By Parenting in the Real World

Parenting in the Real World

Nov 19, 2010 | 3:20 PM

The concept of Recession and what is happening in the corporate financial world means nothing to me.

 I have no clue of stock value and market prices or what is happening on the proverbial “Wall Street” front.

 What I do know is my husband works away and I raise five kids with his love and support from another province.

I know I look forward to his texts and phone calls and I long to feel his touch while he is away. I know I miss him and I know that in order for us to pay our bills “voluntary single parenting” is my life these days.

I say voluntary because he doesn’t have to work away. He could be here with us but with that would come the loss of our home and the amenities we value.

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We did not plan to live in two separate places – one being our home and one being a hotel room in the middle of another province. We did not plan to communicate by phone and electronics and share milestones via Facebook but we DID plan to make our life and marriage work through it all.

We acknowledge that life’s challenges are hard and staying connected takes a lot of work. We talk of the struggles I have at home and those he has away from home. We try to adjust and make our worlds and responsibilities mesh on his days off. We accept that sometimes the meshing is messy, twisted and painful and doesn’t work smoothly some days.

 It has taken years to not resent and loath the others absence and this is something we have not perfected.

We now accept our imperfections and reach out together from separate spaces and lives.

We are working from the premise of Progress not Perfection and we rely on the theory of simply – “Giving it to God”.

Family life is twisted and chaotic and worth all the bumps and bruises. It is worth the heartache and lessons and full of surprises and revelations.

I challenge other parents who are separated by jobs to start talking and connecting and working on togetherness.

 I challenge you to reach out and connect and acknowledge the pain. Honesty, although somewhat painful, is the only way to live.

We cannot control the economy but what we can control is if we let the pain of this recession into our homes.

Shelly Carriere has a Bachelor Social Work Degree from University of Regina. She is married to her husband of seven years and has five children: three months, three years, seven years, eleven years and seventeen years old. She is currently a columnist for paNOW.com.