Away from home with young families

Well done to the both of you :slight_smile: :slight_smile: . The job that i do means i can be away from home for 2/4 weeks at a time in summer my wife under stands the job that i do.I do have 2 kids aged 9m & 6yr it is hard at times being away for so long but the way i look at it is i do get a good bit of time in Jan/Feb/march then it all starts agian. If i could get the same money for being at home all the time in stead of being away i would stay at home but the bills still need to be payed :smiley:

Home every night is the way forward!
Did nights out about 10 years ago. What a load of rubbish that was.

Jen:
Hi,i’m the partner of Alix776 our little one is next week 1

When they still small sleep when the little one is in sleep,Its not easy to do it all at you own if partner is away all week only home during the weekend.Alix leave me always in bed in the weekends so i can catch up.Even when the little one is a bit older like the ours just ask your parents out her parents to have him/her for a night so u both can spend a night together that is how we diong that sometimes :laughing: not very often trough .

she can pm me everytime :wink:

been a few years now Glad you n alex are still one .

There is no family time when you are a driver, unless you do multi drop job and finish. I was tramping up til 6 months ago. But I had every weekend with the wife and kids. Been on nights wed to sun as that’s all you get on agency in my area. I see my kids for 2 hrs a day monday to wednesday after school, before they go to bed. The mrs hates it and so do I. I’d go back to tramping tommorrow if I could find a job :frowning:

With the benefit of hindsight I would have stayed home every night & weekend with my kids, at the time all three of my kids were born & growing up I was doing continental, I didn’t realise just how much I missed out on until looking through the old photo albums, the only pics I was in were the ones at Christmas & Birthdays, all the other stuff, along with the first step, word, day at school, nativity play, parents evenings, sports days etc etc I missed out on, yeah the missus coped, the kids grew up ok blah blah blah, but I wish I’d been around a lot more.

Unfortunately we as drivers have to make sacrifices like this, usually being away means more money & sometimes you have to get as much as you can, for instance when you’re young & saving for a deposit on a house, or so that the missus can pack up work to look after the baby, so we do what we have to do.

When i met my missis and her little boy (he was 3weeks old) i was tramping at the time she dint mind so much, and her little boy is now my little man, he calls me dad too and has done since he could talk (he dont c his real dad) i missed him growing up as many blokes on here have missed it with there kids, but i loved my my job and the money was good. we now live 2getha and have done 4 2 n half years i spent 1 n half years of that tramping. i have ha a normal job 4 a year but i just cant do it, its so boreing i think. so i am going bk in to tramping and she says if it makes me happy then she is happy, as long as i bring her a little prezzie home lol… she will even let me keep playin footie on a sat… happy days!

if she is happy now and you are earning decent money and are happy then i dnt c a reason to change ul just hav to cope my missis did as many others have done and will do in the future… if u left u mite not be happy… then again lol it 6 of 1 n half dozen of the other aint it!
congrats anyway chap i hope you are both very happy.

my dad was away all week ever since i can remember when i was younger doing Europe, I didn’t find it hard but maybe because it was all I had ever known. We spoke on the phone every day which isn’t the same but as I got older I understood why. He was the one paying for my nike trainers my new football boots and everything else. Yeah I was disapointed when he had to ship out early on a sunday and missed a game but he would always phone to ask how it went and how I had played. He was never there for school plays or anything like that and even if he would of came to pick me up I dont think the school would of knew who he was. The plus sides are I used to spend school holidays in Europe when we got weekended one week he took me to watch Barcelona play and took me to the san siro for the tour which i couldnt understand a word as the guide was obviously italian. I will say through my teenage years me and the old man didnt get on very well but that was me not him i was a little ■■■■ and got myself into trouble but I would never blame the fact my dad was away i made the decisions and i paid for my mistakes, now im doing my HGV training and we speak every day he has got me a job to walk into when i have passed. Ive got the best dad in the world and he was always away so i suppose it depends on the individual circumstances. I am very close to my mom though as she had to play mom and dad during the week she done everything for us aswell as working full time as a teaching assistant my advice would be when you are home make the most of your time with your family and see how it goes. I will be working away all week when I pass and get my job and like me and the mrs have said we will see how it goes for both of us bu things should be ok as she is a very independant woman think it will be me struggling with being away from her and the kids.

