Penny Mansfield talks to Sue Brayne about the challenges of parenting while her husband (and journalist for a leading newspaper) was regularly away.

I didn’t fall in love with a journalist but as things turned out by the time we married he had become a journalist and by the time we were parents he was working for substantial periods abroad. An early dilemma for me was whether I gave up my career and followed him. At the time the work I was doing — running a longitudinal study of couples who had recently married — required me to stay in England. I decided to stay and so most of my experience of family life has involved periods of being a lone parent.

My work, first as a researcher looking at couple relationships and then as director of an organisation working for the wellbeing of couples and their families, has made me aware of the importance of the parental relationship for children, whether or not the parents remain together. I have stayed with my children’s father but that relationship has involved many separations and handling those has been a challenge. But along the way I have discovered that the inevitable disruptions can be managed, especially for the children.

That said, it’s not easy. Take the issue of landing — when the absent parent comes back. Life suddenly takes on a different pattern, and this can be a difficult adjustment for all parties.

The returning parent can feel they are almost in the way, or that they simply don’t know what their role is.

There is also the danger of them feeling inadequate because of their “super” partner who has been holding the show together in their absence is a hard act to partner. They may have returned from a situation that has disoriented — a war zone for example — so immediate re-adsorption into home life can be impossible.

Children can feel disorientated, confused and even resentful having their travelling parent back, and needing to balance their normal life and school routines with the changes.

It’s a matter of learning how to manage these feasts or famines of family life — and families do get used to it. But, I’m sure the most important component for dealing with this kind of family dynamic is the degree to which you, as the mostly-at-home parent, retain a sense of the temporarily-absent parent’s contribution to the family while they are away. By this I mean, talking to the children about the job that takes their other parent away, making sure they have regular contact with them by fax, email, or telephone.

When my children were much younger, I found it was very hard for my husband to share what he was doing with them on the telephone. Contact was brief, it came at unexpected times, the lines were bad and the conversation on both sides was stilted. Every time the call ended at this end there was a sense of things being unsaid. And I’m sure he felt though he had “got through” he hadn’t connected with their lives. I found fax machines were the best way to communicate. From a relatively early age the children could send a picture, or write a message about something that meant something to them — a school race they had won, or other such trivia. And those trivial, but important things that happened in their daily lives made a huge difference to them and to their dad. When he did get through on the phone he could tell them how pleased he was for them, or talk about their picture and so contact had a sort of continuity on both sides.

While he was on a five-week trip along the Congo River, we plotted his movements on a map of the river every time we heard from him. This was great for the children, as well as for me, because we had a real feeling for his journey. It also meant that reunion was easier; we were able to reconnect with each other’s lives quickly. While he was away the line went fainter for a while but it was, like the map of the Congo river, always there.

So, it’s about imaginative communication — and generosity on behalf of the home parent, because there is potential for a lot of anger and resentment to build up.

It’s easy to blame each other and others, such as employers, for the disruptions in family life but I had to come to terms with the fact that my husband liked the excitement of covering wars. And, I always supported him in this, and never actively stood in his way. But, I can remember a time three days before Christmas when he told me that he had been asked to go off somewhere, even though he’d recently come back from another story, and asked what I thought. ‘Do you have to ask me?’ I replied. Yet I could tell that he was terribly caught between the story, and being at home. This time, I was determined not to ‘give him permission’ to go. So, I made him take responsibility for making his choice to stay with us, rather than do the story.

From my experience, journalists sent off to cover these events do have a degree of choice in the matter, though it may be a tough choice in terms of promotion. A partner needs to recognise that journalists who travel to dangerous places are attracted to the job that they do. It’s a passion, and possibly an addiction to the adrenaline rush that goes with journalism. That may be a part of the personality of the person you’ve chosen to have a relationship with. For many of us who live with partners who travel, do we subconsciously choose this kind of relationship because we want our own space – or interruptions from the intensity of an intimate relationship? Those left at home are not necessarily hard done by.

But for children it’s not their choice and they may not be aware that it’s anger they are feeling when a parent is constantly coming and going, but it can be demonstrated in their behaviour. For example, the child may respond with ‘Oh, so you’re back’, when their parent steps through the door. Upsetting for the returning parent but, it’s a clear indication of the child’s view: ‘ You can’t come back, and turn a boring week into holiday time just because you’re here again!’

You see this much more as the children get older. But, with smaller children, they can get quite confused by a sudden change of routine, and having to readjust to having another person in the house.

Managing anxiety is an important responsibility for the home parent. And, children never miss a trick. If you are anxious, they will pick it up right away. If your partner is working in a war zone, you are bound to be anxious, perhaps terrified at times about what might happen to them. Finding some kind of comfort by talking to a friend, or a family member, or even getting some kind of professional help means that you won’t bottle it up, and take it out on the children in some way. Nobody can change things for you, but the sheer relief of just getting it off your chest is really calming, and the children will sense this calmness, and be reassured by it.

Each child will have a different response to its own anxiety of having an absent parent too. Smaller children may worry because they simply don’t understand the context, while an older child may worry because they do understand. Children are remarkably well informed about what’s going on through watching television, or the Internet, and talking to each other at school.

During the time when my husband was covering the last war in the Gulf, I remember my seven year old daughter asking ‘Why does Daddy go to do these things?’ I explained it was his job. With a perplexed look she replied:‘I love you Mummy, and I love Daddy. But I love you in different ways. I love you because you’re here with us and look after us, but what I like when Daddy comes back is he takes us on trips, and we do all kinds of crazy things’.

While her perception of our different roles as parents was accurate it was troubling for her. Maybe she was voicing the worry – what if he never comes back? For, if he never comes back, she’d be stuck with just Mummy. The at-home parent needs to have a good understanding of how their child thinks and feels to know what kind of support they need.

Some children become affected when the rhythm in their life changes. It’s stressful and disconcerting for them to go from having two parents — where they’ve been able to operate a particular way of relating — to one parent. Other children may have a stronger relationship with one parent — especially at a particular time in their development — which can cause further conflict when that parent goes away. Suddenly, there’s not the ‘right’ parent to appeal to anymore. And, this, of course, has repercussions for the at-home parent.

My kids are a lot older now, generally they never saw their father’s absence as a problem, though certain absences, birthdays especially, are not forgotten. But, I look back at it differently. There were times when I did feel resentful, and I think my resentment could have been as troubling to them as the absence of their father, though I hope I managed to channel that resentment away from them.

I particularly remember a time when I was trying to complete something I was writing for a BBC series. As usual, there was never any time to do it, and as the deadline approached I was desperate to get it finished on a particular evening. That night that my youngest child started vomiting. So, combining work and parent roles I stayed up all night alternating writing with tending a febrile infant, with occasional angry curses to a faraway absent parent to relieve the stress.

According to my children being brought up in the same place while their father travelled mattered a lot as did going to the same place in the country for half terms and holidays. It was a sort of magic world for them. My husband would always try to make sure he was back for those special times so we could do things together, and relax together. Another factor that helped was that the children grew up in a network of families who led similar lives. So, they thought that their upbringing was sort of normal.

Though at times there have been difficulties for us as a family, as well as individually, I don’t recall hearing either of them saying, ‘I will never marry a journalist!’ I think they can see that their father’s work has enriched all our lives.