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Where do you consider to be 'home'?

5K views 23 replies 8 participants last post by  Pecosa 
#1 ·
When I was growing up my parents' house was 'home', and so it stayed during my early uni years. Towards graduation 'home' meant the town I grew up in. When I started travelling and living abroad 'home' meant England, then a couple of years later the UK.

After seven years 'out' I don't consider the UK to be my home anymore, although I'm not sure where I live in Austria is really 'home' for me either. France has long been very close to my heart, since my parents bought a second home there 22 years ago. We're planning to move to Biarritz area in the next couple of years, will I finally be 'home'?

As expats do we have the same comprehension of the notion of home as those who remain in their 'hometown' or country for their whole lives?
 
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#2 ·
I suppose 'wanderers' never have real roots, in the way that people who stay in one place all their lives do... with family and friends nearby throughout. Sometimes that's something I wish I'd had - travellers can be a bit isolated, and in times of need, there's not the same support at hand. But on balance I'm happy, wouldn't have it any other way. Home is where the heart is, and even when the kids have all grown up I'm not too worried about how things will turn out. More travelling, I hope!
 
#3 ·
Lu C,
I wrote a response to this thought provoking post yesterday, but my computer crashed and I see now it was lost.
Ah well.
Better to not get too "attached", eh?
I wanted to thank you for bringing up this topic as it is so often on my mind.
I have two kids and one of them has moved around England, around the US and around France with me and now both are with us as we take on France again.
I have moved around for much of my life and I do think, for me, that has given me incredible skills (like adaptability) as well as certain barriers (unwillingness to totally commit to a place or a feeling or a person).
I think I mostly wonder for my children what it will be like to be kids of expats and to move around and how that might effect their sense of identity.
But then what is 'identity'?
Anyway, I wish you luck in your possible future move to the Biarritz area (we are currently in Pau).
Take care,
Beth
 
#4 ·
Lu C,

I think I mostly wonder for my children what it will be like to be kids of expats and to move around and how that might effect their sense of identity.
But then what is 'identity'?

Beth
For me you've hit the nail on the head Beth. How will our children be affected by our lifestyle choices?

For my part I've always lauded the ability to speak multiple languages, and much of my choice to stay away from the UK is to open my children's ears and eyes to European languages and cultures under the belief that the more we understand of each others' culture the more accepting we are.

Provided that we create a solid, reliable home life our children will adopt whatever traditions best suit them. Family is tradition far more than cultural tradition. The family choses which of the cultural traditions to follow. How many different nuances are there across the UK as far as Christmas is concerned, for example?

Thank you for your good wishes in our move to France. We're visiting next week on holiday: it's quite the adventure! We're catching the sleeper-train from Munich to Paris then the early morning train to Biarritz. I'm very excited and my 3-year-old can't wait. His train-set is out a lot at the moment :)
 
#6 ·
Great subject,
Thought being from two different backgrounds created that feeling/situation of not belonging however I can see that even those who have one nationality don't necessarily identify with it. I've noticed that those who don't travel and just stay in the same place their whole lives seem to have a lot more fear about things. They never go out of their comfort zone and seem to be convinced that their opinion or their world is the written word. It's strange to witness that because as a traveller you get to see and experience so many diverse cultures and ways of living and thinking that you are always aware that everyone has their own reality. I guess you become open minded, more tolerant of differences and stop making assumptions about things. Definitely good qualities to have.
Very interesting topic. Hope others share their thoughts.
 
#7 ·
I read this thread with interest, and felt i just had to reply as I think I may be the oldest "wanderer". I started travelling with my then fiance at the age of 17, immigrating to australia, returned to ireland, immigrated to canada, back to australia, then back to canada, to Ireland and now back to Canada Phew!!! during that time I have had 3 children (all grown up now with their own kids). The reason I am writing is to compare how the kids coped with it all!! My eldest girl is now married and has 3 children of her own, she is very settled and I think because of her own background had decided she will never mess her own kids schooling ect: she seems very grou nded but feels she missed out with making lifelong friends ect: my son was completly messed around, a quiet, studious boy, I only ever got good reports from school ect: he attended university and graduated, now married, 3 kids, has never felt he belonged and had a problem relating to his cousins ect: I feel we deprived him of a steadier childhood and it has come back to haunt us, my youngest was just a baby when we semi settled so she is fine, but would not move around like us. All in all I would say too much moving, while giving your child another outlook on life, can make them feel isolated from their peers, and in the long run a feeling of not really belonging anywhere prevails. If I had it all to do over again yes i would travel, but on holidays while my kids were in school, or move once to another country, it's not fair on the kids
 
#9 ·
I guess I would argue that kids are who they are and grow up to be a bigger version of what reveals itself early on in childhood.
I stayed in one place from the age of 5 through to the end of High School then started moving around and staying put for different periods of my adult life. My mum is from the UK so we often visited family, but only ever on school holidays.
Still, I always felt a little out of step with the other kids in my schools--though no one could probably tell as I was very good at appearing "normal". I have grown up to enjoy moving around, I love meeting new people and learning (well, trying to) new languages. I don't feel like I benefited from staying in a small town with a mediocre education system and very little cultural diversity.
I am sure it is very much down to the individual when all is said and done and us parents can say "I wish I had" or "if only" a thousand times, but I believe creating a loving home and open communication NO MATTER WHERE WE ARE is the best we can do.
Our kids will just be with us for a while and then move on to create the realities/homes they choose for themselves.
It's a crap shoot.
I know I am just trying to do my best, but I do like showing my children different cultures/languages.
~Beth
 
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#10 ·
It's a bit complicated, as moving around geographically is only part of the story. It's all about security and stability, which can be afforded to one's kids in different ways. The child's natural temperament is another factor. A solid family, supportive throughout, and a wandering expat's child can grow up as balanced and as 'rooted' as the one raised in a community where his family has been for generations. It's just not quite as easy.

