The lure of the oil industry is enticing for young families struggling to turn their farms into viable enterprises.
Salaries are high in the oil patch, and the opportunities to supplement them with lucrative overtime are equally rewarding. A number of families are tempted to spend two or three years working there, later investing the money that they made back home into their own operations. They believe this plan will help reduce their overall debt loads.
The problem, of course, is that the opportunity for high salaries carries with it equally high costs of living. Moving entire families is expensive. The option is to take work in the oil field, leaving the rest of the family at home and returning to visit on the occasional weekend while sending back enough of the paycheque to keep bread on the table and a roof over everyone’s heads.
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This is not the ideal for family life, but it is an option that many families are considering.
If you are seriously considering a move to the oil patch to resolve some of your financial difficulties, you might want to think about some of the following.
The first is that financial windfalls do not fix difficult relationships. All of us are aware of the stress that too much debt can put onto a family, and we know that reducing that debt will go a long way to getting life at home back into a more reasonable routine.
But money is just a sedative. It can make things better, but it cannot fix them.
If you have a violent or dysfunctional relationship before you go to the oil patch, you will have a violent or dysfunctional relationship when you come home. If you have a supportive and caring relationship, you will likely have the same when you get back home.
Honestly examining your relationships before leaving for lucrative jobs is important. You might want to do what you can to strengthen communications with each other and reaffirm your commitment to your family.
The family still has to keep up with its responsibilities. Livestock have to be fed and watered, children need to get ready for school, community commitments have to be maintained.
The family needs support, and grandparents, aunts and uncles, or even just close friends can be asked to help.
Life goes on when you are in the oil field. The kids want to have sleepovers at their friends’ houses, parent-teacher interviews need to be attended, the hockey team wants volunteers to flip hamburgers for its tournaments, someone is looking for help for the fall supper and maybe someone needs weekly visits in the nursing home.
The migrant worker may occasionally come home to an empty house, and you can bet that at least some of the time you will walk in the door only to find everyone busy with other commitments. They are happy to see you but may not even have time to say hi as they go out the door.
Making a few extra dollars from the oil industry may help, but remember that miracles are reserved for the shows we watch on late night television.
Commitments to a few years in the oil patch are helpful but not miraculous.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor, living and working in west-central Saskatchewan who has taught social work for two universities. Mail correspondence in care of Western Producer, Box 2500, Saskatoon, Sask., S7K 2C4 or e-mail jandrews@producer.com.
