"I Am Never Going Back" — 19 Stories From Parents About Raising Children Abroad That Will Make You Evaluate Your Own Parenting Style
Recently, I decided to ask expat parents of the BuzzFeed Community to tell me their most interesting takeaways from parenting in a foreign country. I was so interested in the subject that I also poked around on Reddit, where I found a post on the r/expats subreddit from user Proof_Emu_3332 asking a similar question. On both sites, people's answers were so fascinating that I just had to share them. So, here are some of the best responses:
1."[We live] on a safe island, and the kids have more freedom riding bikes to school. [They go] out with friends in the afternoon. They also seem younger than US kids of the same age, and not as materialistic. They also are fully bilingual."
—Anonymous
2."Living abroad means less anxiety for our family. No active shooter drills, no fears about violence before, during, and after the election. Plus my kid has an adorably muddled accent. They also have a much broader view of the world."
—Anonymous
3."I'm half Japanese half German and was raised first in Japan then Germany for secondary school. I speak three languages and enjoy being so multicultural, but it was a bit alienating in both countries."
é Marco Bottigelli / Getty Images, Ventura Carmona / Getty Images
"I moved back to Japan for university and have been now married 10 years. Right now we are raising our daughter in London, which I hope will give her good English among other things."
"Some Japanese love Europe, some don't really like it as much after they visit. I on the other hand love London. It is so multicultural and my husband and I love the UK culture."
"After many years of living in Europe, I still love to do touristy things like visiting monuments and museums, and I love to take my daughter to these as well.
Being half German half Japanese I am able to see the good and bad things in both cultures. I hope that being raised at least for now in the UK will imbue my daughter with a love for the European culture I enjoy, as well as the Japanese culture she gets at home."
—Anonymous, London
4."[We've been] living in Poland for two years now and I am consistently amazed at how low-stress it is to live in such a safe place. Almost no crime? Okay, that's amazing, but almost NO vehicle accidents because drivers follow the law? That blows me away every day."
5."Non-American parents are way more relaxed. They don’t freak out if their kids are out of sight. They expect community members to keep an eye on kids. There’s much less worry about stranger danger. Kids are expected to be more self-sufficient and responsible."
—Anonymous
6."Navigating a completely different school system is a challenge. We often don’t know what to expect or how to prepare for things, so we rely a lot on our local friends to clue us in."
"There’s a lot more focus on developing social skills and emotional intelligence. The lack of sports in school is wonderful. At school the kids are focused on… well, school, not on sports."
—Anonymous
7."I live in Denmark. It is so safe for our children you can't even believe it. Children run around happy and unsupervised and safe. I feel like it is out of a book or something! My kids love going to the candy shop after school and spending their 'pocket money' on candy."
—Anonymous
8."We moved abroad (originally from the US) when our children were 5 and 7. The country we moved to was lovely and the children's school was so accommodating; our kids picked up the local language and culture in no time."
"Then during the summer they were 12 and 14 we moved back to the US. This was a much harder transition. Not only were they much older with deeper roots and more meaningful friendships, but the US is frankly not amazing at integrating foreign kids at that age — and our kids were quite foreign!
They are in college now (one abroad and one in US) and they've turned out fine, but they both very much struggled in their teen years in different ways."
—Anonymous
9."This might be a public/private school thing, BUT... I grew up attending public school in the American Midwest. Studied hard, grew up, got a fancy job, found someone to marry. My job took us to Denmark, where my spouse and I are now raising our son (an only child for now)."
"My son attends a (private) school here, and the difference between the education he is getting here in Denmark versus my education in the US is like night and day. My parents taught me to work hard and I appreciate my education, and far from what many believe, the US education system is a huge gift. We are lucky to get free, quality education..."
"...But I have noticed that the very foundations of learning here beget a different way of even thinking. A different worldview, I guess."
"I guess one random thing that jumps out is that in America, our classes are quite America-centric; in Denmark, the kids learn a bit more historical/political context. We are physically closer to other countries so their history is immediately important. It's very cool to watch my son grow and learn."
—Anonymous
10."My wife is from Sweden; I am from Canada (and spent a few years of my youth in Michigan). We met in school. I don't have much family around anymore; my Mom passed away about 11 years ago, my sister now lives across the country, and my dad has a girlfriend he's been with for a few years and a healthy social life. So, my wife and I moved to Sweden."
"We have a 28-month-old and a new baby on the way. One thing I've noticed is how much Sweden supports new mothers. Well, both parents, really. The parental leave system is set up in a way that is so, so helpful to new parents, and I'm very grateful for the time I was able to spend with my wife and child in the first months."
"Sweden is much better culturally (in my opinion) for new mothers than North America. I am quite close with my sister and my wife and I flew to stay with/help her when she had her first baby about four years ago. It was like night and day compared to my wife's first few months of motherhood."
"I see Sweden's paternity leave as a big part of that. Having both parents available to take care of the baby is healthy for both baby and Mom. It also discourages companies from discriminating against women because both sexes take parental leave. Companies are healthier that way. There are some frustrating things about living in Sweden, but parenthood is not one of them."
—Anonymous
11."I am from an immigrant household in a pretty homogenous part of the US so there were some experiences I had growing up that were pretty challenging for me. There was lots of ignorance in my town and especially in middle school kids could get pretty racist."
