Fourteen Years of Regular Solo Parenting: What I’ve Learned and How I’ve Survived

Several years ago, I wrote a post about my solo-parenting experiences. (It was on my “old blog,” so unfortunately, I can no longer link to that).

When I asked readers for new topic ideas, Katie suggested I revisit the subject of solo-parenting and share an update. I’m here to answer: a lot has changed!

Solo-parenting is a fairly niche experience, and while I’ve recycled some of my thoughts from that original post (written during some extremely stressful years, both personally and parentally), I’m also adding updates and context based on where things stand now. And I want to make it clear that I never try to equate stints of solo-parenting with single-parenting, and I don’t have a husband who’s away for long stretches and/or working in dangerous situations (e.g. recurrent shift work in another country, military deployment).

*This is a long post. I debated separating it into smaller components but want this to be a one-stop reference post for my thoughts on the topic.

Summary:

• It gets easier (especially when the kids get older and more independent).
• Don’t underestimate the power of a nap, freezer meals, or screens.
• Outsource what you can (eventually).
• Prioritize communication and flexibility.
• Remember there will be a time after this.

A YEAR-BY-YEAR OVERVIEW

John and I wrote a guest post about our career trajectories and the dynamics of working with your spouse while raising a family for Laura Vanderkam.

• 2011. John started traveling to Northern Canada for work when Belle was an infant. We were also co-founding two small businesses and proctoring exams at a local university for extra cash. On top of that, I was working part-time as a junior biologist for an environmental consulting company and working as a program coordinator at a local university. Oh, and we were first-time parents. Tiny detail that last one, right?!

• 2014. John’s job, which involved an aqui-hire of one of our businesses, kept him traveling, across the US and Canada while Indy was an infant. I was still juggling the same working roles, but now we had TWO kids (this was also the stage in life when we were moving our mattress to the living room every night in our tiny apartment).

• 2017. John started a new position with an Australian company splitting his time between Sydney and Denver. His first day on the job, he left for a one-month trip to Australia and frequent global travel became the norm. Meanwhile, I stopped working at the environmental consulting firm but was still managing the university program and various projects within our business. Parenting during this phase was intense – lengthy bedtime routines, preschool, car seats, food prep, and what felt like constant illness.

• 2022. During COVID, John’s schedule became unsustainable with early calls to Australia, dinner-time meetings with Denver, and late-night calls with clients in Japan. In March 2022, he began a six-month sabbatical, offering a much-needed reprieve.

• 2022-now. Post-sabbatical, John transitioned to a new role with a much more manageable schedule. He now works European hours. Meetings wrap up by noon, and evening work is no longer a thing. Travel remains frequent but predictably centered on Europe (so the jet lag is at least consistent). During this time, I continued with my part-time role as a program coordinator while also stepping in as a project manager for a clean-tech research project at the university. What was initially a one-year position turned into two. By the time they asked me to stay for a third year, I hit my breaking point. This led to my Year of Shmita.

For context, since getting married (and not including COVID) John has been out of the country about 30% of the time.

HOW SOLO PARENTING HAS CHANGED THROUGH THE YEARS

• Our kids have gotten older. Simple but huge. As they’ve grown, they’ve become more independent. I’m no longer constantly chasing after or caring for toddlers. It’s a game-changer. There is nothing I could have done to rush this change – it took time. But it has made such a difference. I cannot overstate how much this impacts solo parenting! Though, one downside is they now have more extracurriculars (including more evening extracurriculars) so I do spend a lot more time in the car than previous years. But with no car seats and diaper bags. Hallelujah.
• John’s job requirements. His travel is more predictable now, and he has greater control over his schedule. Gone are the days of 10:30 p.m. calls with Japan!
• Less stress. Since the start of the pandemic we seem to have had challenge after challenge and, blessedly, some of those external stressors have eased.

