Photo: © Snapic.PhotoProduct / Adobe Stock.
I’d been an at-home dad for more than six years and thought I’d seen it all. Poop explosions, playdate fiascos, cicada collecting. And through it all, the one constant has been my wife. She was always close by. Even if gone for a day at work, she’d always be home by the evening.
However, the truth is that when you’re an at-home parent or primary caregiver of any type, you will eventually have to go it alone.
Solo parenting.
Just you.
Without any adult support.
It’s sometimes planned — a business trip, a class reunion, or some other event. Sometimes it’s unplanned — an illness, a funeral, or a family crisis. So, how do you survive these moments?
First, as Douglas Adams writes so often in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “Don’t panic.”
Solo parenting seems like a lot, but when this solo journey ends, you’ll be stronger and closer to your kids. At the same time, it’s worth recognizing that you can’t keep everything the same.
For example, on my first day with my wife away, I quickly realized a number of our routines didn’t work without an extra adult in the background. Take bedtime, of which we have two. Normally, one of us puts our 3-year-old daughter to bed, while the other stays up with our 6-year-old son. Once our daughter’s asleep (or at least in her room and not screaming, which — let’s face it — is all you can really wish for from a 3-year-old), the other adult puts our son to bed.
Well, obviously that wasn’t going to work. And on top of that, the “Where’s Mommy? When is Mom coming home? I WANT MOMMY!” chorus of screams was growing louder by the moment. What could I do?
Get an older kid to help
Two screamers versus me: that wasn’t working. But what if my son helped out? As I made dinner, I asked for his support. He was going to help with the dinner, and then help me put my daughter to bed. He heartily agreed, and then asked if they could record a video to their mom saying goodnight.
Send videos
When your spouse or partner is away, send them videos. My kids wanted to say good night and smile, they even sang a bit. I found that this worked far better than Zoom. We tried Zoom and it always ended in tears. Maybe with older kids it would’ve been fine, but pre-recording the kids using my phone worked like a charm. They loved smiling and singing to her, and those recordings are honestly treasured memories we’ll keep.
Keep solo parenting expectations realistic
As the time away from their mother continued, the novelty wore off for the kids. Each day started to get a bit more routine, but also a bit harder. This is where the expectations really come into play. If you usually divide chores between adults, don’t instantly try to do double the work when one is away. All you’ll do is drive yourself nuts. Similarly, recognize that the kids will complain and miss your spouse, but those whines do start to wane. For us, counting down to our pickup at the airport helped, as did pointing to all the planes in the sky. My kids asked if Mom was on every single one of them. The answer was obviously no, but they enjoyed asking anyways.
The pickup trials
The hardest part of the entire time away, for us, was the airport pickup. It was very hard, practically a disaster. We arrived late, at the wrong terminal, and couldn’t find my wife. There was no food for us or the kids. And, of course, my daughter had an accident in the car on the way there and another on the way back. My biggest advice for the pickup circus is preparation. I needed to have those kids fed before I drove up, and I needed to do a better job finding the correct terminal. And I needed to be far, far earlier. If we’d arrived earlier and brought our computer tablets, maybe the kids would’ve been fed, entertained, and accident-free. Or maybe not. I’m sure we would have still run into problems.
Well, my wife’s packing to go away on another business trip next month. I’m not nervous this time about solo parenting this time. However, I know there’s still a lot to learn.
Photo: © Snapic.PhotoProduct / Adobe Stock.
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