To be fed up with 'expats'...

[EveWasFramed72]

I am an American, living here in England with my British husband and children (who have both nationalities, but have only lived in England). I've been here for 4 years, and when we were first here, I was miserable;I was at home full time with a new baby, then preganant running after a toddler, basically no close friends, etc. I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and got myself a life: went to uni, got a job, driving licence and created a life for myself outside of my husband. Now, I love our life here, I have loads of friends, a job I like, etc.

But...I am part of a group of American women living in the UK, some of whom have been here longer than me, married to British men. They won't drive, work, survive without several care packages of food from home(because they can't possibly eat what's on offer in England), basically, they sit around and moan about England, and how much better EVERYTHING is at home.

Now, I love my home country, and I do get homesick sometimes, but I just find myself fed up with these women who have given up on life because they are living abroad (and didn't they REALISE that marrying someone from another country means living in said country at some point???). When they aren't moaning, I do enjoy them...it IS nice to have home connections, but this attitude of deliberately NOT acclimating drives me nuts , and I feel like they make the rest of us who enjoy life in England look bad!!!

Rant over...I know, you're going to tell me to cut them off...and I have largely...just not completely.

I just want to know if this is 'typical' expat behaviour?????

Nooka
I have done both the going alone and the going with a partner, and cannot say that I noticed the difference. I was older and had DC when we moved to Geneva so was more distracted than when I moved to germany as an aupair.

Medicines go back to the childhood comfort thing, IMO. I import Lemsip for this reason. There is no equivalent in Germany and just the drinking of lemsip makes me feel better. As if my mother has just handed me a lemsip, tucked the blanket around me and has popped into the kitchen to make me some toast with marmalade.

lucyboots that exactly how these American women are here in England...it drives me mad!

Now, I will admit, I just asked one of my husband's work colleagues who is in America at the mo to please bring me back Pepperidge Farm Stuffing...I just really can't adjust to Paxo sage and onion at all, and I want to have a proper Thanksgiving with GOOD stuffing that tastes like what I'm used to.

It's true...wanting stuff from back home isn't clingy, it's just easier, I think. But, I've been gone for 6+ years now, and to be honest, there isn't really much that I really crave from back home with regularity. I do feel the loss of Dunkin Donuts coffee, which I drink in ridiculous quanities the minute I step off the plane at Logan International, but other than that...I'm okay!!

And...I've only been a mum in England, so we are a Calpol family...I carry mass quantities in the suitcase when we travel to America!

Yes, CheerfulYank, Tylenol is the same thing.

It comes in loads of flavours.

Mine like the grape one.

They'll take Calpol or Tylenol - not particular.

EVE:
I'm a Yank too. Whatever you do don't go anywhere near the American Women's Club of London (sorry if there are posters on here.) Do you know there's a Junior League here too???

We know lots of Anglo-Yanks most not at all like the ones you describe. In fact no one I spend time with, with any regularity, seems to feel that way. If they did, they've gone home by now.

Love the Yanks that spend £17K a year on the American Schools here too, per child. It's one thing if your child is nearing uni, but for a ten year old? FFS. Ever heard of cultural enrichment? Just go tot he British school.

Eve -- you can buy Dunkin Donuts ground coffee and brew it yourself.

Nooka -- oh yes, the basic ingredients of food are so different. I attribute my total inability to make proper custard in the US to this.

Mme, I was really meaning going with your family when it is an adventure to all of you, or going with a spouse to whom the new country is home. When I got homesick out here, dh immediately said we should go home (even though he really likes it here), whereas for my sister her husband is home. I just think that the pressure is very different.

Ooohhh...Harriet I did not know that, and will not go near them!!

I taught middle school at the American School in Shanghai. The tuition was $20,000 a year!! And, okay, in China, I wouldn't really want my children to go to local schools...and actually, if I were in England as an expat, short term, I might be tempted to send them to the ASL...especially if the tuition was on the company's dime (which is often the case with some expats).

But, I am not actually an expat here at all...which is a big difference; there is a pretty good chance we will live here forever, so my children are growing up local, because, essentially, they ARE locals.

'Love the Yanks that spend £17K a year on the American Schools here too, per child. It's one thing if your child is nearing uni, but for a ten year old? FFS. Ever heard of cultural enrichment? Just go tot he British school.'

They usually don't. Or they don't pay full whack. Their company does or subsidises it.

I know because I was one of those people.

My father was a career petroleum engineer for Royal Dutch Shell. I went to both American and British schools, depending on the locale, as this was in the 1980s during the crash when it was go abroad or lose your job. I wound up finishing with a bac myself, from a US high school.

It was left disruptive to my education when I was in the American school, particularly for assignments of under 2 years. My education was very important to my parents, so much so that my father took more than one assignment where we did not go along as there was no American or British school. I also had an older sister.

Ever thought that maybe those children do have siblings who are older/in high school?

What's it to you, anyway?

Is it a competition, 'Oh, I'm more integrated than you! You're so sad. I sneer at you'?

And to be quite frank, I'm starting to see this thread as very judgemental, smug and mean-spirited, hence, why some posters I know are American-born and have been here for many years, way more than I have, have posted on here briefly and left or not at all.

Everyone's experience is different.

Everyone is here for different reasons and, often enough, for different lengths of times. Some don't know for how long. Some don't mind. Others sort of do. Others don't at all.

And this all changes over time, too.

