Thanks for the replies, and some very thought provoking questions.
I guess I should give a little more background, though it may not help since the work i do can be hard to explain! I'm a music therapist and specialise in working with traumatised children. I thrive in working cross culturally and have been passionate about wanting to work with refugees for some time. Now to do that you have to be where the refugees are, of course. There is a huge somali population where I live but it has been very hard trying to start projects here partly because I don't have specific experience or training, and partly because it's a small city with not so many resources.
So then along comes this job working as part of an internationally renowned human rights organisation with child refugees who have experienced torture. The job involves training, would give me a solid foundation in the work, gives the opportunity to transfer should we want to travel (they work in mexico and guatamala) or if we -very likely - move back to the US. They are also interested in supervising PhD research projects, which is exactly where I see myself in a few yrs time. That, plus the fact that the work itself is so profoundly important to me..which is why the monetary part is not too important. We would make a few extra thousand pounds a yr, but I would be doing what I can do in the world to ease suffering; something i've always placed much higher value on than making $.
Now, of course, my own children's rights and needs come first. But I think I'm being too hard on myself stressing about this. I've been more or less a full time mother for four years and have also learned that sometimes DP makes a much better stay at home parent than I do. I wouldn't do this job if it involved day care, and yet millions of women put their children in day care full time from an early age; so why should I feel so bad about a couple of long days and maybe one night away?
When I was a kid we lived in the sticks and my mum had to live in London all week long to work and come back at weekends. It was temporary; eventually we moved to London (as we might end up doing over time), but even then she worked nights. I rmember it was hard on us, but the other side is I have a very strong relationship with my dad who took care of us.
bluebottle, to answer some of your good q's, I guess I've explained why I can't do my work from home, but in regard to the train q yes I think that time will help me decompress after some very stressful work, and that the physical distance would actually help me separate out my life a bit. At the moment I'm with my kids 24 hrs but don't feel truly present any of the time bacuse part of me wants and needs to work. My hope would be that if I got this then I would be able to really truly be with my children the other 5 days...and they get to be with their great daddy the other days...
So I guess I'm being pretty defensive, even though I'm not really sure how this would all work out...this is an ongoing dilemma for me, how much to sacrifice, what to prioritise as a mother. I think the biggest thing for me is having learned that sacrificing everything is a big mistake (did that when DS was born, upped and moved to somewhere there was no work for me; never again). Now it's all about finding a balance...
I'd love to hear any more thoughts now i've given some background....course I may not be offered the job and this will all be mute; they were very put off by my distance and I think by me having small children, even though I don't think they're allowed to let that influence their decision?