Temporary Separation from Spouse

[Ken]

When my wife and I moved from Alaska to Texas for her medical residency I basically converted my old job doing regulatory work on Alaska fisheries for NOAA into a long-distance consulting job so I could work out of a home office in Texas. This was 15 years before the work-from-home era brought on by the pandemic. But my old agency accommodated it because they were short of staff who could do that kind of work without a lot of supervision.

But what it meant was that while I could work from home and be with the the kids during the day (we had a 4-5 year old and an infant) it also meant that I had to fly back to Alaska about 5 times per year for long 5-7 day fishery management council meetings. And sometimes to Washington DC. Think of a school board on steroids or a Congressional committee that sets Federal fisheries policy for Alaska.

Since my wife was a medical resident and on-call many nights and evenings it meant we needed a 24/7 baby sitter any time I left. So I would fly my mother in from Oregon to Texas to spend a week with her granddaughters when I would fly off to Alaska. Which made grandma happy and worked out fine for the kids. But I soon wearied of having my professional life 3 time zones away. Which often meant that afternoon conference calls and meetings would happen right during our dinner time.

The hassles of maintaining a long-distance professional life and all the travel are what made me give up that sort of agency work and go into science teaching where I could work and be a part of my own local community and be home every afternoon and evening. That was about 15 years ago and I haven't looked back.

More recently my wife has had to travel down to Chile to care for one or the other of her elderly parents through a variety of ailments. They are now 89 and 90 so she flies down quite a bit and pretty much burns up all her vacation time and then some (taking family leave and leave without pay). That means she has been gone on occasion for 2-3 weeks at a time caring for one or the other of her parents. The longest was about 4 weeks during the height of the pandemic when she was forced to quarantine for 5 days at a secure hotel in Santiago before being let out, even though she was vaccinated and tested positive. Chile was very severe about lockdowns, almost to the point of China at one point.

Having my wife fly off to Chile gets kind of tiresome but the girls are all older and two are already out of the house so it is not really that big of a deal. We make do. Due to the opposite seasons I'm usually teaching and the girls are in school when she is down there so we can't really drop what we are doing and go along. Plus all those flights to South America really add up. But it is kind of the family obligation she has that didn't vanish when she moved across the world. Her parents have zero interest in moving up to live with us because their entire lives are down there. But they do visit frequently although that is getting tougher the older they get. It is a very long flight. One of the hardest things about it is that she burns up every last bit of time off flying back and forth to tend to her parents so we haven't really had a meaningful family vacation longer than a 3-day weekend in years. Once the youngest is out of the house in 6 months I'll probably go with her on all these future trips.

All told we have probably been apart about 9 months total over the past 24 years but mostly in chunks of 1-3 weeks at a pop. It has just sort of added up over time.

[Soloist]

Being away from home is awful for the children.

I used to be a foster parent and was working in another state, and there were limits on how long our foster baby could be out of state, so I would take a red eye flight Sunday night, go to work Monday morning, and then fly back Friday evening. It was not a fun time at all.

Wife: I second this. Children seem to get a lot more behavior issues when daddy is gone, parenting is more stressful, and especially long-term, like when hubby was on Night Shift, I think it was just not healthy for our family and the children really needed their daddy.

My mom felt abandoned a lot having to take care of the children on her own while my dad was gone for who knows how long as well driller. She also had drinking issues by the time I came around, but who knows if that made it worse or not. I think the same went for my grandfather, and when Grandma tells me how often he was out of town, I feel really bad for her, and I know he had trouble with drinking, and they had divorced at one point. I know that, after my parents divorced, and I eventually was under my dad‘s custody, there would be weeks that I wouldn’t see him, and I would end up staying at Grandma and Grandpa’s. It worked, but I do think it would’ve been better for me and my siblings if Dad was around more, especially for my older brothers.

I wouldn’t judge people who have those kind of jobs, especially because you need to pay the bills, but I do think it adds family complications and marital stress that would be better off avoided if possible, and if a church cares about it so much, they should try to put in the effort to help people in those situations find better jobs that will still provide for their family.

