A Paradigm Shift on Parenting: How to be a Nomad AND a Parent? (Part One)
My odyssey on a less traveled road
I hope by now, you have had resonance with some of the stories I shared in my previous blog post. Undoubtedly, a nomadic lifestyle is captivating, offering unparalleled freedom and boundless possibilities. However, beyond the allure and romanticism, it’s equally important to investigate the flip side: what is the practical reality of a nomadic life, especially when you may already have a family to raise?
Each family has a different situation. In an ideal family, the parents live and raise kids together. In some families, the parents may be physically separated, or divorced, and therefore may raise kids in very different ways. While I cannot speak for all of them, I can explain what my situation looks like. I’m a single dad of two young kids: one is 5 years old and the other is 7. Most of the time, they live happily with their mom. When I’m not traveling, my kids live with me. Currently, my total time spent with kids lasts 3–4 months a year. Because of this arrangement, my personal life is adapted into two modes around the year. When I’m on my own, I maximize the utilities of freedom for travel, and when I’m with my kids, I resume the traditional life: making drop-offs and pick-ups of kids at school, preparing lunch boxes at night, cooking dinner and breakfast, shopping for groceries, reviewing kids’ homework, and etc. During this time, my ex-wife usually takes a break and enjoys her personal life. We basically switch our roles as parents. Depending on different situations, the role switching may happen a couple times a year.
As you can see, the way that my ex-wife and I arrange our parenthood is very different, and in fact, may be against many social norms. It’s never easy to reach such an arrangement because it obviously involves a lot of sacrifices, both from the children and us. It also requires a high degree of trust, maturity, and collaboration between us. To make this unusual lifestyle work, several fundamental questions need to be answered. I’m going to address the first two in Part One of this article, and the next two in Part Two.
- How to maintain a nurturing and strong bonding with children when I don’t live with them all year round?
I want to emphasize that I ended up on this unusual path not because I chose so, but because a series of life events led me here. My wife and I started the divorce process in 2019. She wanted full child custody. I didn’t like it but I also didn’t want to fight with her in the court. We settled with a minimal visitation plan for me, with an oral agreement to increase my visitation as the kids grew older. What made this even worse was that, between Spring 2019 and Summer 2022, I wasn’t able to visit my younger son because my ex-wife brought him back to China to live with his grandparents during our divorce process, and he was stuck there after Covid broke out.
In the beginning, I grappled with numerous doubts and concerns. Thoughts like, “What if I miss out on important moments in their lives? What if our bond weakens, and they start to perceive me as a distant figure in their lives?” plagued my mind. Whenever I saw other kids happily playing with their parents on the streets, the feeling of strong sadness emerged. The feeling was especially intense during holidays when other families came together for joyful gatherings. I simply could not hold my tears on many such occasions.
On the Christmas night of 2019, I called my mom in China and asked her what I should do. She gave me a very surprising answer: “Son, despite of all the legitimate concerns you have, what truly counts is the depth of the connection you have with your kids, not the frequency of interactions. Some parents, despite living under the same roof with their kids every day, never truly forge a strong bond with their children. Conversely, you may develop a profound connection with someone, even if you have never met each other before. This can happen at any age — even at my age! Focus on being a person your kids genuinely like and connect with them fully; everything else will naturally work out by itself.”
My mom’s words sounded very counterintuitive, but logically it made some sense. From that moment on, my perspective started to shift towards enhancing the quality of my time with my kids, rather than stay fixated on the quantity of hours, or on whether I could physically be present for every holiday. I embraced flexibility when it came to visitation schedules, prioritizing the enrichment of our interactions and the depth of our connection.
The next year, Covid broke out. During the early days of the pandemic, I made a concerted effort to bridge the geographical gap between the San Francisco Bay Area (my home) and Orange County (their home). I managed to visit my elder son once every 2–3 months, each lasting 7–10 days. I have probably stayed in almost every Airbnb and hotel in the neighborhood near their house. I made it a point to ensure that each visit was a special experience for him. Sometimes I stayed in a modern condo apartment, sometimes I stayed in a cozy cottage in someone’s backyard. Sometimes the house was in a White community, and sometimes the house was in an Asian community. For my younger son, I video chatted with him about once a week.
