After years caring for her family, Monique found a new priority – herself

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Monique van Tulder spent most of her life caring for others – putting her career on the backburner for her husband, raising her children and helping with the care of ageing parents.

“My husband was earning a lot more money, so from a family point of view, it made financial sense [to put my career on hold when I had children]. And I thought, ‘OK, that’s cool. This is just a few years’.”

At 54, Monique van Tulder left her husband and sons behind for a solo gap year.

“[But] a few years became decades, and that’s when the rot set in. I thought, ‘is this it?’”

At 54, she made the radical decision to leave her husband and two sons – then in their late teens – and travel Australia and Europe for eight months.

The experience, which van Tulder details in her book, A Grown Up’s Gap Year, fundamentally changed her life.

“I came alive again. It was as if I was living a life in sepia, and technicolor came into my life again,” she says.

Rejecting the mental load

Van Tulder’s experience of the motherload is not unique. Leah Ruppanner, a professor of sociology and founding director of The Future of Work Lab and the Gender Equity Initiative at the University of Melbourne, says men are starting to take on a greater share of household work.

Still, the amount of domestic work done by men in homes with dependent children (under 15) has not increased in the decades since 2002, according to the latest Household, Income and Labour Dynamics survey.

When it comes to the mental load, women still bear the brunt.

Pinpointing how much free time mothers have is difficult, in part because time-use surveys have historically equated unpaid labour and leisure as one and the same.

Ruppanner says a mother’s leisure time is often described as “contaminated time” by sociologists, since children still tend to be involved.

A study published this year, analysing the time use of parents across 13 European countries, found that fathers consistently have more leisure time than mothers.

Van Tulder says she never felt guilty about taking time for herself but since writing her book, she’s received some negative comments.

“There’s been quite a bit of pushback from some men who suggest I am a sh-t mum and wife, and that I wouldn’t be welcome in their home. A lot of women have also said, ‘what kind of mother does that?’”

“As women, we need to step back a bit because eventually, the good men will step up.”

Monique van Tulder

Ruppanner and van Tulder acknowledge that extended time away from family is a privilege afforded by time and money.

Van Tulder’s gap year has reshaped her life since returning home. She now divides her time between Sydney, where her family lives, and an interstate property, where she lives alone.

While she remains close to her family – she is still with her husband – she’s learnt to lay down stronger boundaries around her spare time.

“As women, we need to step back a bit because eventually, the good men will step up,” she says.

And as van Tulder points out, people are living longer than ever before. Then in her early 50s, she was staring down the barrel at another third of her life and wondering what lay ahead. For women experiencing a similar midlife lull, she recommends they consider what they value in life.

“In my generation, no one asked us what we [women] wanted. We just kind of trudged along a path, until the end and thought, ‘the life that I’ve created, it might not fit me any more’.”

Shorter trips on the rise

And van Tulder is not alone. Sydney single mum Evie Farrell takes mothers around the world with her travel business Mum Pack, founded in 2019. While participants range in age from 20s to 60s, most are in their 30s with young children. For many, it’s their first time away from their family for an extended period.

After a dip during the pandemic, she says business is booming.

“Women are typically the organisers of everything at home,” she says. “We pour everything into our kids and our family and now we are realising that we need time for us too. It doesn’t mean we love our kids any less – looking after ourselves makes us an even better parent.”

Evie Farrell, front left, on a women’s trip to the Philippines, and right, Kellie Floyd on a solo trip to Vietnam last year.

Solo women are one of the fastest growing demographics in travel, with a quarter of women aged 55-plus saying they would prefer to travel solo rather than with their spouse and kids.

Farrell’s group trips take the mental load out of holiday planning, which women also tend to take on disproportionately.

“They’re not running around after their children or looking after their husband ... they don’t have to lift a finger,” she says.

Mum of two Kellie Floyd took her first solo trip last year.

Travelling with other women also opens the door to new friendships.

“There are some women who don’t have those friendship circles [with other women], or maybe they’ve always holidayed with their husbands and other couples.”

Kellie Floyd, a marketing consultant and freelance writer, travelled with Farrell to Vietnam last year.

The Melbourne mum, of two children aged nine and 12, had travelled extensively with her family. But this was her first trip alone. While her husband was “unwaveringly supportive”, not everyone had the same response.

“When I told a few family and friends – women – that I was going and I was obviously super excited about it, a few of them were quite shocked.”

Floyd believes its value should be seen independently of their status as mothers.

“As mothers, we’re often looking for internal permission before we do something for ourselves – ‘I’ve worked hard, so I deserve a massage’ or ‘I’m going on a girls’ weekend so I can come back refreshed for my family.’ But maybe it’s time we stop tying our choices to outcomes or worthiness.”

“I’ve always been curious about cultures. I want to see the world. That, on its own, is enough of a reason.”

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