A serious post about FIFO

A couple of months ago I wrote an article for a Perth magazine about the experience of moving to a foreign country, and the difficulties of coping without family around. In it, I advised building up a network of friends to compensate for lack of family. I also suggested getting out and about, joining groups, and generally keeping busy to avoid the inevitable homesickness which goes along with adapting to a new culture.

Yeah I'm wise like that. Or as my family would argue, annoying.

But then that was before DH went away to work up in the Pilbarra, leaving me to adapt to my new life and surroundings alone. Before he left I spent my days busily darting from class to coffee morning; ferrying kids to music and drama, as well as occasionally driving into the city to meet him for lunch. I had defeated culture shock! I laughed in the face of homesickness! I was FINE! I had adapted with as little fuss as possible! My life was a smug and self-satisfied exclamation mark!

Then he left.

Suddenly everything went grey and my great Australian adventure became ever so slightly tainted. I stopped going out, quit the classes, lost interest in exploring my surroundings, and sank into what can only be described as a depression. Everyone told me 'I would adapt', that it 'gets better', and sure wasn't it great to have that week of quality time together when he was home? With five small children, 'quality time' with DH means very little to me; an uninterrupted shower or someone to use a bit of muscle at the children's bedtime is more appreciated. But everybody does it! My inner Greek Chorus whispered, What's your problem? I briefly wondered if I was over-reacting.

And so, as in most important quandaries in my life,  I took to the Internet to see what others thought. The results quite varied: Many women were quite content with the set up. It's a great lifestyle said some. Others were just plain used to it.

But what was interesting were the private messages I received from some women. Many were in real pain. Some almost brought me to tears. One woman had arrived in Australia six weeks previously. Her husband had been gone for the past four, giving her scarcely enough time to find out where to live never mind settle in. There she was, in an unfamiliar place, dealing with this massive cultural upheaval - not to mention small kids -- alone. Another eloquently pointed out that this great adventure in Oz -- that she and her husband had embarked on -- was being played out separately, with her and her children in one place, and her husband somewhere north. Another woman spoke of her son's distress at his fathers absence, how he'd threatened to quit sports since his father could no longer make it to his matches.

One woman, chillingly, claimed that her children no longer cared that much about their father, and scarcely noticed his absence. Another was having regular panic attacks and needed medication to sleep at night.

My own five year old has taken to telling random strangers in the mall that 'daddy doesn't live with us anymore'.

It is a rather cruel combination when you think about it: Here we have families who've been forced to emigrate (I'm talking about Irish families here), coupled with separation from their partner for two-thirds or three-quarters of the time -- sometimes more! A sort of poisoned chalice, a pact with the devil; a well paid job and year round sunshine (hurrah! can't get either of these things in Ireland), but wait, there's a price!

What struck me most of all, was the shame these women felt in saying this out loud. They were reluctant to air their struggle publicly for fear of being judged as ungrateful, negative, or worse, unhappy. With a country drowning in debt back home, taking many people with it, it is neither popular nor wise to claim unhappiness when you're living in a sunny climate and with a regular, healthy income. In our facebook-obsessed era, life can and must be edited to display only the best bits. 'We're in Australia and it's fantastic - look! - I'm on a beach, life is AWESOME!!' scream our facebook updates (I'm as guilty as the next). To say aloud 'I'm struggling with this, I'm lonely' seems to invite scorn from some quarters, and many of these women feel as if they've somehow failed.

Fly in fly out is a long Australian tradition, and many families have more than one generation working in this way. Many Australian women feel great pride in their role as a FIFO wife, coping with a home and family alone, knowing they are doing their bit to provide a healthy financial future for themselves and their children. Many have never known anything else. And I've spoken plenty of Irish women who have lived here for a number of years, who also find they eventually adapt to the lifestyle, and even enjoy it. Many claim they couldn't hope to earn the kind of money they do -- given their skill-sets and qualifications -- elsewhere. Others feel the quality time they get to share with their spouse when he is home outweighs any negatives.

But these aren't the women I am talking about. I'm talking about women who were forced to leave Ireland in recent times, only to find themselves alone, night after night after night, thinking 'why did I leave my home to come here and be alone?' Unwilling to sit alone in front of the telly, many opt to go to bed at the same time as their children. Many are nervous at night time in their new and unfamiliar surroundings.  Some find a bottle of wine becomes an inanimate but nonetheless genial companion.

One woman told me she didn't want to 'harden' or 'toughen' up to it as she had been told she eventually would; she didn't want to change who she was, to be replaced by a hardened coper; she simply wanted her husband to come home to her and her small children in the evenings, after his day's work. I sympathise with this. Five months away from DH last year taught me I could cope without him. It also taught me that I didn't want to. EVER. And obviously I knew we were heading into a FIFO situation before we left Ireland, but the choices were thin on the ground, and we went with the approach 'if it doesn't work out we'll change it'.

FIFO Families are an organisation who do sterling work in helping families with a member working away, and organise many meet ups around the country, as well as providing a support forum for those that need to vent or look for advice. Most women who attend these meet-ups will insist they are helpful. I've yet to dip my toe, probably for the same reason I could never face joining a 'mother and toddler group'; the idea of meeting people just because we'd all recently given birth just didn't seem like a good enough reason to be friends.