If the Airbnb host had kids in their family, I would encourage my son to hang out with those kids. If I didn’t bring my car on a particular visit, I would encourage my son to venture out into the neighborhood with me, find the nearest bus stop, and target the bus line. He was particularly excited about these bus rides since it was a relatively uncommon experience for most American kids. Over time, I noticed his excitement grew with each of my visit. He cherished the unique experiences we shared during my visits, which he couldn’t find in their day-to-day life with his mom. Our connections seemed deepened.
In my quest to make each visit an enriching experience, I always tried to introduce interesting objects or concepts to him. I vividly recall the joy in his eyes whenever he was amused. In 2020, I bought a pop-up tent and showed my elder son during a beach outing. The tent quickly became his favorite toys to play with. Later that year, from Florida, I brought back a meticulously crafted alligator head made of leather, which turned out to be true fascination for him. In the winter of 2021, I took my son to Lake Arrowhead. He saw and played with snow for the first time in his life. In another visit, we took a car ferry to Balboa Island, where he was so amazed that cars could actually take a boat!
As my kids grew older, I started to let them explore more hobbies, such as sports, travel and history. In the summer of 2022, my younger kid finally reunited with me after his mom picked him up from China. Three years of video chat reached an end. After he came back, I tried to fit him in our life as soon as possible. I showed him how to swing a golf club in a driving range nearby, and went sailing on my inflatable sailboat in a local river. My younger son was fearful of water, so I encouraged him to push his boundary, and overcome the fear. I brought back a book from Alaska to inspire both kids to be brave and be a traveler when they grew up. I also brought back a puzzle from Mt. Rushmore to teach them who the presidents were, why they were great leaders, and how they influenced the American history. In the summer of 2023, I took them to a road trip to Berkeley where I used to attend my graduate school. I wanted them to be closer to nature and understand some of their father’s past journey.
Each of my visit was an opportunity to share new experiences and knowledge, fostering their curiosity and enthusiasm for life. As I watched them grow, the doubts that had once plagued me in the early days faded away. Despite my limited time with them, I was relieved to find that they never grew distant or alienated. Instead, a deep and unbreakable bond had formed between us. What was yet again surprising was that, at the beginning of each new visit, our connection seemed to instantly rekindle, and our intimacy resumed just after a hug, as if we had never been apart.
2. How to combat my own loneliness when I’m alone?
In addition to fostering a strong bond with my kids, mitigating my own sense of loneliness has become a vital aspect of my life. Over the years, I’ve developed creative strategies to navigate moments of solitude, particularly during holidays.
First and foremost, my ex-wife and I worked diligently to rebuild our friendship and trust, a process that was challenging yet immensely rewarding (details of which will be explained in forthcoming blog posts). We always try to celebrate birthdays and the most important holidays together with the kids. If not, we established a flexible rotating schedule for Christmas and Thanksgiving, allowing us to navigate conflicts. For instance, one year the kids would spend Thanksgiving with me and Christmas with their mom, and the following year, we’d switch. Alternatively, we’d divide the four-day holiday into two two-day segments, each accommodating our individual schedules.
Secondly, during those rare moments when I did find myself alone on a holiday, I leveraged a variety of options to combat loneliness. I could join one of my closest friends for a vibrant family gathering, or savor an engaging conversation and a delicious dinner with a fellow single friend. Alternatively, I might opt to participate in a meet-up group, engaging in invigorating outdoor activities with like-minded individuals. One of my most cherished holiday memories from recent years was joining a local hiking group and taking a Thanksgiving Day hike to the summit of Mount Rubidoux Park in Riverside, where I made new friends amidst the breathtaking scenery.
As the years passed by, my kids grew from toddlers to preschoolers, to kindergarteners, and now to elementary school students. My hair first turned grey, and then thin, but I made every effort to build a stronger heart through all the challenges. Sometimes I wondered, had I lived with them everyday, chilling out as in a normal life, but failed to truly invest my time and energy on parenting in the way I did, would I still have such a fulfilling and memorable parenting experience?
Sometimes we tend to believe that life offers only a single path, dictated by social norms. However, over the years, it has become apparent to me that the possible paths are numerous, perhaps even limitless, constrained solely by the boundaries of our imagination and creativity.
Thanks for reading my article. Please leave your comments and thoughts. Give it a clap or repost it in your network if you like it. If you also want to share your inspiring stories, consider writing in Build Nomadland, which aims to promote nomadic life, freedom and success. I can be reached on Linkedin for professional collaborations.