Best of luck with everything

ok this is my story

it all started about a year ago,

i was working as a driver, home every night with three young children ( 2 step daughters). my job was perfect in every sense but… it was just easy local runs, a world apart from what i’d always wanted to do…LONG DISTANCE EUROPEAN TRUCKING,

since i was 21(34 now) i’ve always tried to get on this type of work but the companies just were not going over the water anymore, so i gave up and settled down to family life.

then last year i was reading mat’s diaries on here of his exploits on transam, and it reminded me of how i always wanted that way of life. i told the wife this was the life for me…in hindsight it was a bit of a rash decision, anyway i started looking about, and as PULLEYNS yard is about 10 mins from my house i made up my mind this was the perfect job…shipping out to europe and beyond etc.

one saturday morning i turned up at their yard unannounced, armed with my driving licence,passport,CRB check. and to my amazement they almost offered me a job on the spot, about a week later a letter arrived in the post confirming my date to start…

…then it finally started to sink in, i would have to leave my family for at least a month at a time, especially my son who is now 4, i really had to weigh up my options, the start date was getting closer and i had to either hand in my notice or stay put.

well in the end, after a lot of soul searching i decided, that the fantasy was probably better than the reality, so i stayed put.

and although i will always have a part of me that wants to ship out, i know which side my breads buttered and what would i regret more;

not trucking across europe

or

not seeing the ankle biters grow up.

so i am still that driver thats home every night with three young children.

chris:
ok this is my story

it all started about a year ago,

i was working as a driver, home every night with three young children ( 2 step daughters). my job was perfect in every sense but… it was just easy local runs, a world apart from what i’d always wanted to do…LONG DISTANCE EUROPEAN TRUCKING,

since i was 21(34 now) i’ve always tried to get on this type of work but the companies just were not going over the water anymore, so i gave up and settled down to family life.

then last year i was reading mat’s diaries on here of his exploits on transam, and it reminded me of how i always wanted that way of life. i told the wife this was the life for me…in hindsight it was a bit of a rash decision, anyway i started looking about, and as PULLEYNS yard is about 10 mins from my house i made up my mind this was the perfect job…shipping out to europe and beyond etc.

one saturday morning i turned up at their yard unannounced, armed with my driving licence,passport,CRB check. and to my amazement they almost offered me a job on the spot, about a week later a letter arrived in the post confirming my date to start…

…then it finally started to sink in, i would have to leave my family for at least a month at a time, especially my son who is now 4, i really had to weigh up my options, the start date was getting closer and i had to either hand in my notice or stay put.

well in the end, after a lot of soul searching i decided, that the fantasy was probably better than the reality, so i stayed put.

and although i will always have a part of me that wants to ship out, i know which side my breads buttered and what would i regret more;

not trucking across europe

or

not seeing the ankle biters grow up.

so i am still that driver thats home every night with three young children.

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

abit of differance between 3ish nights out a week and a month at a time.

chris:
ok this is my story

it all started about a year ago,

i was working as a driver, home every night with three young children ( 2 step daughters). my job was perfect in every sense but… it was just easy local runs, a world apart from what i’d always wanted to do…LONG DISTANCE EUROPEAN TRUCKING,

since i was 21(34 now) i’ve always tried to get on this type of work but the companies just were not going over the water anymore, so i gave up and settled down to family life.

then last year i was reading mat’s diaries on here of his exploits on transam, and it reminded me of how i always wanted that way of life. i told the wife this was the life for me…in hindsight it was a bit of a rash decision, anyway i started looking about, and as PULLEYNS yard is about 10 mins from my house i made up my mind this was the perfect job…shipping out to europe and beyond etc.

but hopefully your ankle biters will grow up and go for a pint with you and the odd game of football thats what I have got I have a son who is 30 and one who is 27 and I see them regulaly but I never wan ted nights away and I am glad I did what I did I always worked lots of hours but did the time with the kids I took them to work with me in the school hols they drove me mad sometimes and cost me a fortune in breakfasts but I loved having them with me and when they were growing up I steered them into an office type of job and they both work 35 hour weeks and one is a computer bod and earns £50 grand a year I did not want them working 12-15 hrs a day to me family is precious if not why bother having kids I have 2 friends both couples who did not want kids they have had great lifestyles and have loads of money but I always think who is knocking on their door when they are old and unwell to end try and see your kids every day and get involved with them I now have a 2 year old grandaughter and it starts again but I love her to bits god luck with finding the right job I know it very hard at this time but stick with it I am rambling a bit but I have been down the pub with one of my boys and it is 1 30 am so I am off to bed now

I fell into the m/e work in '75 when it was really picking up.
I had a young wife,a boy of 4 and a girl of 2.
After my first trip,(Baghdad),away for 5 weeks they were all glad to see me home.
Being the adventurous type,I was doing the job for 12 years,the sense of adventure still hadn’t worn off,but my wife said it was not a job for anyone to do until retirement,so I parked up at aged 42.
I must be one of the few ex m/e men still married to the same girl,coming up for 43 years this year,she understood how much the job meant to me and was prepared to bring up our rug rats on her own.
It’s all down to how you both look at the job,and how much you think of your partners feelings.
My wife married me when I was in the army so had no idea that I was going to finish up doing that job,but accepted it was what I wanted to do.
We both realised the money was not to be sneezed at,we were able to pay the mortgage off in 14 years,and my wife,then as now was never a bored housewife,that’s what you have to be careful of.