Road life vs Home life?

As many of us drivers already know, the road can be challenging at times. But at the same time, the road can become your new home.

When I started driving, I had no kids, I did have my wife with me on the truck, which has its perks but challenges in itself, so for me it wasn’t nothing to stay out months at a time.

Fast forward to now, we have 3 kids and I don’t want to be away from them.

For my first boy, I was gone a lot, making a living for my new family. My wife was a stay at home mom for a bit then ended up going back to work. I managed to get a home daily job with team driving and driver unloads.

When my wife was pregnant with our second baby, I ended up going back over the road because while we were on the road before kids, we had picked a few areas that we would consider moving to.

Well in order to do that I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the job I had being local. We decided where we wanted to move to, then I got a dedicated account with another company.

I was consumed by the road, the freedom. I didn’t stay gone months at a time like I did when I first started driving, but I came home about once every month and a half.

I was making pretty good money on that account.

Shortly after my wife gave birth to our second child, I went back to the road on that account. Then I found an open position for home daily in the area that we wanted to move to.

So we decided to uproot ourselves and move so I could be home daily again.

My wife was a stay at home mom again anyways because of complications with the pregnancy. So there wasn’t anything else tying us down.

We got moved and we loved the area. But a short 8 months later, we found out we were having another baby.

This was shortly after everything went into lockdown. She was scarred. She had never been away from her family like she was then. So we ended up moving back to where we came from.

How to cope with the road and kids?

I found this to be particularly hard myself. It really sucked being away from them. Missing out on a lot of milestones.

But when I came home, my oldest sure loved it! He would have a blast in the truck helping me get stuff taken out and into the car.

He hated it when I had to leave out again though. That was the hard part, knowing he was screaming and crying out for me as I was leaving the lot.

When you’re gone for a few weeks at a time, it takes a few days for the kids to stop asking your spouse “when is daddy coming home?” but we found that it did get a little easier for him sometimes.

Even when I was local, I would be working crazy hours, so I would work, come home, eat and then right to sleep, everyone else was asleep by that time anyways.

Plus I have sleep apnea and it wasn’t diagnosed and treated at the time when I was local the first time.

But we found that apps like Facetime or Zoom to be able to see each other face to face would help sometimes. It is still not the same as holding them.

Sometimes it would cause him to act out more.

It can be very hard with being OTR especially when you have young children who don’t understand what’s going on and why daddy is always gone.

What to do on Home Time with the kids?

There were a few thing we enjoyed doing for the short time I was home. We would go out to eat, go to the park and play, maybe swing by a splash pad.

One thing I hated doing on my hometime was drive or travel.

We both have family in the general area and we have a lot of different wildlife parks as well.

The kids would like to go see the trails and animals. Sometimes it would be a couple hours drive one way and I would hate that but seeing the joy on our child’s face made up for it.

One thing we didn’t do at the time was go out to the movies, because our oldest was still too young and I hate going to the movies to relax and having to listen to a kid screaming. So we wouldn’t take them to the movies, but if your kids are older it would be fun!

Is it worth it to go OTR with kids?

Financially the answer will more than likely be yes, especially if you’re just starting out. In most cases you can make a lot more money driving than working any other job in your area.

There aren’t a lot of high paying jobs around here in general, let alone for local driving jobs.

But you should always look at all of your options. Every area is different and everyone’s income needs are different.

You can look on Facebook for driving opportunities, I know for me I was able to find a few by just searching my state and driving jobs. There were a few groups and pages.

You also have the different hiring agencies, local and on the internet. Newspaper classifieds and just about any other social media platform.

Now most local jobs, you will have to be unloading or at least downstacking the freight and the pay isn’t always that good, but there are some gems out there that pay great! Always be looking!

It might take you 6 months or more to find a position, but if you want to be closer to your family, local is the way to go.

Keep in mind though, with most local jobs, you may or may not be required to follow HoS, so you could have some long days and nights.

So don’t just jump into a position because it opens up. Find out all the details before you jump ship.