Please don’t tell my wife this – I like it when she travels for work. It is good to have her out of the house for a while.

Did I just say that?

Some of you who know me are thinking I should drop the shovel while I can still climb out of the hole I am digging, but you would also know I am not wise enough to do that. So before the hole becomes a grave, I better explain.

You see, I become a better parent and my kids become better kids when my wife is gone. Okay, that doesn’t sound quite right either.

Let me start from the beginning.

My wife and I have been married for 12 years. We have three children, ages 11, 8, and 6. When our oldest son was born, my wife became a full-time, stay-at-home mom. When he was about 10 months old, my wife recognized a need to get out and interact with other adults and, therefore, started her career in direct sales, doing home parties and educating people on the value of educational toys. This meant leaving the house a handful or more evenings a month for parties and other events and traveling to trainings and conventions several times per year.

That is what made me a better parent. Actually, my wife leaving made us both better parents. How? For me, it forced me to trust myself as a parent. It forced me to rely on my own skills, rather than relying on my wife to handle things like she would all day. It forced me to figure out more things to cook for dinner, though, pancakes and frozen pizza were perfectly acceptable and very popular for a long time.

For my wife, it forced her to let go of the notion that her way of doing something was the only way to do it. (Still, her way was usually the best, most effective, and, at times, the safest way to do something). This letting go also took some pressure off of her because we were able to be equals as parents, which, as she found out when she traveled to some homes, was not the case everywhere.

My wife leaving was also good for the kids. Our kids got to see their amazing stay-at-home mom get dressed up to also go be an amazing and confident career woman. They got to see her earn trips to wonderful places (which they got to experience only in pictures) because of how good she was at her job. They got to see that though her family was the most important thing in her life, just as with their daddy, it was not the only thing in her life that defined her.

Since last April, my wife has been working on the corporate side of direct sales, training and coaching others. She still works mostly from home but is traveling more often and for longer periods of time. She just recently returned from being gone for five days at a conference.

Once again, it was great for us. I enlisted the help of my parents and my kids got to spend some wonderful time with their papa and grandma. But there was more to it this time. I realized that when one of us or both of us is gone, our kids rely on themselves and each other a little more and grow up a little more. They also miss us a little more and appreciate us a little more. The looks on the faces of the kids and their mother, as they reunited at the airport, were evidence of that and truly priceless.

One last thing, when my wife travels for work, other people get to see how amazing she is, too.

Yes, I do like it when my wife travels for work but I love it when she is home.

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