This isn't a rant against FIFO in general (although I do wonder what impact a largely absentee father will have on a generation hence), but rather to highlight an unspoken aspect of the mass emigration to Australia out of Ireland. Emigration is not to be taken lightly; it is a tough and difficult choice, and even the most charmed circumstances can prove difficult when you find yourself on the opposite side of the planet, far from home. Finding that you are a single parent for much of that time makes it harder still.

There should be no shame in admitting this.

House renting nightmares and the postal service...

After five months of humming and hawing, we've finally decided that in order to keep our collective sanity intact, we really do need to move out of our tiny treehouse. It has served it's purpose well; we have settled into our little community (by which I mean I know three people), the children are happy in their school, and the beautiful surroundings have provided a dramatic backdrop for our introduction to life in Australia.

However, the truth is that pretty as it is, the house is really not much more than a glorified apartment, something which really doesn't work for a family of seven (albeit with the largest member absent two thirds of the time). It offers so little privacy that when I shower the children tend to gather in the bathroom to ask me questions through the misty glass (the bathroom door doesn't close) and our living room also serves as a kitchen/dining/dressing/occasional-conjugal-quickie-before-the-children-notice-room (there's no privacy in our bedroom, which is located off their TV area).

It's a bit like when the family in Angela's Ashes move into the upstairs because the downstairs has been flooded by the unyielding Limerick rain. Well, if you exclude the typhoid, bleak poverty, head-lice and feckless alcoholic father. But you get my gist.

And so we are once more obliged to dip a reluctant toe into the murky waters of the Perth rental market, a cold, unfriendly and disheartening place.

In Ireland, finding a house to rent is relatively straightforward.  You phone the local estate agent, identify a house you fancy viewing, then you go and have a look at it. If you like it -- and presuming you don't rock up to the viewing in a large white transit van, with 12 children and a roll of carpet hanging out the back -- then in all probability the landlord will agree to rent it to you, often for less than the asking price. Job done.

Here in Perth the cycle is radically different. After scouring the internet for something you don't hate, you phone the estate agent -- who is totally indifferent towards you, they really don't need your business -- and arrange to attend a 'viewing'. A viewing means the house is open to the public for 15 minutes or so, and is often an unhappy experience spent wandering through dark, dingy and ugly rooms -- which often smell of feet or cabbages -- while fellow 'viewers' furiously open and close kitchen cupboards, as if the particular swing of a door might help make the decision for them. And as the musty air fills with the feverish desperation to secure a home, all aesthetical merits -- or lack thereof -- are put aside.

The application process involves filling out a lengthy form, divulging information such as your bank details, car registration, passport number, employement details, PAST employment details (jeez!), as well as supplying either a urine or blood sample. Sometimes both. (I made that last bit up).

You are also often obliged to pay a weeks rent as a deposit, just to prove that you are serious, which will be forfeited should you change your mind. It is also advisable to offer more than the asking price, often significantly more, in order to push your application up the list.

Now think of it; if you were renting out a property, and had ten couples interested, would you rent it to the couple with five small children?

No, me neither.

So you see our predicament. Yes of course there are landlords who might possibly accept us, but like  Groucho Marx's doubts about wanting to belong to any club which would have him as a member, any house that is willing to allow us to live in it, is unlikely to be a place I actually want to rent. Take a look at this little gem below for example, which is on the market for the bargain basement price of $400 a week. Yes, you didn't misread that - A WEEK (which is cheap, $650 per week is a more realistic average around here), and were it in Ireland would in all likelihood be bulldozed in favour of a nice dormer bungalow...

'Lovely spacious family home with traditional retro features' according to the unintentionally hilarious brochure.

And it continues: 'comes with a Gourmet kitchen'....

'Recently renovated'? Laurence Llewelyn-Bowan would turn in his laquered four-poster baroque bed!

Somebody actually went to the trouble of putting this picture into the brochure

A dream 'garden', I'm sure you'll agree...

The Postman

I mentioned a while back that I was yet to spot the postman, having no idea how my post found its way into the redback-infested post-box at the bottom of the drive each morning, so I'm pleased to report that I have finally laid eyes on him. Actually on reflection, I now realise I spied him months ago, but the moped and little flag threw me a little, and I was convinced that my invisible neighbours were regularly ordering Domino's pizza for breakfast. It's an easy mistake to make.

                                             

We have a different postman for the delivery of parcels, and since I began my little Boden online spree a couple of months back, have had reason to come face to face with the fluorescent-jacketed postie (yes, Australenglish for Postman) many times across the baby gate at the top of our wooden steps. To be honest I'm a little embarrassed at this stage, and feel the sharp sting of his judgement every time he hands over yet another delicious pink and grey spotted package. In fact only he, myself and Boden know the extent of my recent purchasing-frenzy, and at times even I've been surprised at the appearance of a new parcel, having totally forgotten I'd ordered it, on a late and lonely night a week earlier -- unhinged on Chablis and loneliness  -- unwilling and unable to talk myself into heading to the cold, lonely bed of a FIFO-widow...*

Empty bed syndrome? Not quite...

*A bit of artistic license there -- there are actually three small boys in my bed most nights...but you know what I mean...