How to avoid the travel guilt trip

I love traveling. Between work-related travel and personal adventure travel, I’ve been to over 30 countries and counting. Travel makes me feel alive. Maybe it’s because I’m a second generation “third culture kid” who doesn’t fit into a specific cultural identity box. Maybe it’s because I’m a global citizen and my family and friends are spread across six continents. Or maybe it’s because of the sense of freedom and wonder I feel while gazing out of airplane windows, or the compassion I feel when I’m reminded that we’re all the same. There are only two times in my life when I haven’t wanted to travel. One is when I was overseeing pediatric HIV programs in four countries that required 75 percent travel. The travel was a little too much, and I woke up in the mornings not knowing which country I was in. The other time was when I returned to work post-maternity leave and the thought of getting on an airplane and leaving my son behind made me sick to my stomach. Travel set off my maternal instinct’s gag reflex and the guilt-o-meter started sounding its alarm. As a working wife and mother with a zealous travel bug, I often get asked how I deal with the guilt factor. Sometimes it’s hard enough to get away for a workday at the office, but adding in travel certainly complicates things emotionally and logistically. If the travel isn’t work related and mandatory, like the recent trip I took to attend a friend’s wedding just because I wanted to, the guilt can be more brutal. Worrying about whether your absence will negatively impact a child is normal whether you’re a stay-at-home parent taking some “me time” away from the kids, a working parent disappearing for a few hours of office time or a traveling parent hopping the border for a few days. That said, there are several ways to mitigate this anxiety and guilt. Below I share three that work for me. 1. When you’re present, be fully present. When you are around, make sure you’re fully present. Spend quality time with your children doing things they want to do, fully being with them. If you have more than one child, make time for each one individually where possible. By making deposits into your joint emotional bank account when you’re around, you can develop a positive reserve with each child, which then makes withdrawals — when you’re traveling and “not there” — less of an issue. Being present means avoiding the urge to multitask or check your phone. Instead, use the time to strengthen your connection and show your child how much you love them, enjoy being around them and want to listen to them. By being fully present with them you can “be there” much more than if you were always around and always distracted. Being around when it really matters is also important. Missing birthdays, for example, is probably not ideal. I say this because I think my sister still hasn’t forgiven my mother for several missed birthdays, and that’s a long time to hold a grudge! I like to do a mindfulness or breathing exercise to switch the world off when I really want to be present with my son. If we’re spending time together and I find my mind wandering to my to-do list or to a phone call I need to make, this helps me reconnect with the present moment and focus on him instead of my internal mind banter. share a simple breathing exercise I use here. 2. Ditch judgment and make your own rules. Spend time figuring out what feels right for you and your children, follow your instinct and communicate openly with your partner to jointly fashion your family’s “bespoke” arrangement. Don’t judge yourself based on standards set by others — remember that these norms are arbitrary and vary across cultures so there isn’t a “right” and “wrong.” I grew up with two parents that did a lot of international travel — sometimes simultaneously — and I like to believe that I turned out pretty OK. I remember actually looking forward to their trips because our live-in nanny actually let us eat peanut butter, which my Mozambican parents thought was too American and banned from our house. Plus, my sister and I really loved making elaborate “welcome home” banners. We got a lot of practice. I have several friends who’ve traveled with babies on business trips, some of them to very remote corners of the world. For me, traveling with a baby on a business trip sounds like my worst nightmare, so I stopped traveling until I felt comfortable doing so — when my son was a year old and I was no longer nursing. This wasn’t the norm at the organization I was working for, but I had the confidence to ask for what I wanted, the courage to not feel ashamed and the leverage to get it! Now that I run my own business, I base my travel decisions on what feels right for me and my family at a given point in time. 3. Release parental hubris and see the upside. We fear that everything falls apart when we’re away, but 99.9 percent of the time it doesn’t. The few mishaps my toddler had while I was away on my recent trip would’ve still happened even if I had been there. OK, fine, maybe he wouldn’t have fallen out of his big bed as many times given my extraordinary pillow positioning skills, but my husband was doing his best. To be fair though, he busted his lip on the floor the day I arrived home in his excitement to see me, so technically that was my fault. Acknowledging the positive side of what happens when we’re away can help us to let go of our parental hubris — or exaggerated sense of self-importance. For example, when I’m away: ● My son bonds more with my husband and grandparents. When I’m around he only has eyes for me, and I love monopolizing cuddles. ● My son develops a growing sense of independence. I’ll be the first to admit that the temptation to overcoddle is there for me and, in my weak moments, I’m pretty sure it can get annoying and stifle development. ● My son becomes increasingly curious and fascinated with travel. I share my stories with him as well as photos of planes, trains and creatures I encounter. He approaches our family trips as great adventures. ● He deepens his understanding that he is loved all the time, not just when he’s in my presence. He also knows that when mommy goes away, she always comes back. This makes it less of a big deal when I’m gone for whatever reason. Yesterday he brought me my yoga mat and told me matter-of-factly that it’s time for me to go to the gym. Parental guilt is there regardless of whether or not you travel and is something all parents have to work through. This really caught me by surprise when I became a parent and dealt with a new set of insecurities. I initially found it hard to balance the new nurturing, protective, motherly me with the old carefree, independent, global jetsetter me. Learning to bring together and honor these different sides in a way that felt right for my needs and for my family has been a big, rewarding learning curve. Do you have additional suggestions to share on how to mitigate travel guilt? Let me know in the comments below. Whether you’re a seasoned expert or budding development professional — check out more news, analysis and advice online to guide your career and professional development, and subscribe to Doing Good to receive top international development career and recruitment news every week