If you know anything about family relationships, you know that it’s the little things that count: being around when you’re needed and staying in touch when you’re away. Relationships are very rewarding, but they also take a little bit of faith and a whole lot of nurturing to stay on track.
Maybe you love going on the road, or maybe you have a job that takes you away from more than it keeps you at home. Either way, the feelings of homesickness hit, and your family and friends start to miss you. You may end up missing out on defining moments in your family’s life: baby’s list of firsts, an important game or an important interview for the spouse or one of the older kids.
Family Parting is such sweet sorrow…
While traveling for work cannot be avoided, you can make a conscious effort not to fade into oblivion by keeping in touch, and doing it creatively. Are you so tired from 100,000 meetings with no you-time? Take a selfie of your tired face and caption it for your friends, kids or spouse.
You can make memeing a fun activity to do with your family when you’re around, that way you can use memes to communicate both important stuff and goofy stuff; make each other laugh and perhaps the separation will be a little easier to bear.
Children, in particular, are the most vulnerable of the group. Once you’re away a lot, they don’t make the connection that you have to be away because of work so as to put a roof over their heads and food on the table. They just see that you aren’t there, and slowly begin to harbor resentment against you.
There’s a meme for everything
Using funny photos of yourself and popular cartoon and real-life figures to communicate your fun, cheesy, downer and victory messages can give both of you something to look forward to. Make it a pattern of sorts: like send them a self-made meme at least once each day and ask them to capture their important moments into a meme and send them back to you.
You may not think so and they may not act like it, but pretty soon, you’ll both be looking forward to that sharing moment together, and it can help keep the candle burning. Even the teenagers who act like they’re all macho and not missing you at all will look forward to getting those messages from you while you’re away conquering the world.
Where to start
If you’re completely new to memeing, you can start with the popular memes of famous characters. Check out our site for funny memes to see how they’re used, just to be sure that you nail it. Sure, no one will punish you for using it wrong, but taking the time to understand the context and then applying it to your life will show your family that you put some thought into it.
It’s easy to forget that our children don’t deal with separation as well as adults (and adults struggle with it too). You have to employ some creativity, especially in this age of technology, to show your children that you too care about the things that make them happy, and are willing to go that extra mile.
Now, go forth and meme!!
