Parenting in a foreign country is a whole new experience… I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately, mostly at 3 a.m. when I wake in a start from a nightmare about harm coming to the kids… It’s always at the back of my mind during waking hours, and is obviously being slowly digested by my subconscious in the wee small ones… parents can relate I’m sure, that we worry instinctively for our kids even under “normal” circumstances…  I find it is taking all of my reasoning skills to talk myself into letting them do anything!   We have to play by different rules here that the kids often don’t really understand, to maintain our safety.   I often look at some of the expat people I meet, mostly wives, who claim to be having the best time here… I wonder if there is something wrong with me… I don’t feel the same affection for this experience… and then I realize that for them it must feel like a holiday most days – many of them have no children here to care for and can take advantage of the activities available to do, which are beyond my grasp because they continue long after I am due to pick up my kids from school. Then there is homework to do and music lessons once a week and Spanish lessons once a week and dinner to be made and lunches to be prepared for the next day and tears to dry when the day wasn’t so great… “Normal” tasks that feel more monumental than ever before… especially when Daddy is travelling for work and Mommy is performing her One Woman Show.

Everything is complicated mostly because I don’t really know my way around here. Finding anything is a huge challenge… in the early days, when the school sprang a need on the kids, like they need plasticine for a project the next day,  this presented a major family dilemma in our hotel room.  I would frequently remind the kids, “This is not business as usual.” Subtext: everything takes longer because we have to spend a lot of time finding anything and living in this hotel with limited access to anything, we are not going to be able to provide you with any requested materials the next day.  

This upcoming Halloween season has me in a tailspin.  At home, I always loved looking for and creating costumes for the kids – they always had great ideas and we would spend time searching for just the right parts to piece together some super fun costumes…

Despite the fact that I’d love to cancel Halloween this year, I’m making an effort to ensure the kids can still have some fun participating in the school celebrations.  Caleigh spent some time looking up costume ideas and came up with a cute (albeit puzzling) idea that requires a very full tulle skirt that she plans to glue marshmallows to… she had it all worked out that we would make the skirt ourselves… So now I’m keeping my eyes open for tulle – in fact the need for tulle and my growing dread over where to find it is always at the forefront of my thoughts… evermore so when we hit October, Halloween month…yes, she’s been dreaming of this costume for a good while now.  When in Walmart, I see this cute little outfit – a black top with a colourful sugar skull on it and an attached pink tulle skirt – and consider it a stroke of luck and pure genius!!  I grab it and I’m so relieved and excited to show it Caleigh…

She bursts into tears when I give her the costume… wow, didn’t see that coming… apparently it wasn’t at all what she had in mind, and she was insulted and felt like I wasn’t listening to her when she told me about her idea… (okay…maybe it’s my fault, as she has come to expect that we will, like most years, embark on a creative costume-making journey to Halloween…) I’m all excited that I found this perfect base for her marshmallow fairy idea… we just need to add the marshmallows to the skirt… it even comes with a headband, for the marshmallow crown she was dreaming about… but it’s nothing like her vision… I could have throttled Aaron when he saw her so upset and said it was just a back-up and that we could find the materials she wanted… he knew about my stressing over where to find the materials for a costume… whose side is he on here!!!???  Trying for a compromise, I suggest that we could try to find some spools of tulle at the craft store to add to it… she just melts down and storms to her room, “I want to go home… I don’t want to do this anymore…”  Wow, I never know when these brave kids can’t take it anymore… it’s the most unexpected things that set them to crying over what they’ve lost… after a good pillow soaking, she emerges , “you know Mom, what if we painted sugar skulls on the marshmallows and put them on the skirt… then everything would tie together better?”

I happily agreed to draw sugar skulls on marshmallows…

It can also be very rewarding to watch their empathy toward one another develop; they are beginning to see each other as individuals with feelings.  They are learning to recognize their own growing feelings of friendship and that they each are important to one another… As per usual, we were debriefing the day after school while snacking, and Mansell mentioned that, “Caleigh didn’t say ‘hi’ to me when I saw her in the hall today…” Oh dear… He kind of joked about it, “You too cool to say ‘hi’ to your brother?” but I could tell his feelings were hurt.  Caleigh was indignant, claiming that she did indeed nod in his general direction… Oh dear… Further prodding revealed that the friend Caleigh was with has a crush on Mansell and clammed up and grabbed Caleigh and pretty much bolted in the other direction when they saw Mansell approach.  lol!  Okay… so that was understandably misinterpreted by Mansell but it was an indicator that he cares.  After the fact, I pulled Caleigh aside and asked her to think about how amazing it is to have your big brother at the same school… you always have a friend and someone to count on… The next day at our after school debrief, Mansell mentioned that he and Caleigh ate lunch together.  They both seemed happy about that.

If you’re doing this or planning to embark on an expat assignment with kids, I highly recommend the book “Global Nomads” by Robin Pascoe.  She presents a very honest look at the realities of choosing this type of lifestyle and the potential impacts on the kids, good and bad.  I read it after the fact – we were already here and in the thick of it – and even then it was reassuring because we could completely relate to what she was saying.   Of course, there are many opportunities to learn some really neat and  important life lessons and to go on some adventures when you live abroad, away from your comfort-culture and while navigating a new language.   It was the potential long-term effects of being a “global nomad” that interested me most and more importantly ways to minimize and deal with the potential fallout that was very interesting and helpful.  When I think about what we left, and what we came to, I question all the time if it was the right decision…if we’re going to be the cause of the kids future therapy needs…  Then I think that it isn’t forever… we are making the most of it… we are building some important memories…We are growing closer.   I think that maybe we won’t know if this was the right thing to do until long after we’ve done it… I hope that the kids understand that we were trying to give them an experience and a chance to learn first hand about the world, and that one day they will appreciate the life learning they have done.