This Friday I hop on a plane to San Francisco and will be away for a little over 24 hours speaking at a start-up conference.  Over the weekend I started telling my sons, particularly my almost 5-year-old, that I was going to be gone for one night. My husband and I have found that our oldest does a lot better when he knows “the plan” and we can discuss it for a few days before it happens. If you sneak something up on him - he is liable to have on of his “fits” (as he calls them).  As I talked about why I had to be gone, my oldest said:

That’s not fair. Mommy always has to go. It’s Daddy’s turn.

He is right. I more often have events and travel outside of office hours. I don’t travel tons, and often times when I do travel I take the kids with me (along with my mom or husband or mother-in-law to help out). But about once a month I have evening events where I speak, teach, or facilitate entrepreneurship, and once on a while I plan a quick trip to a conference or speaking engagement where it is  just easier to fly in and out and not plan on the extra expense and all the extra hard work that entails bringing the  kids along. In April I will be gone for a total of 3 full nights away, and one evening at a local entrepreneurship event.  Daddy will be in charge, taking care of our 2 boys on his own.

My son knows my husband and I work together, running Palo Alto Software together. He knows that we go to the same office, and work with the same people. So his question is of course very logical. What is harder for him to understand right now is the different jobs that Mommy and Daddy do. I am the public face person for the company. My position requires me to travel more and to be in front of as many people as possible speaking, teaching and evangelizing.  My husband is our opps detail guy. He is all about product development, IT infrastructure and web development. So no matter how I like it or not - I am going to be the one that travels more and is more often gone.

And of course that gives me immense Mommy guilt. While I LOVE what I do, and I have chosen this life and this career, and I would NEVER change it, that doesn’t mean I don’t have guilt. Especially when the almost 5 year old wants to know why I have to be gone more than Daddy. I wish it could be different. I wish I could ALWAYS take the kids. But I also know its good  for Daddy to have some time on his own with the kids. Our kids are still so young that they definitely tend to still migrate towards me when they are hurt, tired, hungry, or upset. So every time Daddy is the only one — I feel like they get a little more bonded to him. Or maybe this is how I make myself feel better about being away.  One way or another though — I can’t change the fact that in order to do the job I love, I am going to have to travel here and there. This means I am going to have to leave the kids behind sometimes.  I know they are O.K. — I just need to learn how to not feel so guilty about it.

If you are a working mommy who travels more than your partner, I would love to know how you deal with it!

Sabrina Parsons aka MommyCEO

So I posted on Facebook this morning looking for advice on planning a potential trip this winter with my 2 kiddos - on my own. Yup, just me and the kids. Not even sure this is an idea that should be explored, much less implemented, but I REALLY want to go on this trip, and it’s looking like it’s with kids or not at all.

Anyway, within a few minutes, Edward Branley responded to me asking what I needed. I gave him a few of my questions and away he went! I actually inspired him to write this AWESOME post about traveling with little kids - PLEASE go read it, he goes out of his way to address many small, yet significant details that I would have never thought of.

After reading the details, though, I’m thinking more and more like I’d be crazy to attempt this - anyone want to reassure me that it’s possible to get from Wisconsin to North Carolina with 1 adult and 2 toddlers? Anyone?

Thanks YatPundit

Kate Olson is a mother of 2 toddlers and lives in rural Wisconsin. She balances motherhood & working from home in a semi-functional fashion - you can read more about Kate on our contributors page. She blogs about education and lots of business/tech stuff at Kate Says . Want more? Read all of Kate’s posts!

Stephanie Sandifer is a mother of (almost) 6 month-old twins (a boy and a girl) and lives in Houston, Texas. She balances motherhood & working as a Literacy Content Area Specialist for the Houston Independent School District - you can read more about Stephanie on our contributors page. She blogs about education and technology at Change Agency and about educational leadership issues at LeaderTalk.org.

July is finally here and I feel like I can breathe again.  We are working on developing a nap schedule, and everything seems to be going very well with that so far.  (Yes, I just knocked on wood…)

Last week I attended the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) and it was the first time that I was away from my babies.  I was out of town for 5 days and I can’t remember the last time I was so homesick.  Sure, I enjoyed the conference, but it was so hard to know that I wouldn’t be able to hold my babies, feed them, or kiss them goodnight every evening.  On at least a couple of occasions there were a few tears on my part.

We contemplated using Skype to chat in the evenings even though at 6 months old they really wouldn’t grasp the concept of what they were looking at, but the days were so busy and went by so quickly that we never did fire up Skype.  On the last day of the conference I was chatting with one of the other educators that I met at the conference and he said that his wife told him that he couldn’t Skype home any more.  Apparently his 2 year old daughter freaked out when daddy disappeared from the screen.  Not good.

Now I’m home and I’m fortunate that I have the month of July off from work to enjoy spending more with my beautiful children.  However, I am looking at quite a bit of travel over the next year and I struggle with mixed feelings of excitement over the opportunities to do presentations and workshops, and sadness over being away from my children.  And now I know that at least for a few years, Skype will not be an option…  Not sure yet how I’m going to cope with all of it.

In other news, I’ve also accepted a new job offer that will take me from campus-based position to a leadership role in central office.  Yep.  I just became part of the bureaucracy.  Okay — that was an attempt at humor.  I’m really looking forward to my new job and I’m very excited that the central office is only about 5 minutes away from my current school campus which is where the daycare is located.  I get a new job and I don’t have to worry about new daycare arrangements for the babies.  That doesn’t cure my recent (and future) homesickness — but it does make life a little easier!