I know I felt differently 4 years in than 10. Who knows what the future holds? I'm hanging on for the ride to see what it does.

I've gotten to the point where I am just what I am: an American and British person with a family who are Scottish.

Not everyone is the same.

It'd be a sad place if they all were.

I do think there's a role for international schools/US schools/etc. If I was being posted all over the place this would be vital for my kids to get any kind of continuity. But if you are here for the long haul there seems less point in bothering.

I also see a role for international schools, especially for the shorter expat experiences. The US education of my DCs was very much a building block, one increment after another affair, and missing out on chunks of it in maths or grammar or history would have left them at a disadvantage. It's hard to slot into the system in another country, and deal with different languages, a different approach to maths, maybe no grammar at all, certainly no US history.

(The only grammar I ever learned was through Irish, and I still have to translate terms when trying to assist with French homework, from Irish to French/German and then to English for the benefit of the DCs -- English grammar simply wasn't taught as a subject except at a really simple level in Ireland, or at least in the schools I attended in Ireland, in the 70s or 80s.)

I don't have time to read all the posts on this thread right now, but I am an American married to a Brit and have been here almost 14 years. My only experience of having and raising children, etc., is here, even though they have dual citizenship. I can't imagine living there at this point, even though when I visit there I love the shopping etc -- it just feels more foreign to me now. I do miss my family a lot though, but no place is perfect. Maybe it's because I don't know that many other Americans here, haven't been part of an expat group, and have just joined in with the local custom. I drive, work, have friends, am a school governor and generally just live life here. Any American food I miss (e.g., I crave italian sausage sometimes) I learned to make myself. I'd say, just keep living as you are and ignore these people who are annoying you. Sorry if I rambled.

Yes Eve you should be able to order Dunkin' Donuts coffee; they sell it at the grocery store here and I've got a bag in my kitchen. :)

I agree with Bythesea...of course I've never lived anywhere other than America and things might be different if I had, but I think just live as you wish, give everything a fair shake and be a nice person. What else is there?

I do keep bothering DH to find a job in England, even a temporary one, but he won't. Hmmph.

Hear, hear cheerful.

So I'm the other way - the Expat in Colorado - waves to "Expat" in Scotland. I love living over here, it's been a tough five year, but some of the best ever. Went to my first College Football game today - was fabulous and yes I understand the game ;). My boys are totally immersed into the US way of life and I work here, no husband to support me - he's living with woman number three now. I have no intentions of going back. Life here is far better than I can ever have imagined. It's tough, but I miss nothing other than Mom who's recently widowed. But she's coming again at Christmas. So if any of you want to make requests for 'Oxfam' Parcels from Colorado let me know :)

CheerfulYank and mathanxiety I know you can get Dunkin' Donuts in the grocery store, but making it myself is never the same as going through the drive thru (and there are no donuts in my own kitchen!)

Hello bythesea! Nice post, and I do agree...can appreciate that some people's experience is different, and everyone has reasons for not wanting to be a part of the country that they're living in, but I think I was feeling a bit dragged down by that mentality...it's hard when you've worked hard to figure it all out, and people can't be bothered.

expat sorry that you've somehow taken offence and think this is a judgemental thread. That wasn't the intention...it was more a place to vent and to find some likeminded people...this is seriously the first time I have encountered Americans in my situation who are actually happy here...I haven't found that anywhere else! There have been very few comments that are outright mean, I think we've all been reasonable and constuctive. Not a competition, just a conversation.

Wow! expat. Has she hit a nerve. I always read your comments because they are always pretty sensible and non judgemental.

This sounds as though someone has borrowed your name to vent.[winl]

meant

Hmm we live in Dubai, most def expat-lite. You can get anything, it's just a question of knowing where.
Biggest wingers? Aussies, because everything is better there (except travel ), they hate the beaches and the weather.
SA are unhappy because they seem to genuinely pine for their country and are so sad that people seem to think badly of their country.
Americans are clannish.
Brits are social.
Would I send ds to a local school? Not possible, locals only. However he has 51 nationalities at his school, and integration is good. Arabic and Islamic studies are compulsory till year 9 so if you put yourself out it is possible to learn Arabic, not easy but possible.
Do I miss home? Yes, am I happy to be here? Yes. Swings and roundabouts, having said that I took on board a piece of advice given to me early on and that was to accept every invitation and tel number for the first 6 months and then cull to pick what you wanted.
Good luck to all expats and waves to wordsacrossascreen

Waves back to starmummy
I seem to remember you .. I think you gave me some very useful advice re international schools and a whole lot of other stuff(for which I thank you!)

And I agree with expat lite (I sense this should be trademarked)

I have never called myself an expat and dislike the term, having friends who live in 'ex-pat enclaves'. I prefer to call myself a "New New Zealander" I used to seek out other Brits when I first arrived but now actively avoid them as many spend their time moaning about how Britain has gone to the dogs and yet how much they miss Britain and how many things bug them about NZ and I think 'well why don't you bugger off then?'
I also have a French husband and we spend time living in France, I can relate to the problem with small talk and all the things you take for granted as a native speaker, even though my French is good and the kids are fluent, we probably speak 80% English at home, but I do try and adapt/merge our two cultures (Scottish/French) as much as I can, and realise it is probably easier for me to live in NZ than it is for him, culturally (even though his English is excellent).

Eve, experts should be treated with caution.

especially if they have a vested interest in what they say.

They even mislead Crim courts and occasions

cheers

gabby WTF are you on about?