Alexander Spatari / Getty Images, Althom / Getty Images
"I went to college in Virginia and met my now-husband there. His job has taken us to both Germany and France, where we currently live. We have a son and a daughter and they are both enrolled in international school here.
I'm so happy to see my kids thrive at this school. It's so different than my own upbringing, and both the school and Paris are far more multicultural than the place I grew up. My kids speak fluent French and help me with my accent, lol. We will probably move back to the US in the next few years and I'm excited to see how my kids' international foundation will affect their development."
—Anonymous
12."Mother who moved from the UK to Massachusetts here. I am never going back."
Alberto Manuel Urosa Toledano / Getty Images, Atlantide Phototravel / Getty Images
"Americans love to romanticize the UK, and I completely understand that. But Americans, something you don't understand is our biggest [cultural] difference: class. The UK is not America with healthcare and accents. It has a restrictive class system that does not exist on any level in the United States."
"Many Americans do not understand that if you are born into the working class in the UK, there is no moving up. Oh, some people might get rich; but they will never be 'upper class.'"
"The upper class will always know that you are not one of them, and they make sure you know it, too. You must be born to it.
The US deffo has families with generational wealth, yeah. But in the US, when you get money, you get the status. Guys, other countries don't have this"
"Americans, the US is pretty much all you know. Your country is huge, so that makes sense! And I obviously understand working to make your country better and pointing out its flaws."
"But take it from me that ONE of [America's] flaws is that you all have little context for the pitfalls of other cultures, so you romanticize them and think that America is uniquely bad. That is just another form of American exceptionalism.
This country, for all its flaws and at-times shittiness, is more advanced in equality than almost anywhere on the globe."
—Anna
Commenters on the r/expats subreddit had similar things to report, and I found them enlightening.
13."My daughter and I are close, but she definitely feels more comfortable expressing feelings in German with her mom. We speak English together, and she is great in English, she just prefers German when speaking about emotions."
Universal Pictures / Via giphy.com
14."We are from the US but [have lived] in Germany for five years. Our boys, 3 and 1 when we moved here, are now turning 8 and 6. Our daughter was born here and just turned 3 last week."
"They are 100% our kids. We share our experiences as our kids experience German school for the first time and all the ins and outs that come with daily life.
I'd say on the whole they act 'German' and identify with the German side of their life, but they very much identify as well with being American. We travel back to the US often, they see their family, they play Xbox and games with them online, and family come and visit frequently.
The part we always keep an eye on is how they feel accepted. In Germany, we are considered Ausländer, but when we go back to the US, our kids are known as the kids who live in Germany. So, they live between the two words.
This is known as 'third culture kids' — where they can't fully identify with my wife's and my upbringing in the US, but they also are the first generation to go through school and fit in inside Germany."
"I felt this all my life."
15."It's fun. Really. You observe them and see how and where they develop. They start correcting your pronunciation very quickly, and hey, I don't argue with natives."
"They challenge your worldviews; [for instance,] my kids can't comprehend national teams' sports, why [anyone would] split people who do the same thing into groups based on their place of birth).
Kids are not small versions of parents. They are very mine, very close to me and very different."
"I am with you here — watching how they turn out is not something to fear, but something to delight in! It's endlessly fascinating."
16."I love having kids [who] are half my culture and half [that of] my chosen place to live. They have the perfect balance and I find I am lucky. When we visit my home, they love it there, and when we come back to our chosen country, they are also very happy. Best of both worlds, truly!"
17."I live in France, and am British, but with Asian ancestry. My son was born in France and has a British dad. We go back to the UK often, about three times a year, so my son is completely at home with British culture and speaks English without a [French] accent."
"We feel more foreign when we go back to my parent’s home country, as I wasn’t raised there and don’t speak the language well. Enough to communicate, but not fluent."
18."My son is a foreigner in my home country for sure. (Then again, I feel that way myself now, too.) He speaks the language perfectly, but he doesn't feel the connection, and [though] we did instill lots of culture (music, literature, film, etc.) that he loves, he loves it as an outsider more than as an insider."
"Same thing with friends and family in our home country. He enjoys them but views them as radically different from him culturally.
We have assimilated A LOT over twenty years into the place where we live, but it was important to me to make sure my son could go back and forth between the countries if he wanted to—and he could if he wanted to, but it turns out he doesn't. At least not now, in his early twenties. I thought he would want to go back to study or work, but I don't think that's going to happen now.
After two decades we are all somewhat 'in-between' [culturally], but his condition is really different from ours, because he never lived in our country."
19.And finally: "My kids are definitely very much mine, even though they aren’t fluent in my native language and their passports differ from mine. Their personality traits, mannerisms, and pretty much every aspect of their personality [show they are undoubtedly my children]..." Yet the fact remains that my children are natives to the country where I’m an immigrant."
ABC / Via giphy.com
"The place I decided to move to is their country of birth and is where they were raised and experienced their entire childhood.
It just creates different perspectives to be aware of. For instance, a trip back home to me is a journey into a foreign country to them."
Leave your thoughts in the comments down below! I want to hear all your opinions — especially if you're an expat parent or child. Or, if you want to write in but prefer to stay anonymous, you can check out this anonymous Google form!
Who knows — your answer might be included in an upcoming BuzzFeed article.
Note: some comments have been edited for length and/or clarity.
