Astronaut Chris Hadfield\u2019s wife Helene had to initially take on a lot of the home responsibilities and child rearing to allow her husband pursue his career, he admits. <\/p>\n
After all she wasn\u2019t just dealing with a husband who was out of town on business. <\/p>\n
She had a husband who was literally off the planet.<\/p>\n
And so they took the rather unusual option at holiday time of Chris taking the children away for a fortnight, but not Helene. <\/p>\n
\u201cHer vacation would be two weeks at home with no one but her. And she would call them \u2018one fork, one plate\u2019\u201d, he explains.<\/p>\n
In the latest episode of Conversations with Parents, the father of three tells me how the couple made parenting work for them, even though he concedes he\u2019s not sure if it\u2019s been \u2018equitable\u2019.<\/p>\n
Working in the armed forces for the majority of his children\u2019s lives meant that Chris was away from his children a significant amount of time. <\/p>\n
So, how did he cope?<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody\u2019s away from their children the majority of the time. They go to school. People go to work. And childhood only lasts 18 years. Parents have a big responsibility, but they also need to realise they\u2019re not the only influence in their children\u2019s lives\u201d, he tells me.<\/p>\n
With a new Irish granddaughter Chris \u201ccouldn\u2019t be more delighted\u201d, and he discusses the excitement and anxiety of awaiting her arrival from a distance.<\/p>\n
He explains how he stays connected with his granddaughters, in spite of the distance between them and how space travel has shaped his view of how far away they really are.<\/p>\n
Chris sweats the small stuff. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf I didn\u2019t sweat the small stuff I would be dead\u201d, he explains. \u201cI really try and pay attention to the things that matter. And the things that you can control. But if you can\u2019t control it, then don\u2019t get all worked up about \u201c, he advises.<\/p>\n
He describes the power of under-reacting to both seemingly good and bad things in life.<\/p>\n
Chris is very aware of the pressure his children felt having a famous astronaut as a father. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am visibly successful\u2026when your dad\u2019s an astronaut, it\u2019s pretty clear what your dad does for a living\u201d. <\/p>\n
He describes one example of shopping for underwear with his young son and being approached for an autograph and the embarrassment that followed for his child.<\/p>\n
And those pressures continue. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re the child of someone like that, then if you\u2019re successful \u2018well of course you\u2019re successful. Your dad\u2019s an astronaut. <\/p>\n
And if you\u2019re not successful, it\u2019s like \u2018well why aren\u2019t you successful. Your dad\u2019s an astronaut\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n
He shares how his adult children have reacted very differently to this.<\/p>\n
As a high achiever in life Chris discusses the importance of not \u201csquandering the skills you\u2019re born with and the opportunities that are presented in front of you\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cHow are you going to find joy in life if you don\u2019t discover all the things that you could possibly do?\u201d<\/p>\n
He shares what he finds to be the hardest part of parenthood. <\/p>\n
And \u201cthe great helplessness\u201d that evolves when children move away.<\/p>\n
Plus he takes the \u2018how well do you know your parenting terms?\u2019 test, allowing us to discover if he\u2019s a high achiever in everything. <\/p>\n
And tells us all about his brand new book \u2018Final Orbit\u2019. <\/p>\n
He even answers my son\u2019s question!<\/p>\n
You can listen to this episode of Conversations with Parents on the link above or wherever you get your podcasts. <\/p>\n
Presented by Jen Hogan. Produced by Aideen Finnegan.<\/p>\n
Brought to you in association with Avonmore Super Milk.<\/p>\n
\u2018Final Orbit\u2019 by Chris Hadfield is published by Quercus and available now in all good bookshops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronaut Chris Hadfield\u2019s wife Helene had to initially take on a lot of the home responsibilities and child…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-115537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}