• Major home renovations are behind us. The chaos of constant house projects has subsided! (If you’re interested in this sort of thing, check out this post with lots of before-and-after shots.)
• I work less. I made the conscious decision to step down from my most time-consuming professional role. John was fine with whatever decision I made, and when I really looked at the how/why of the position I realized it was a net-negative for my mental health. 10/10 decision.

THE EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE OF SOLO PARENTING

The “Highs”…

I always prefer when John is home, but the “highs” help me reframe a less-than-ideal situation by highlighting the positives…

• A personal reset. When John’s away, I naturally slow down. I cut out extra activities, prioritize self-care, and give myself more breathing room. I’ve learned to say No more often and Yes less. As an introvert, this reset can be a real blessing.
• Fewer decisions. Ironically, when I’m in charge, decision-making is easier. I don’t need to check in with John before deciding things like playdates or the timing of social plans. I can make decisions with confidence, knowing I’m the only adult impacted because when he’s away we’re each maintaining independent schedules.
• Fewer distractions. With John away and the kids at school, I get uninterrupted work time.
• Flex time. Early on, solo-parenting gave me guilt-free evenings. I could catch up on reading, watch a show, or simply rest without family obligations. It was my time, and it felt good. Now the kids are up later and have more activities so I don’t have as much evening flexibility, but that was a huge perk of the little years.

The Lows…

• It’s hard on the kids. Especially when they were younger, goodbyes were emotional, and the family dynamic shifted when John was away. One child had a particularly tough time with the transitions, but as they’ve grown, this has improved. That said, it’s still unpredictable. Some weeks, the kids are at each other’s throats or sick or sad or hormonal. Belle was diagnosed with pneumonia last year…when John was away. (Or I might be sick or sad or hormonal…it happens and I’m a human too!) Other weeks, everyone’s happy, and life is sunshine and rainbows. Remember a few years ago when I threw up 80 times in 24 hours? John was away. Indy was sick, and until we could call in backup, Belle was in charge of running the household and caring for two invalids.
• The never-ending to-do list. When John is away, I’m responsible for pretty much everything that needs to be handled on a specific timeline. There’s no way to delegate. When John is home he handles the garbage (ours is collected every other week), but I can never remove “garbage” from my to-do list because he could, theoretically, miss weeks and weeks of garbage pickup. If he’s not home I take in vehicles for routine servicing and emergency repairs. I’ve found and hired contractors to replace roofing shingles after a major wind storm (twice!). I have to keep my finger on the pulse of everything in our family/home, which can be exhausting.
• Communication. It used to be tough to balance how we communicated. John prefers phone calls, and I tend to prefer texting. These days we talk on the phone 1-2 times a day (often when he’s commuting from a meeting to his hotel). When younger, one of our kids often begged to see Daddy…but then that pleaded-for video call would lead to tears. They saw Daddy but he wasn’t physically in the room and there was a cognitive dissonance. Text added a layer of separation and, for me, it was less difficult to be handling a hard home situation when I could type out a response when it was convenient. If I was going to cry…it was going to be on a phone/video call. It was especially difficult in his previous role where he was often traveling to MT (we’re on AST). He’d be breaking for supper right when I was putting the kids to bed and I found those nightly check-ins very disruptive. Now, he’s almost exclusively in Europe, so he’s in bed for the night right around the time the kids get home from school and that afternoon buffer helps. Also, I love waking up to texts from him in the morning instead of having radio silence for hours while I wait for him to get up (which happened when he flew West). I’d say we now have a much better rhythm, with slightly less frequent calls but more effective communication.
• Parenting decisions. I’ve had to adjust to making some parenting decisions solo. John can miss small shifts in routine while he’s away, which can lead to friction when we’re readjusting to co-parenting.
• Transitions. The constant hellos and goodbyes used to be a big hurdle, but now that the kids are older and John leaves and returns during the day, transitions are much smoother.