Those of us who write for and read This Mommy Gig are no strangers to social media, Web 2.0 or the tool of those popular terms called blogging. Some work in corporate offices, some have virtual offices or part-time jobs, others concentrate full-time on their families; but, we all make time to leverage the latest online tools. And we’re by no means alone. More than 36 million women in the U.S. write and read blogs every week.

So, why is it then that when Chris Brogan decides to interview 32 “leaders in social media” in his upcoming twebinar* only five of them are women? This dearth of women being asked to speak or being interviewed about social media has already been discussed by greater minds than me. Lena West talked about it back in February. And Connie Reece called out my own city’s Chamber of Commerce for being guilty of it back in April.

But, what hit me when I looked at the list of leaders is that they’re mostly people who make the conference circuit. So, the visiblity that affords them perpetuates more opportunities for more visible engagements.

And, then I was also hit by this recent tweet from Laura Fitten, who I know better as Pistachio. Laura is a consultant who travels that conference circuit quite a bit herself, and she was asking if men at these events ever get asked “who is watching your kids?”

I somehow doubt they do. It is expected when you see a man traveling for work that if he has a family, his wife is taking care of his children. But, the reverse is not as expected when women travel. And, based just on personal observation, it doesn’t often happen.

When my church held a forum for men, where they spent a weekend away from their families, not much changed in the makeup of my 5-year-olds Sunday School class. But, when a women’s weekend retreat was held, nearly 50 percent of my regular attendees were away at grandma’s house for the weekend!

By no means an exhaustive study on the topic, or necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison, it all came together to make me ask: is the reason we don’t see more women speaking or being held up as leaders in social media the fact that fewer of them have (or feel they have) the freedom to travel the conference circuit to make the connections and get their name out there?

*I love Twitter, but does everything have to be named for it now?

I’m heading out of town tomorrow for 3 days. 3 days with almost no internet access, by the way. While I’m really looking forward to this trip “up north” to see my family, it’s just me and the kids going. Just me. And a 1 year old and a 2 year old. In a car. For 3 hours each way. And 2 nights of potential screaming. In my sister’s house.

Our last trip in February was rather harrowing and my husband was WITH me that time! None of us slept the one night we were there and I’ve been too scared to do it again since then. Now I’m going…………..this shall be interesting. Before my son was born I’d go a lot more frequently, but due to gas prices and the sheer exhaustion of it all, I haven’t traveled as much in the last year or so.

It’s honestly the feeling outnumbered that gets me the most and I HATE sleeping at someone else’s house with screaming children. It’s bad enough at home, but at least at home I’m not worried about waking up anyone else - and most importantly, we have all of our fail-safe tricks right at hand when we deal with night-screamers at home (hello Baby Einstein, the special brown chair, and random MUST-HAVE books that lull the lambs back to sleep). Oh yeah, and my husband is there to help at home when BOTH kids are up at the same time. People tell me the reason it’s so hard for me is that we haven’t traveled much with the kids so the kids aren’t used to sleeping in other places - maybe they’re right. Call me a wimp, but the thought of traveling very often with 2 toddlers is so exhausting I can barely move at the thought of it.

So, while I’m looking forward to all of the family time and my 2-year-old is dying with excitement at the thought of seeing her cousins and all of the other relatives we’ve been naming off for the past week - I’m going to need LOTS of coffee. Lots. And ear plugs.

And seriously, now that my daughter talks INCESSANTLY (thank you Birth To 3!) how the heck am I supposed to listen to audiobooks in the car? No one told me about this part of motherhood, they really didn’t.

My first posting on This Mommy Gig, Road Trip, discussed the importance of family vacations. Today I’d like to focus on business trips.

When I was a stay-at-home mom, I fantasized about glamorous trips to exotic locales. Eating dinner in a restaurant and having someone else make the bed seemed like the height of sophisticated bliss to me. I had no experience with the realities of stressful meetings, packed schedules, travel delays, and loneliness for spouse and children.

The vagaries of life on the road are beyond my control. But I do have a few suggestions for staying connected with your children when you must travel without them.

While my mother kept the home fires burning, my father moved about the globe as an engineer for General Electric. He always returned to us with gifts, souvenirs of far-away places. Some of these presents were substantial: tea sets from Japan, Steiff puppets from Germany, carved wooden Pinocchios from Switzerland. More often, though, we received foreign coins or coasters in different languages. I realize now that when Dad didn’t have time to shop, ragtag mementos were tossed into his suitcase. We loved them all, though, and dreamed of the days when we too would have a wallet stuffed with pound notes and francs (now, alas, the ubiquitous Euro).

The lesson here for traveling Mommies is that the best souvenirs are not necessarily the ones purchased in Harrods. Children are intrigued by doorknob hangers and subway tokens. My daughter and I exchange seashells from trips; my son has quite the collection of bottle openers from various cities. Think of small, useful items. My 86-year-old mother proudly wears socks from Key West, California, and Grand Cayman, given to her by children on the move.

Everyday items gain fascination when they’re from another country or written in another language. I bought my younger brother a Mickey Mouse comic written in Greek when I visited Rhodes; the human interest stories in the London dailies provided hours of amusement for my children after I returned from a trip to the U.K.

Share your memories with your children. Use a jar, some sand, and seashells to construct a mini-seashore in a bottle. Create a real or virtual scrapbook with pictures of the places you’ve visited. Have the kids take pictures of what happened at home while you were away and compare their adventures with yours. Find some recipes online for the foods you’ve tasted and introduce them to the flavors of Maine or Mexico, Kiev or Key West.

If you do have time to shop, choose a book that is set in the place you’ve visited and read it, with embellishments, to your children. Expand their world by making them a part of what you’ve experienced.

When you’ve returned from a trip, what little gifts have meant the most to your children?