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When I turned 21, I left the comfort of my home country to study abroad. In June 2004, I landed in Texas to attend a biomedical research program at Texas Tech University. First thing I realized when I arrived is that what I thought I knew I in fact did not, and this included English too. It truly felt like I was becoming much more objective, or let’s say less subjective, for the first time.
Ever since this first experience abroad, I did not spend more than six continuous months living in my home country, not because I don’t like my country but simply because I got hooked on the expatriate life. Actually, I even started feeling more patriotic after leaving my country. Somehow your citizenship becomes a bigger part of your identity when you are not surrounded by your compatriots.
The fact that expatriates tend to hang out with each others also contributes to getting acquainted not only with the local culture of the welcoming land but with the rest of the world as well. It was therefore no surprise that sometime across the years I met my wife, also coming from a totally different country and culture.
Even though some would argue that at 21 you are still somewhat a kid, or at least still behave like one, the reaction of the “real” kids towards their exposure to the expatriate life also has its own share of advantages and disadvantages. But given the title of this post you may guess which side I consider to be winning in the end.
I am lucky to work with expatriate kids on a weekly basis, and rarely more than two kids attending my workshops come from the same country or even continent. I am always amazed to see them interacting with each other so easily in a flawless English and sharing some of their own experiences lived back “home.” Even if there might be diplomatic differences between their home countries, it hardly matters to them; they are just having fun and learning together, as they should be.
When I ask the kids to point at their countries and those of their friends on a Lego-made globe, they are surprisingly good with geography, despite their young ages. But when it comes to pointing at their “home” it can get confusing for some kids holding two or even three passports. Very often home ends up being where their parents are.
On the downside, it has been recognized by experts that expatriate kids can suffer from identity crises at some point in their lives, and develop a feeling of not belonging to either one of the cultures they grew up in. On the other hand, I personally believe that being surrounded by an international and multicultural environment shapes expatriate kids into more accepting and open-minded adults.
The mix of cultures might get us, adults, a little confused but the kids are, not so surprisingly, smarter than us and can very early accept a lot more than us, already formatted by involuntary or voluntary prejudices. This includes languages as well, which will result in a big added value to the education of a 21st-century child.
I come from France and my wife comes from Serbia. We live in the Netherlands and interact with each other mostly in English. This implies that for our kids to come, it might come down to speaking four languages. As you can imagine, I do have my worries, but ever since I have started teaching STEM to young international kids and had countless discussions with their parents, I have really become more confident about raising my future kids beyond the borders of my beautiful country.
I am not saying that you should take the kids right now and leave your homeland, but if the opportunity presents itself, you may want to consider it as a life-changing experience and should not fear too much the impact on your child’s development… or on yours. After all, this is the good thing about a home: once you have understood where it is, you can always come back to it.
Source: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/06/why-expatriation/
AMERICA MOVIL AMKOR TECHNOLOGY AMPHENOL ANIXTER INTERNATIONAL
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