DH and I are both mid 40s. We moved to Dubai nearly 18 years ago for jobs, what was meant to be temporary became permanent, and we’ve built our lives here. We are still British, still expats, but very settled.
Our children were both born in Singapore as we were there for work for a while too. They’re British citizens but have never lived in the UK. We visit 6 or so times a fear. Frequent enough for them to somewhat know England or at least know where DH and I are from/grew up. They’ve done all the sightseeing, London eye, Scotland, Wales, Cotswolds, Cornwall etc they’ve been UK
They attend an international school here which is academically strong and well regarded. It’s also affiliated in various ways with UK private schools and a lot of the teaching staff are British. It follows a fairly rigorous curriculum, and many students go on to UK universities.
But the reality of the school is that it’s very international, as you’d expect. Their friendship group includes children from England, Scotland, America, Barbados, Bermuda, South Africa, Australia, India and many other countries. That’s just their normal.
We recently sent my parents a school class photos because they asked for it. My parents’ reaction really shocked us. They focused entirely on the fact it “doesn’t look English” and that there are “so many non-English children” in the class. My mum said she found it upsetting and that it made her feel sad for my sons.
We’ve also had similar reactions to other things. We sent a photo from my eldest son’s birthday recently around 20 children at a party here. Again, instead of being happy, the comments were about how it must be “just rich international kids” and that this isn’t a normal upbringing, and that we should be coming back to England.
The same narrative keeps coming up: that the children are “barely English anymore”, don’t sound English, don’t understand England properly, and that we’re somehow denying them a “proper British childhood”.
Even the accents get mentioned, they don’t have traditional English accents, more of an ‘international school’ accent despite DH and I having very southern England accents , which apparently is another concern.
What I struggle with is that from our perspective, none of this is negative.
My children are happy, confident, well educated, and very comfortable around people from all backgrounds. They don’t really think in terms of nationality in the way I grew up doing. They just see friends.
They are very well travelled, have lived this international lifestyle all their lives, and are completely at ease in multicultural environments. I actually see that as a strength rather than something missing.
But my parents seem to view it as a loss, like they’ve ended up with grandchildren who are somehow less “British” than they expected, and that this needs correcting by moving back.
They’re also very keen for us to return to the UK permanently, offering to buy us a house in cobham, but we simply don’t want to. I grew up in cobham, I don’t want to live there now. We have a good life here, we feel safe, the children are thriving, and we’re not ready to leave.
I grew up in Surrey and part of me does remember how small and insular things could feel, and I don’t think I want to go back to that for my children.
I feel guilty because I understand they miss us and want us closer, especially as they get older. But I also feel frustrated that everything about our children’s lives here is being framed as “wrong” or “less British”.
First it was ‘when are you two going to have children’ now I don’t think they love our children. They’re not willing to accept them. They’re still young, we can move back to the England and they’ll get an English accent but we don’t want to and also why does it matter. There’s more things my parents have said. Another example that really pissed me off was along the lives of what if one of the boys bring home a girl that isn’t English. Why does it matter??? It’s a disgusting way to view the world.