• Missed experiences. John has missed some special moments in the kids’ lives. When the kids were young, he was away for some developmental milestones – new words and motor capabilities. He misses good days…and he misses bad days. And he has missed so. many. bedtimes!

• Monotony. No one warned me how boring it is to be a parent. You’re exhausted and feel like there are zero spare minutes in the day, but you also feel bored out of your mind. (Is this only me?) Trying to reason with a toddler having a tantrum about the colour of their cup or having them refuse to eat a piece of toast because you spread the peanut butter too close to the edge is mind-numbing and wilts one’s soul.

The Awful

It’s a running joke in our house that nearly every story of a family catastrophe ends with, “…and John was away.” Seriously.

After all these years of frequent solo parenting, I feel competent. But when things go south, it can feel overwhelming and I’ve faced some tough situations as the only adult in the house. And of course, while I was knee-deep in chaos, he was in a very different time zone – literally and emotionally. I’ve been covered in kid vomit, coordinating daily doctor’s visits while he’s been (proverbially – and maybe even literally) eating Pad Thai and watching MMA.

I’ll never forget one particularly horrible stretch when (toddler) Indy had been sick with a fever for almost two weeks. You can imagine all the sleepless nights and doctor’s appointments. On Day 11 of the fever I took him to yet another doctor, where I was told I needed to get him seen ASAP at the emergency room. I called a friend to come watch Belle (in the middle of a major snowstorm) and once she arrived I packed up Indy, cleaned off the car, and drove as safely as I could to the hospital. At some point in the evening John checked in, sending me a picture of the professional hockey game he was attending with a client. How are things going? he asked. I sent him back a picture of Indy sitting on a gurney at the hospital. In essence saying: This is how things are going, dear. I sure hope your arena hotdog is tasty. AND WHY AREN’T YOU HERE!

John missed an infamous chin-splitting incident (a sibling game of tag – just before bedtime – gone awry). The kids STILL talk about those Popsicles.

It’s not just kid stuff. He was in Nunavut when I was in a car accident. He was out of town when a contractor told me about a crime he had recently committed. He has been away as I’ve dealt with various health issues. At one point I had two sick, young kids stuck at home during a deep freeze, right before Christmas (with company coming from out of town) and John was literally on the other side of the world (Japan) while our front yard and basement were being ripped to shreds! I lost 10 pounds in a few weeks because I was too stressed to eat. He was on the tarmac one evening when my car wouldn’t turn off (more stressful than it sounds – you can read about it here). Another time he was at the airport leaving the country when we learned about the unexpected death of a friend. When Belle was diagnosed with pneumonia last year…John was away. When I was diagnosed with COVID-induced hearing loss and rushing to get a hearing test and having emergency consults with an ENT…John was away.

Some Advice for Solo Parents

If I had one thing to “do” differently, I think the obvious answer would be to outsource more responsibilities, particularly childcare. This wasn’t really feasible in the first five years of solo-parenting. We were putting a tremendous amount of sweat equity into our small businesses and any financial profits went toward paying staff (for several years we were grossing $400/month from our company – $388 after taxes!). When we got to a stage where we could afford childcare, it was tricky to find someone for part-time hours (we didn’t want or need a full-time nanny – I have exclusively worked from home since Indy was a toddler). One winter I had a teenager come over once a week when John was away and do the after-school-until-supper slot so I could continue working, but it still wasn’t enough respite.

Today, childcare considerations are mostly moot. Belle is a teen, has a phone, and the kids are so much more independent.

If I’m going to be honest, a big swath of the kids’ littlest years were almost exclusively dedicated to survival. We had lots of good moments and special memories, but most of the time it felt like a slog. I survived and it is so much easier now, but if you feel like you’re “only” surviving and not thriving, by all means try to make adjustments to ease the load but never think for a second you’re doing something wrong. Some seasons of parenting are all about surviving to the otherside, knowing, as Nicole so wisely puts it, There will be a time after this.

