To commute or not to commute

I ran into a couple of old friends at the grocery store recently; friends who have left their positions at a local oil sands plant, moved away to a milder province, and now commute to work here.

They were glowing with good reports about the decision they’d made. They work two shutdowns a year, two months at a time, twice a year, and earn the same, they said, as they used to in wages for the whole year.

They have built new homes, and their new location offers a lot of diversity when it comes to recreation opportunities. No regrets.

It sounded tempting. I like to travel as much as anyone, and living somewhere that is a vacation spot sounds like a lot of fun. My husband could just nip back to town a couple times a year for shutdowns.

But still.

No one wants others to think they’ve made a foolish decision. Their wives are without their husbands for a total of four months every year.

Would I really want to be a single mother for a third of each year? I enjoy my husband coming home each evening, even if we only exchange a few words before bedtime. The kids get to spend a little time with their dad, and talk over anything that comes up. And a hug helps to ease the stresses of the day.

Family support on a daily basis includes good meals and clean clothing, most of the time. Not that I’d mind a break for four months every year, but getting out of the habit of caring for my husband, and him caring for me, would perhaps make us resentful of having to start again after a long absence. I’ve heard wives of commuters make that remark.

Commuting also produces loneliness. No one thinks being apart will affect them, but couples slowly drift apart and fill up their lives with other people in their partner’s absence. It happens all the time. Many marriages end in divorce, and they are bewildered about how it happened.

The effect on children isn’t any better. Fathers typically drift apart from their children. Children often cannot even verbalize that they are unhappy and feel neglected by their absent parent, but the child may begin to act out with negative behavior or loss of interest in school. Then the mother (it’s usually her at home with the kids, while dad goes to work elsewhere) has all kinds of problems on her hands while dad’s away.

Not a good scene.

Then there’s the whole issue of treating Fort McMurray like a work camp. It isn’t. It’s home to many families who have pulled up their roots elsewhere, and come here and started fresh. They give their all, put everything into being here.

Those are the people who get the most out of living here. Fort McMurray becomes home, and they make lifelong friends, and create memories for their families.

We are that sort of family; not a commuter one.