The Live-Abroad Mom

The live-abroad mom is a trailing spouse, accompanying partner, an expat woman a stay-at home or career mom following her partner relocating to another country. She cares for expatriate children or third culture kids. She is on the move abroad on a short assignment or relocated for a longer period of time, and often she does not know how long she will be living overseas.

She does the same sort of things other moms do, but she is living in another culture, far from family and friends, far from her support network. She is torn between feelings of excitement and loss. Life is exotic and lonely. There are opportunities and restrictions. It is great to learn a new language, and it costs a lot of time. There are emotional ups and downs.

Relocation is a chore in itself: looking for a new house, packing, moving, unpacking, administration, finding places to shop, arrange for schooling and learn to manage everyday life.  Relocation abroad is the same plus an new culture, which makes things more complicated, more difficult to understand, and often harder to accept. Some of the behaviors and strategies that worked fine for you back home are no longer successful, and you have to learn to manage your life in a new way.

Once you have physically relocated into a new house you have achieved the first big step. And a long way still lies ahead of you: You need to make your house a home for your family, - and for yourself.

Mothers are the central point of reference for children, and even more so on the move abroad and living in a new, unfamiliar environment.  We know this, and we feel the responsibility we have for our kids when we make them move countries.

My advice: don’t worry, be happy. 

No, I am not kidding, and there are two very good reasons for this advice:

1. Children are more resilient and adaptable than we think. They make friends at school, join afternoon activities, have their fights and learn from them. They experience feelings of loss, loneliness and challenge, and they grow from this. They may need some support in the beginning, to find their sports club, to invite the first friends, to get some extra help at school as needed, and most of all: someone to talk to. Then, in most cases, they will make their ways.
   
   The same is true for adolescents. Teens are shaken by deeper emotions and resistance. They are shaken in the home country as well as in the host country, simply because adolescence is a very emotional and difficult time to go through.  Moving country is a big deal in the life of adolescents, but it is not the end of life, as they may make you think.
    
2. Your children need you. On their way to independence, they need a home of peace and parents conveying emotional stability and a positive mindset.  Mom who is excessively worrying about everything, who is unhappy and shows a negative opinion about the host country is more of a problem than support for the family. There is scientific research to support this conclusion.

So, don’t worry, be happy. Now, guess what, that is not so easy. Moving country is challenging. Usually there are things not going well and after all you have to go through the transition as well. You miss home, your family, your friends, your community, your work and the happy days back there.

The family needs you  -  and what about yourself?

The most difficult piece of advice is this:

Take time for yourself, for arranging your own life, for feeling happy.

This is difficult, because it makes some of us feel guilty to take time for ourselves while our dearest ones need us so much. Keep in mind: they need us functioning! They need us to be a model.

How can you be a positive model if you are secretly unhappy and worrying about the world?

While children are our life, our lives have other aspects as well. Each of them is worth looking at, worth the question, how important they are for you, and how happy you currently are with them.

FAMILY

Your family needs you, and you need your family. You are a team, and you don’t need to do the whole job alone. Give your kids a sense of being your partners in this venture. Share the good and the not so good experiences and chores. Don’t forget the loving relationship to your partner, which will give both of you meaning and the strength to manage the challenges of the situation. And it will have a positive effect on your children as well.

FRIENDS and SOCIAL CONTACTS

Make new friends in the international and local community. Family is great but not enough in the long run. An intercultural trainer once reminded me that “your husband is not your best friend”, and that is true. We need a forum to share our experiences, successes and challenges. We need support and advice in the new country. We have a sense of belonging  and need to be part of a network.

HOME

Make your house a home, even if you plan to stay for a short period of time only. This doesn’t have to be expensive, and in the international community your will find second hand items. Go out and about to discover places you enjoy near your home.

HEALTH

Health is essential, and even more so in challenging and stressful situations. Take care to get enough sleep, healthy food and some exercise. Take the time to care for your body and live healthy.

FUN

Look out for activities you enjoy. Continue your hobby or try something new. Examples are going to study, learning about language and culture of the host country, meditation and spiritual development, learning how to cook local food. Take the opportunity to have fun, make friends and grow personally.

CAREER

Many women are perfectly happy not to work and deeply enjoy their time. Those of you, however, who miss their careers and don’t feel accomplished without doing some kind of work, by all means go out and find something to do: employed, self-employed or volunteering. Start early to get the paperwork done and to activate a network that can provide you with information and contacts.

What do you need in order to feel accomplished during your stay and after your stay? What would you need to do in order to say: this assignment has been successful for me as well as for my family?

Create a vision, make a plan with what you want to do, and do it.  Do it for your family and for yourself.

Many of these insights tasks are the same for domestic and international relocation: change, loss, chores, new beginning. Yet there are differences between the two. Domestic relocation is easier in a sense that you don’t have to struggle with a new language and a new culture and it may be a less complicated to find a job or other activities. Yet domestic differences are often highly underestimated. Neighborhoods can be painfully different from each other, schools are different, and you are expected to find your way around, being a native.

While moving overseas presents a lot of extra challenges, you usually get a lot of extra support as well. Plus you get the appreciation for going through this challenge, you are special and exotic, and most people will recognize that you need some help to find your way around.  You may come across host nationals who are not helpful or even hostile towards you and your culture and you may have rewarding relationships and experiences while living in another world.

So neither relocation can be regarded as “easier”, both types of move have their pros and cons, both are a big challenge and disruption of your life, and you’ll need your positive attitude to find and enjoy the benefits.