An outgoing, gregarious child is going to be able to integrate more easily in new surroundings. The loner sort is more likely to retreat into himself. I've seen both with my kids - including one who is introspective and particularly shy, another who is naturally outgoing, positive, drawing other children to him and who are looking for his friendship. The rest are somewhere inbetween...

Measured against all this are the potential benefits of moving around. Learning to adapt to new, challenging circumstances. Encountering different cultures and attitudes, gaining a more mature understanding of the way the world works, more tolerance, less fear of the unknown.

I've particularly noticed this from the six months my kids lived with me in Thailand. Moving between Western countries certainly helps the process, but time spent in such a radically different culture, with lifestyles and attitudes that in some respects are completely alien, affected them greatly.
 
#11 ·
It's all about security and stability, which can be afforded to one's kids in different ways. The child's natural temperament is another factor. A solid family, supportive throughout, and a wandering expat's child can grow up as balanced and as 'rooted' as the one raised in a community where his family has been for generations. It's just not quite as easy.
Nail has thus been hit on the head!

Fascinating that six months in a radically different culture should have had such a dramatic effect. What specifically was affected in their personalities following that experience? (If you don't mind my asking)

I suppose the family unit must rely on itself far more in our expat world than it would in our 'home' country.

Does anyone have a consciously adopted tradition in their family that is untypical to their 'home' country's tradition?
 
#16 ·
"home" for me is where I was born and raised and where my parents live. I left at 20 years of age to attend further education in the US, where I lived for several years. After that I moved to England with the intention of going back to my homeland after a while. I call England my "second home". It is the country where I started my career, got married, had my children etc. I'm very fond of the place.

I wish my children to have the same sense of "home" and hope France will bring this. I do not wish to move around from country to country, prefer to make roots in France and ensure my children don't forget their mother's country of origin so we visit as often as possible.
 
#17 ·
We go back for a three-week stint once a year, and throw in a few short trips here and there as well. I'm keen though to avoid using all our 'holiday' time visiting family. This is the first year since my daughter was born that we're going on a family holiday without 'going back'.

That my parents no longer live in the UK all year makes it easier for me to believe we'll never live there again. Sometimes I get hankerings to live near my closest, oldest friends, but I see them several times a year anyway and unless we lived in the same town I doubt we'd see them very much more than we do currently.
 
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#19 ·
<< I call England my "second home". It is the country where I started my career, got married, had my children etc. I'm very fond of the place.>>

I call england only the place I was born, the place where my values were sold out by a succession of liberal lying scheming governments whose members only wished to be re-elected, where the mediocre rose on the belief that the pound note was all-important, and people with true talent were neglected.

I could not wait to vacate the place, and on the very few occasions that I have had NO option but to return, I have seen no reason to think my decision to leave was wrong.
 
#20 · (Edited by Moderator)
I could not wait to vacate the place, and on the very few occasions that I have had NO option but to return, I have seen no reason to think my decision to leave was wrong.
Sad to say but I wouldn't argue with that..

On a slightly different note, fact logic and reasoning will support our decision to live elsewhere but it's at Christmas that reality bites. What was it that Hemingway said about Christmas? - that "you don't know what Christmas is until you lose it in some foreign land".

That's the one time I feel nostalgic for England.. but it's for an England that no longer exists.
 
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#21 ·
Is it Christmas, 'home', or nostalgia for the comforting cushion of one's early childhood, that we are really feeling? My parents came and joined us in France for the last, and really enjoyable years of their lives, so they brought all the traditions with them. Christmas pudding, mince pies, crackers... ten years now since my last taste of Christmas pud, and I've lost the silver sixpence that we always brought out for the occasion :(. Yes that twinge of nostalgia is still there when I think about it, but it's for the company, the family and friends that are no longer with us, not the place we once called home...
 
#22 ·
Yes that twinge of nostalgia is still there when I think about it, but it's for the company, the family and friends that are no longer with us, not the place we once called home...
You're absolutely right - I lost my dear old Mum last year and it was probably that which caused me to look back fondly at family Christmasses of old.
P
 
#23 ·
I believe 'home' is where you feel happiest. I left UK 41 years ago after Uni, and have never considered it to be 'home'. After travelling (from France) and working in USA, Oz and UK I began to realise that 'home' was in fact France.

As for the children's 'identity' I feel it is far more important for them to be 'citizens of the world' and to be far more tolerant beings for having travelled, rather than to have strong 'roots'.
 
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