Parents Who Work Away

Learning to Make Distance Work: What Families Across Sectors Can Teach Us

When people ask me who I work with, there is sometimes an expectation that I should be able to name one sector.

• Military families
• Humanitarian families
• Diplomatic families
• Oil and gas
• Business travellers
• FIFO (Fly In, Fly Out) or DIDO (Drive In, Drive Out) families
• Rotational workers

And I understand why. Different industries have different cultures, working patterns, risks and resources. There are organisations doing excellent work to support employees and families in particular sectors, and some sectors have developed genuinely valuable resources over many years. Because the thing I am interested in isn’t the sector.

It is what happens to a family when work repeatedly takes one parent away from home. And how do families who have been doing this for years make it work?

One Parent is Gone for Work, the Other is Home-Based

Think about the range of families who may be living with prolonged or repeated separation because of work.

There are:

• military families managing deployments and exercises
• humanitarian families navigating field postings, emergency deployments and unaccompanied assignments
• diplomatic families where a posting, security situation or career decision means the family cannot relocate together
• international business travellers who are constantly coming and going. Some travel over 200 days per year
• executives and consultants who spend weeks travelling
• airline pilots and cabin crew who work away from home
• seafarers and merchant navy families
• oil and gas workers on rotational schedules
• mining workers living on FIFO or DIDO arrangements
• construction workers working on remote or major infrastructure projects
• energy workers on rotational assignments
• emergency and disaster response workers
• doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals working long or irregular shifts
• police officers, firefighters and other emergency services
• truck drivers and long-distance transport workers
• railway workers
• entertainers, musicians and performers who tour
• professional athletes and sporting teams
• film and television crews working away for weeks or months
• academics and researchers who travel extensively
• scientists working on remote or international projects
• people working in Antarctica and other extreme environments
• space professionals and astronauts whose work can involve long periods away, intense training and unusual schedules
• seasonal workers
• offshore and maritime professionals
• and increasingly, people whose jobs are simply becoming more geographically distributed.

The circumstances, uniforms, pay scales, terminology and organisational cultures may be different. And each sector will have its own specificities. But the family sitting at home is still a family. And one parent is not physically present on a daily basis. And that is what I keep coming back to.

From Humanitarian Spouse to Diplomatic Spouse

This isn’t a new interest for me. I have been living this reality personally since 2005. And since 2019, I have been looking at it professionally as well.

I have experienced what it means to be the home-based spouse while your partner’s work repeatedly takes them away. I have experienced the practical load, the emotional load, the parenting questions, the uncertainty, the resentment and the particular kind of loneliness that can come from being the person who is physically at home while carrying so much of the family life.

And over the years, I have had hundreds of conversations with people living variations of the same reality across sectors: I see the same challenges and the same patterns that make all the difference.

I’ve heard the following sentences from humanitarians, business travellers, military staff, rotational workers, and their home-based mums or dads:

• “I’ve been away building refugee camps for most of my son’s life, now as a teen he won’t listen to me.”
• “I’m missing all my children’s major events.”
• “The only time we needed couple’s therapy was when he came home.”
• “When he’s away, everything is on me. When he comes home, I resent him for not understanding how hard it has been.”
• “We are making this work professionally, but I don’t want our family to become two separate lives.”

Different sectors. Very similar human experiences.

The experience can involve exhaustion and, for the parent who remains at home, resentment — particularly when they don’t have enough support, recognition, rest or space for themselves. Exhaustion is one of the first things I identify in my very first conversations with home-based spouses.

The parent who is away may experience loneliness and guilt, even when they are highly experienced in their profession. For them, there is the very real fear and risk of losing connection with their children.

You may be asking these questions as you live this:

• How do you remain emotionally present when you aren’t physically present?
• How do you continue to parent together when you aren’t living in the same place?
• How do you respond to what children feel when a parent leaves?
• And how do you make coming home work when returning to the same house doesn’t necessarily mean returning to the same family rhythm?

Then there are emergencies. What happens when something goes wrong and you are in different countries? When a child is struggling? When the parent at home is at breaking point? Or when the travelling parent is dealing with something difficult and can’t simply come home?

These are not exclusively challenges lived by those in the military sector, or humanitarians or those in oil and gas.

They are family problems created or intensified by the way work is organised.

