in one house, considerably lightening the evening load for each other.
Get organized. The worst trips for me are the ones that sneak up on me. If you can, make plans and acquire the provisions necessary before your husband leaves.
Make a date. Set a time every day for a phone date. Even with a time difference, make it happen.
Share the small stuff. Couples who remember to tell each other little details of the day remain much more closely knit, despite the distance. It’s the little things that nurture the intimacy of really knowing what your life is like. If you stop sharing the little things, eventually you stop sharing all the little thoughts. Then, it’s harder to share the bigger thoughts and suddenly, you’re back together in the same state and you each have separate histories.
Remember rituals. Our two-year-old calls my husband’s cell phone from her bed every night to sing him the song from Love You Forever. And then, no matter where he is or what client is sitting with him at dinner, he sings it back to her (I’ve never quite figured this out). On the very rare occasion that his phone doesn’t work, she sings to his voice mail. We have precious recordings of her lisping “As long as I’m living, my Daddy you’ll be…”
Don’t ditch dinner. Make dinner every night and sit down to eat it with the children, just as if Daddy were home. Our meals are noticeably simpler when Mike’s not here, but they are still family dinners. I fight the urge to get something done while they are occupied because it really seems important to them that I sit. Consider making and freezing meals ahead of time to ease both the preparation and the evening cleanup.
Consolidate outings. My children are older now and I can usually leave them home with my eldest when I have to run errands, but not so long ago, it was the errands that killed me. It’s exhausting to do all the running and you long for someone to call and ask if you need him to pick up a gallon of milk. See if you can trade off with a neighbor to go solo. Otherwise, get really organized and don’t let yourself run out of milk.
Focus on the positive. Even when your spouse is away, remember that you are married. Single parents don’t have the ongoing emotional support of a husband. They don’t have the cheerful and willing self-sacrifice of a man who is working hard to provide the best life he can for them. They don’t have the grace of the sacrament. They don’t have the joy of a well-timed phone call. They don’t have the hope of happy reunions at the end of a trip. But you do.
Accept that you’re it. You’re all alone caring for the physical and emotional safety of a small crowd. There will be things you can’t do because your time is very different from your neighbor’s. And there will be things only your husband understands because no one else can empathize so well. Write it all down and talk about it during the next phone call. And then, be sure you sleep.
Pray. I like to pray the rosary as I go to sleep and fall asleep praying. It doesn’t matter if you don’t finish your decades and it’s way better than crying when your head hits the pillow.
—Elizabeth Foss is author of Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home
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