I got back to work from my last maternity leave 7 ½ months ago and until now I haven’t had to travel for business. I like travelling on business (I guess most of us do) because you get to experience countries and cities that you’d probably otherwise not visit if you had to pay for it.
But ever since I had children, I’ve tried minimising business travel, because it’s really hard being away. I miss the kids, I feel like I’m abandoning them, and a whole other range of emotions come to play.
So last week I was in the US. It was a Tuesday to Tuesday trip and so not only I was away during the week but I was also not there at the weekend. To add to it, the kids were on Easter break, so they were all at home the whole time.
I left them in the capable hands of our fab nanny and my husband. I tried to call over Skype most days but because of the time zone difference (I was 8 hours behind on the west coast) I could only speak to them briefly in the afternoon (my morning) before going to work. My evenings in the hotel were quite lonely because over here everyone was sleeping.
I had and have quite mixed feelings about the topic of travelling for business when you have kids. On one hand, if you are fortunate enough to have a job where travelling is a requirement and you get to go to some cool places, that is great and I love it. But on the other hand, there’s the emotional toll of leaving the kids behind for a period of time.
I hadn’t given it much thought up until now because I hadn’t had the need to travel for a while, but now there was this trip to the US, there’s another one coming to India and a third to Estonia, all in a fairly short time frame… so I’m sure the kids will feel it.
The hardest part about it was that my son, Mr A, was always shying away from every Skype call. He didn’t want to see me or talk to me. Even when I got back, he didn’t run to me with open arms like the other two, he shied away… as if to punish me for leaving. That was hard to take.
My little one Miss A had a bad fall over the weekend and had a huge scab all over her nose when I got back… I wondered if I would have been able to prevent it, had I been there.
I don’t feel guilty about the fact that I go off to work every day, and that my job implies the occasional trip. I actually feel fortunate that in the job of providing for my family I do work that I love. But, in the quiet moments of the evenings while I was away, I couldn’t stop but thinking that before I came I was longing for some peace and quiet, and now that it had come, I couldn’t wait for all the noise again…