• Drop or delegate. Whenever I’m in solo-parenting mode, I try to minimize external commitments. While I am still open to hosting playdates for the kids, I feel zero guilt if I don’t. We eat differently, and I spend less time in the kitchen. When John is home, I sometimes tuck away small dishes of leftovers in the freezer so I can pull out a smorgasbord of things while he’s away and I don’t have time or energy to cook. And while both kids have regular go-to chores, I assign more responsibility when John is away. If I’m tired and can’t bear the thought of going out at night for an extracurricular…we skip it. Maintaining my own mental health is more important than making sure Indy makes it to a mid-week basketball practice.
• Find a community. Make connections with other parents and support each other. If you don’t have family handy – I never did when my kids were in their littlest years – create one. Carpool. Say yes when someone asks if they can bring you a meal.

• Make it fun. I try to inject extra fun when John’s away (he’s the “fun” parent, so I try a bit harder to be “light” when he’s not around). I take the kids sledding and skiing. Sometimes I take them to the movies.
• Prioritize sleep. Since there is no one else to help with lunchboxes and school stuff and extracurricular dropoffs/pickups, weeks where I’m going solo can take a lot of excess energy. I try to fit in naps or send the kids to their rooms early so I can wind-down and get to sleep. (Again, this is MUCH easier now that there are no infants/toddlers/early-wakers in the house. Since the kids were toddlers, though, we have had family rules about waketimes and quiet play inside bedrooms which they mostly stuck to.)
• Stay ahead of home responsibilities. It’s so easy for the garbage or laundry to spiral (though we have less laundry when he’s gone!) and with it my sanity. Keeping things organized and tidy helps me stay sane.
• Aim for a clean slate. Before John arrives home, I’ll run the dishwasher and get all our laundry done so that when he starts unpacking his week of laundry, things are in a state of order.
• When possible, say goodbye in the daytime. It works much better when he leaves during daylight hours and arrives home on a weekday. For years, his main route involved him getting up and leaving (via a hired car – I wasn’t driving) for the airport at 2:30 am. It was terrible. Waking up to an empty house and his pajamas folded neatly on the guest bed was a truly awful feeling for me every single time. Now he typically has mid-morning flights, and these are much better for everyone’s mental health. It’s also ideal when he’s able to get home during the work-week (while the kids are still in school) which allows us to ease back into things without the pressure cooker of hands-on parenting.
• Consider time zone differences of a travelling spouse and prepare accordingly. His new role/work environment has improved his at-home work/life balance. For starters, he’s working for a company based in Europe, with predominantly European clients. This means most of his meetings happen before lunchtime. In his previous position, he was engaging with colleagues and partners from literally ALL around the globe so he had extremely early meetings, many meetings that ended up falling over suppertime/bedtime, and then plenty of late-evening meetings (it wasn’t uncommon for him to head down to the office for a meeting with someone in Japan or Australia at 9:30 PM AST…which meant he came to bed at 11:00 PM…and then needed time to unwind after a mentally taxing conversation…only to wake up early the next morning to take a call with Europe).

*Just another day at the office, flying over the Hoover Dam before landing INSIDE the Grand Canyon, stopping long enough for a glass of champagne. I’m not even kidding…

• Less is more. I don’t assume that his life on the road is glamorous. He has early mornings and late nights and all the stressors that come with being on the road, PLUS jet lag and non-stop conferences/meetings. That said, he has gotten to experience some pretty incredible things. This very minute he’s in Helsinki, Finland; tomorrow he’ll be in London. [Update: I wrote this two weeks ago. He’s since been back to Canada and then to Norway.] While most of his time is spent in meetings, he has gotten to eat great food and see incredible things. He’s gone to all sorts of professional sporting events, he’s seen a Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas, he’s walked along beaches in Spain, and gone up Tokyo Tower. He has visited Nordic spas and tried his hand at fishing in Thailand. He’s taken helicopter rides into the heart of the Grand Canyon. He’s sat at the bow of the boat on a twilight supper cruise down the Seine. It used to be hard to hear about those things when I was back home juggling contractors and vomit. He has learned over the years to tell me everything is fine. When he first started traveling, I’d get a play-by-play of special hotels or meals, but now he’ll say: The hotel was fine. The meal was fine. A few times in those early days he would call home from a fancy dinner…and I’d be crying over boxed Mac n’ Cheese having just dealt with a toddler tantrum. Once he went to a swanky restaurant where ninja servers REPELLED from the ceiling. I didn’t hear about it for months; he thought it best to keep those details quiet. Good move.

