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.