Why Parents Who Work Away Need to Look Beyond Their Own Industry

There are some excellent resources already available. But here is the problem: people don’t always look outside their own sector. If you work in business, you may never think to search the oil and gas industry for ideas about managing repeated separation. If you work in oil and gas, you may not find a military family resource to help you understand what happens when a parent returns home after weeks away. A humanitarian organisation may not be looking at research from FIFO families. A diplomatic family may not realise that some of the most useful thinking about maintaining connection across distance has been developed in another field. The knowledge exists but it is often sitting in silos.

Learning to Make Distance Work: What Families Across Sectors Can Teach Us

This is why I want to stay cross-sectional. I don’t want to reinvent something that is already working simply because it was developed for a different profession. If a military family has found an effective way of helping children prepare for a parent’s departure, why shouldn’t a humanitarian family learn from it? If an oil and gas company has developed a good approach to supporting families through rotational work, a business that has employees travelling constantly can learn from it. I want to bring all the pieces of knowledge together.

Not to pretend that all sectors are the same. They aren’t. A parent deployed on a military operation is living something very different from an executive flying to London three times a week. A humanitarian worker in a conflict zone faces risks that a construction worker on a rotation may not. An astronaut’s experience is obviously very different from that of a consultant.

As I have researched this since 2019, and spoken with and interviewed people from very different sectors, I have become increasingly convinced that while the circumstances may vary, some of the strategies that help families thrive are remarkably consistent.

At the heart of it is the idea that you are still one family unit, even when you are not living under one roof. Staying connected doesn’t happen automatically; it requires intention. The way the home-based spouse talks about the travelling parent matters too. Language that communicates respect, appreciation and connection — rather than continually reinforcing the absence and the burden it creates — can make a significant difference to the atmosphere within the family.

I have also repeatedly seen the importance of the home-based parent being able to make the arrangement work for themselves, rather than simply surviving until their partner comes home. Having their own interests, relationships, routines and support, and finding ways to avoid becoming overwhelmed by carrying everything at home, matters enormously. The wellbeing of the person at home is not secondary to the travelling parent’s work; it is part of making the whole arrangement sustainable.

And for the parent who is away in families that make it work? They stay involved in family life even when they are physically elsewhere: keeping themselves informed about what is happening at home, staying engaged in parenting and maintaining emotional connection with their children. And when they are home, being fully present matters — not simply being physically back, but actively stepping back into family life, reconnecting with their partner and children, and sharing the load. Participants in my Master’s research repeatedly answered my question: ‘How did you know your father cared when you were growing up as he was frequently away?’ with ‘He was very involved when he was home’.

So that is why I am not focusing on one sector. For me and for the hundreds of families living with a parent who works away from home, what’s important is hearing what other families do to make this life work. And that is what I do.

Want more? Read Long-Distance Relationship with Kids Involved – Rhoda Bangerter

OR if you are ready to go deeper and learn more about how to make this life work, here are the resources inside my Apart But Together Resource Centre that will help you most.

❤️ I’m the home-based partner

• Managing Intense Emotions
• Overcoming Resentment
• Reducing Stress
• Personal Development Plan
• Planting Seeds
• Life Balance Survey

✈️ I’m the travelling partner

• How to Engage Your Child on the Phone
• Coming Home After a Trip
• Connecting While Away
• 25 sticky note messages a parent can leave their child-ren
• Leave the Mental Load at home for travelling mums

👨‍👩‍👧 We’re trying to parent across distance

• Parenting Together Workshop and Personal Notebook
• Ideas to Include the Travelling Parent
• Rituals to foster connections before, during and after a trip
• The Distance Parenting Reflection Guide: 10 Questions to Help Dads Stay Connected When Work Takes You Away

💕 We want to strengthen our relationship

• Humour in LDRs
• Strong Couple Workshop and Personal Notebook
• Repairs Across The Distance
• Top Tips for Connecting Across Difficult Timezones
• Maximise Your Phone Calls in LDR
• Playful and easy games for long-distance couples
• Communication Course For Couples Who Spend Time Apart
• Reflection Questions – Being A Strong Couple When Living Apart
• Shared Life Audit
• 25 Questions Every Long-Distance Couple and Split Location Couple Should Discuss