[QuietlyListening]

Every case is different and what works for one family may not for another. Support for the family- as in grandparents or aunts and uncles helps a great deal too and these days face time or the equivalent make a huge difference.
My son has to be away about 2 or 3 times a year for 3-6 weeks. We are close to help spell our daughter in law, her folks come down or she goes there and she is working part time and that helps. She started working to have her foot in the door after my son was diagnosed with a brain tumor- which at present is stable and not growing but the future is in God's hands and she wanted to be prepared if she needs to work again. She works part time and around the kids hours and is at her son's school. And for them it works- for others it doesn't

My husband and I were never apart more than a week for work, or parent health etc until his accident then he was in the hospital and rehab for 3 weeks but thankfully it was at the point with covid that limited visitation was allowed.

Yes, not being away is the best but in this society if an occupation takes a person away- instead of judging we should - as a church- be there to support those who have to be away.

[Josh]

Yes, not being away is the best but in this society if an occupation takes a person away- instead of judging we should - as a church- be there to support those who have to be away

Generally speaking, Anabaptists have felt better to discern as a congregation if something shouldn’t be done and then to mandate it shouldn’t be done. Then they would help support people who need assistance to stop doing that thing (such as being an overnight pilot, or being an actor.) A good example of this was the actor who wanted to join in the church as described in the book “When church was a family.”

The idea we should “support” people doing whatever they want is a distinctly non-Anabaptist doctrine, as is the idea we shouldn’t “judge” them.

[QuietlyListening]

No one said do whatever they want. Many occupations are not such and I'm sorry - I don't get the anabaptist part about not judging and about being the ones to discern what a persons occupation should be.
So an engineer, an architect, an accountant, and so many other occupations are not acceptable? Sorry I see nothing that says anabaptist or not anabaptist about those occupations- but I'm sure you will tell me Josh.

[ken_sylvania]

No one said do whatever they want. Many occupations are not such and I'm sorry - I don't get the anabaptist part about not judging and about being the ones to discern what a persons occupation should be.
So an engineer, an architect, an accountant, and so many other occupations are not acceptable? Sorry I see nothing that says anabaptist or not anabaptist about those occupations- but I'm sure you will tell me Josh.

Did someone say engineer, architect, or accountant are not acceptable occupations for anabaptists?

[QuietlyListening]

No but I felt it was implied that the church could discern what occupation was acceptable by the below quote: by saying we support people in doing whatever they want. I never said whatever occupation a person wanted but it seems if the church doesn't like it that is ok- and there are churches that would say no to those because they require a college degree.


"The idea we should “support” people doing whatever they want is a distinctly non-Anabaptist doctrine, as is the idea we shouldn’t “judge” them."

[Ken]

Is there something Biblical about avoiding separation from spouses? Or is this just an Anabaptist affection?

In the ancient world, separation was common and often for long periods. Travel was often long and arduous and merchants, tax collectors, farmers bringing crops or livestock to market might be making journeys of weeks or months. People would leave home to find work and could be gone for months. Often people would be away from spouses for years at a time which was pretty much the norm on up into the 20th Century when travel and communications became much faster.

For example, in the early decades of this nation, men might have traveled from Europe to the US to build a home and homestead and then send for the wives and children later. Or do the same thing migrating internally. Or spend months at a time at remote work sites, logging camps, remote ranches, offshore fishing, etc.

[ken_sylvania]

No but I felt it was implied that the church could discern what occupation was acceptable by the below quote: by saying we support people in doing whatever they want. I never said whatever occupation a person wanted but it seems if the church doesn't like it that is ok- and there are churches that would say no to those because they require a college degree.


"The idea we should “support” people doing whatever they want is a distinctly non-Anabaptist doctrine, as is the idea we shouldn’t “judge” them."

I don't know that there are any churches that prohibit those occupations, although there are some that would be opposed to their members going to college to obtain college degrees.

I'm not sure if I'm following your point exactly. Are you saying you don't think the church has the right to discern whether or not a particular occupation is acceptable for its members?

[QuietlyListening]

My original point was if someone has an occupation that takes them away from family from time to time- the church can be part of the support for the wife and children during that time.

Josh then said "The idea we should “support” people doing whatever they want is a distinctly non-Anabaptist doctrine, as is the idea we shouldn’t “judge” them."
I was responding to this- that I never said someone should do whatever they want as in there are occupations that are not anabaptist or not edifying to a person doing them but mentioned those particular occupations as ones that may have folks traveling but I see nothing wrong with them. And yes some churches don't want their folks going to college but others don't mind.

That was it.