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Our ceaseless globetrotting is hard for the children

One expat tells of the heartache - and joy - of being part of a family that has made a habit of moving to new frontiers 
 
Sydney is a beautiful city ? but moving from New York was no easy task for Catriona?s children Photo: getty images "I once knew a girl who lived in America. Her life was great. She had a good house, good friends and a great school. She was carrying on with her life. One night a company rang up. Then her dad said she had to move to Australia."

This was part of a speech that my middle daughter wrote a year after we left the suburbs of New York for Sydney. Reading it still makes my stomach clench with parental guilt. All three of our children, who were then five, eight and 10, found leaving America traumatic, mainly because they had had such a happy three years there.

For our eldest daughter, the Sydney move was her fourth international move and her third different school system. While being a globetrotting family may sound glamorous, the reality is that at times it is hard work for both children and parents.

Moving from New York to Sydney was made tougher by the constraints of distance and time (it was six weeks from prospect of job being raised to touch down at Sydney airport) and this meant that the children did not get a chance to visit Sydney before we moved. Therefore they had to make a leap of faith and trust us when we said that they would enjoy living there. A big ask for an adult and even more so for a child.

In hindsight, however, the short six-week time span was a boon. At the point when child unhappiness was at its peak and I was mentally beating myself with the parental birch twigs of guilt, one of my New Yorker friends who was a child psychologist pointed out that it is uncertainty that crucifies children and that once we moved they would settle; fortunately she was proved right.

Paradoxically while moving with children throws up many problems, they are in many ways the key to life in a new country. Once they are enrolled in school, the family immediately has the option to join a ready-made community. Volunteer for everything in your first year, as there is no faster way to meet the local parental movers and shakers.

While in the long run these people may not turn out to be your closest friends, in the frenetic early days they will be an invaluable source of advice on doctors, dentists, hardware shops, bakers, clothes shops and most importantly babysitters. This last one is a crucial category; imagine landing in a new city and trying to do school interviews and sign house agreements in lawyers' offices while trailing an incontinent toddler.

The majority of serial international movers do so because of someone's job. Ironically, the parent whose career has dictated the move is often the person in the family who suffers the least stress. Once the plane has landed, the family installed in a hotel or temporary apartment, that person swans off to the office to resume life as they know it with a bit of local colour. After all, corporate headquarters, banks and lawyers' offices are pretty similar the world over. In contrast the remaining partner, generally the wife, is left clutching the local map, numbers for real estate agents, and wondering how to kit out three children in school uniform before Monday morning.

Pets are of course a major issue. Had the Australian Quarantine Service been willing to admit Bingo and Ringo, the beloved guinea pigs, into Australia we would have moved them, regardless of expense, because it would have been a sign that life as a family would go on as normal.
Sadly guinea pigs were judged to be rodenta non grata and had to be given away. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, parents included, as they were driven off.
After 18 years and six international moves I've begun to recognise a roller coaster pattern to my own emotions. During the first two or three months in a new city adrenaline keeps me going, though I do have the odd blip. At the end of our first month in New York I emerged from the hairdresser looking like an ageing Rod Stewart, which nearly had me on the plane straight back to London. During this initial phase you sort out all the major components of daily life, schools, somewhere to live, car, location of shops etc.

Then generally at about three months just as I think I am getting to grips with a) driving on the wrong side, b) local jargon and c) playground etiquette, I have some kind of relatively minor domestic crisis, usually child-precipitated. I reach for the phone, desperate to call a like-minded friend to recount the story of my maternal nightmare and then realise everyone I want to talk to is in a different time zone. At this point it often feels as if I have hit rock bottom and a one-way ticket home for the whole family is the only answer.

Salvation lies in the fact that it usually at this point that I find my first new friend. That first instinctive connection with someone where you laugh together is a little like falling in love. I skip home, for it has suddenly become home, singing to myself and knowing that I am going to enjoy this new life.

Enjoying life is a huge part of moving internationally. Weekends and holidays become an adventure. Locals are constantly bemused by the energy of expats and the amount of ground they cover. Scenery, culture and different societies are all an immeasurably enriching part of expat life.
However, the biggest bonus is the friends you make as a family and as individuals; they are the key to survival and enjoyment in a new country. Had we stayed in the UK surrounded by friends from way back when, we would have missed out on so many funny, kind, witty and memorable people.
If I had known, standing at the altar in Edinburgh, that we were destined to become the family with six crossed out entries in friends' address books, I might have quailed, but in fact it has been the most wonderful experience. I hope that my children will see these years of global wandering as I do, as a gift that that we've been so lucky and privileged to have been given.

Author: Catriona Ling
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk/expat 
Publication date: 25th May 2009

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