• Expose your kids to the reality of travel. Aside from our kids getting older, I think the fact they’ve seen what Daddy’s job entails has been so helpful for perspective. Getting stuck waiting for a cancelled flight sucks. They’ve done this now. Airplane food isn’t very good. Hotels are small and cramped and some nights you really just wish you were home in your own bed. I know they couldn’t have grasped these intricacies of travel when they were younger (and we didn’t do air travel with them until quite recently), but I think our family trips have been very helpful for them to better understand what John does and what reality is like while on the road.
• Cereal is an acceptable supper. Make life easy. Grilled cheese every night for a week is just fine. There will be a time after this.
• Screens. Let’s be real – you will almost certainly need to use screens to preserve your sanity. This is okay. NO SHAME!
• Routines. If you’re able, aim for routine and predictability, especially when your kids are little. It will help you as much as it helps them.

• Get away alone. This is a new development for me, but I’ve started going on bi-annual “retreats” to visit my parents. They live on a lake and getting time without any kid responsibilities is amazing! I really, really wish we had started doing this years ago.

WHY I CONSIDER SOLO PARENTING TO BE A NET POSITIVE

• Family effort. After years of hustling and sacrifice (as a whole family), John has had phenomenal career opportunities. Not only is he pursuing his passions – both in terms of work and regular international travel – his career has allowed us the schedule and financial capabilities to do all sorts of wonderful things as a family. Solo-parenting happens to be part of that story. And we really do consider it to be a family effort.

• Family opportunities. John accrues frequent flyer perks that make family travel more streamlined (and much less expensive). We’ve also been able to combine business and leisure trips on a number of occasions.

• Family-friendly schedule. Because he works from home when not on the road, he has a lot of flexibility. He can almost always carve out time in the day to run errands and spend time with the kids in the afternoon/evening. While there is a major tradeoff for this flexibility – ~30% of his time spent on the road – it comes with major perks.

• We come first. I know without a single doubt in my mind if I told John he needed to quit his job today because I was overwhelmed by his travel he would quit. I told him I needed him to take a sabbatical and he took it. We are in this together – it’s the only way a dynamic like this will work and you can move from survival to some approximation of thriving. He likes his job and excels, but it is not at the core of his identity. I know we come first in his hierarchy of importance and that is of huge comfort.

I realize this is a short section compared to the “negative” impacts of his travel outlined above, but positive aspects of this work/life dynamic are very significant. Also, every job comes with tradeoffs; we just have a different suite of pros/cons when compared with more traditional 9-5 (local) careers.

Solo parenting is hard. But guess what, so is all parenting. Those early years were harder than now. The demands on my time as a mother were intense. Bedtimes and sicknesses and the sheer physicality of their needs was exhausting. But now, I don’t have to wash my kids hair, I can delegate chores, I can put myself to bed before them if I need to.

It’s hard, it has ups and downs, but it’s part of our story and we’ve learned to focus on the positives as much as possible.

Your turn.

• Any specific questions about my experiences?
• Do you do regular stints of solo-parenting? If so, what are your best tips for surviving (and/or thriving)?
• Do you have any routines that help your family transition in and out of solo-parenting stints?
• How do you stay emotionally connected with your partner during extended absences? Any communication tips that work well for your family?