By Jocelyn Tochor
In 2013 my life changed drastically, I had been living in Calgary building a career in the oil and gas sector for the prior 7 years when I reconnected with an old ‘friend’ from my international travels. He had recently moved from the UK, where we met, to Sweden. Over the next several months and a whirlwind long-distance relationship, we eventually planned my move to Stockholm, Sweden.
No stranger to living abroad, I was ready to go. Yet what happened which was unexpected was my departure from the corporate world, which I had been in since graduating university with a business degree and subsequently completing a Masters in Intercultural Communication as well.
When I arrived in Sweden, what I valued the most was flexibility. The flexibility to travel with my partner on his work trips, flexibility to return to Canada to see family, or to attend my friend’s weddings (and plan my own!) and flexibility to work on my own projects and dreams.
Rather than limit myself with a schedule set by someone else, I began contracting and volunteering with organizations for ex-pats, refugees, and asylum seekers who recently arrived in Stockholm. I worked on developing integration programs specifically targeted to these groups and I felt more fulfilled than I had before. This new way of connecting with and empowering people in a new culture was profoundly impactful on my future path.
Fast-forward to 2016 and a year off to travel in between, my now husband and I settled back in Calgary. We welcomed our first child and again, I didn’t see my path in the work-force laid out. While I missed the identity that a stable career trajectory gives, I no longer saw where I fit and if I wasn’t adding meaningful value, I couldn’t justify time away from my young daughter.
After she turned 18 months and started a couple of days a week in care, I filled my newfound free time with a project that a good friend and now business partner (Jena Rhydderch) and I developed called Faraway Families.
We spent long hours discussing the distance that separates our children from their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins and found it to be a huge void in their lives. We often reflected on the differences that our children were growing up with compared to when we were young.
As a young city with so many people who didn’t grow up here, we knew the story would resonate with a lot of Calgarians. We soon learned it resonates with nearly everyone … everybody has somebody who lives far away.
In 2019, we officially launched Faraway Families as a children’s picture book targeted to children 0-5, we have expanded to include greeting cards and postcards in our product line and plan to write our second book soon. We have collaborated with several organizations including the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association, The Centre for Newcomers, and the Calgary Military Family Resource Centre, as well as many preschools and schools across Western Canada. Regardless of the circumstances that have you separated, everyone can relate to the message that children are loved, no matter where they are.
Like many in this space (mom/work/life/balance?) I wanted to rewrite the formula for my own progression in the work-world, to feel successful, and to have an identity of my own. Faraway Families has given me an avenue that fills a creative side of my brain that I hadn’t used in the same way throughout my business career, and it also allows me to continue to be near my children and set my own schedule.
This work has allowed me to connect with so many children and families and to truly listen, be inspired by and learn from their stories. The most rewarding part of this process has been receiving feedback that the story is impactful in a family’s life. When children love the book and identify with the characters it makes it all worthwhile. It is our story, but it is a story shared by our entire community of families who are doing their best to stay close.
Learn more about us and new books coming soon at www.farawayfamilies.ca.
