When you get to travel for work, as I do, there are plenty of perks. Pillow menus, buffet breakfasts, having someone else make your bed.
And, still, there are plenty of times when I’ve been made to feel as though my choice to travel for work, even when it’s vital to perform my role, somehow makes me a bad mother.Recently, I travelled from Melbourne to Sydney for six nights to attend Australian Fashion Week, double the number of nights I’d previously left my toddler.
These questions are no doubt benign in their intention. But they implicitly presuppose that women, and women alone, do the “important” parenting, while the bumbling father or father-figure burns toast and doesn’t know how to tie a ponytail. In asking these questions, we’re also “gatekeeping” men – and anyone else who could step up on the caregiving front – from taking more responsibility, which reinforces the idea that they can’t, shouldn’t or needn’t, says Marg Rogers, a senior lecturer in early childhood at the University of New England.