What are the challenges – and benefits – of being a working mom in international development? To celebrate Mother’s Day, I gathered answers to this question from aid & international development professionals who are also moms.

Their input highlighted a variety of issues, including travel, balancing one’s career with a spouse’s or with the needs of children, raising children abroad, and more. Today’s post, focused on travel, is the first in a multi-part series.

Why have I put this series together?

1. For those of you who are working moms in aid & international development, I hope this series will serve to encourage you – you are not alone!
2. For those of you who are potential/future working moms in development and wondering how you could possibly raise a family while working in this field, I hope this series will give you some inspiration and ideas – it’s not easy, but it can be done!
3. And for those of you who are not now, nor will ever be, working moms in international development, I hope this series will still provide some interesting insight into the challenges that your colleagues/staff/boss/friends may encounter.

And rest assured, I plan to ask dads working in development for their perspectives as well…closer to Father’s Day in June.

Long Trips to Faraway Places

It’s no surprise that travel is one the most-often mentioned challenges for working moms in aid & development. As Linda Raftree, Senior Advisor, ICT4D, Plan International USA, remarks, “There are times when you miss really important things in your children’s lives, or they call you crying because they miss you and you carry that feeling with you that you’ve not given them everything they need because you are off supporting other people and their children, or you are somehow scarring your kids in the long term by your absence.”

The kind of travel that working moms in development must undertake also poses a particular challenge. “International development involves travel to poor countries with poor infrastructure,” remarks Lainie Thomas, Social Development Specialist (Civil Society & Development) at the Asian Development Bank and mom of four kids, ages 11, 9, 6, and 4. “It can be hard to get a call through to home; flights can be unreliable, which makes getting home on time stressful; Internet might be very expensive or slow and therefore hard to keep in touch.”

When they’re not traveling, some working moms work flexible hours or work from home, so they can spend more time with their kids. Linda remarks that she has been lucky to work in organizations that have allowed her this flexibility, given their awareness of the importance of family and children.

It can be tough on kids when their mother travels for extended periods, but it can also help build their sense of independence and self-sufficiency – which is both a strategy to cope with absences, and a result of not always being there, says Linda Raftree. “My kids probably matured faster than other kids because they had to get themselves places and didn’t always have help with their homework,” says Linda, whose kids are now ages 20 and 15. “This pays off for them now because they are self-motivated and responsible even if no one is pushing them externally.”

Moms working in development who are based in the field, as opposed to headquarters, report that travel is a bit more manageable. In fact, travel can be a plus. “It’s great that I can balance traveling and seeing some awesome things I would never see if I stayed in my home country without leaving my family at home for weeks on end,” remarks E.S., Senior Manager of an International NGO, based in Asia.

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