Expatriates' Wednesdays; When our kids fly away from home !

I keep repeating over and over again;

If you're tired of it you have to tell me ! 

Expatriation does not create anything by itself but

reveals weak points or strengths that we had not previously discovered and are in us, but silent
they are ready, or not, to emerge depending on our current needs to move to a different stage of our life

Expatriation as indeed any other new and important event of life like
Career change, divorce, moving, birth, death. . . Today, I want to spend some time thinking about these big kids leaving the nest after secondary school/high school 

So far I have only 50% of stories, those of expatriate parents;

Missing the teenagers'

I can quite well imagine them, even though, as always, they can always surprise us ! 

"My children have never lived in  the UK/US/home country and they want to study there, I do not understand, I wonder how they will react"

"I am upset, my son absolutely refuses to return to the UK/U/ home country, yet it is where our family is, who could help him"

"I do not see how she will cope, she still calls her father to come and open the door of the apartment when she forgets her keys"

And I am guessing answers . . .

"I love  the UK/US/home country ! The country of my holiday/vacation ! The country of my cousins ​​of the family...  I'm sure I'll love it! "

"Ugh, UK/US/home country ? No way ! Don't like them, we can not discuss,  we don't understand each other, I really prefer to go abroad !"

"Well.... Yeah... Sometimes I forget my keys... Well ... When my parents are gone, I won't forget them anymore..."

I love teenagers, they are disconcerting and so right at the same time !

Whatever their answers, they are right!

Whatever their answers, parents have to do with their anxieties

The distance amplifies feelings because it is not possible to be there when the child needs their parents;

The need being a fantasy or not, from the parents or the child

Being on a continent and listening to one's child cry or sigh their blues on the other side of another continent is not easy to handle emotionally and practically

Being on a continent and hear one's child jump with joy from a different continent is wonderful. . . and frustrating

A child who leaves for their own life outside the protective circle of family

makes their parents face the end of their fantasy of protection; a new stage of their lives

If parenting does not end, the ties become looser;

The need of a protector-parent is not as important anymore

Adult life begins, the "baby" became big and the parent have to admit it

 

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