For families with two parents in the household, it’s hard enough doing the whole kid-wrangling thing as a duo.
When one of those parents is a Fly-in-Fly-out (FIFO) worker – someone who flies to work in a location away from home and stays for extended periods of time – the challenges can be amplified.
There are thousands of families in Australia who make these arrangements work every day. Mamamia spoke to two women whose partners work away about their experience of FIFO parenting – the ups, the downs, and the realities of dealing with the distance.
Q&A: Are stay-at-home mums undervalued? Post continues below.
Bianca, 26, mum of one.
I’m the stay-at-home parent of a two-and-a-half-year-old munchkin. Her dad is a FIFO worker in the oil and gas industry. We live in rural NSW, in a small country town in the Northern Rivers with a population of around 1500.
My partner works a 2:2 roster, meaning he spends a two-week “hitch” away at work and then two weeks at home.
I’ve known since I met him that he wanted a career in this industry, so the possibility of a FIFO lifestyle was always on the cards for us.
Top Comments
We did it for 16 years when we met he was just starting out and he was away for months at a time and only home for weeks then we got in the swing of month on month off.. we got married and had 2 children - he was home for both births but left days after.. it was all we knew.. we made it work! Funnily enough when he stopped going away our relationship suffered.. I always joked “god help us of we’re together full time!” I guess when he was fifo it was like the honeymoon period every time he came home!