AIBU to think homesickness is no excuse for moving to a different country away from your child?

[SaucyHorse]

Excluding very temporary arrangements, which I understand could be the right choice even if difficult, I can't understand how anyone could do it. And I don't mean moving between neighbouring countries with land borders so that it might not actually be that far.

My friend and I are both immigrants. We both have children with natives of the country we moved to. My friend left the mother of his child a few months after he was born, but so far has been co-parenting his son quite well with his ex. The boy is now 10 and my friend is making noises about moving back to his home country (3 hour flight away) because he's just so homesick and he can't bear it any more. He is a citizen here, speaks the language, has a good job and a wife who is also a native of this country, so he's well 'integrated' if you want to call it that. His ex is obviously going to be staying here with his son no matter what he decides.

I just couldn't imagine even considering moving away from my children. DH and I are still together so it's different, but when I chose to have children in this country with a native of this country I knew that I could never move away unless we all went together. I committed to that and if we ever did split, I'd be staying here no matter what because I couldn't live in a different country to my children, at least before they reach adulthood. And my friend's son was planned but even if he wasn't, when you're a parent you have responsibilities.

I said to him something along the lines of yes, that must be difficult, but there's not really anything you can do about it because of your son, but he just sort of uhmed and ahed about it.

Am I being unreasonably judgmental to think that a parent shouldn't even have this option on the table, or at least not for something like homesickness? In my experience as an immigrant, homesickness can come in waves occasionally, but it passes, and it's usually a case of rose-tinted spectacles anyway. I can understand wanting to be closer to parents, siblings etc. but not at the expense of being so much further from your actual child.

Can a couple that splits and one goes say, back to Manchester and the other stays in London not make arrangements to share child residence in terms of weeks/months with one parent followed by weeks/months with the other parent?
Not if the child is in a normal school system, no. It's always going to involve one parent having the child in term time and the other for holidays.
The main thing that bothered me growing up with my dad far away was that I could never just decide to visit him myself, as a child, when I felt like it. Or ask if he'd pop over and pick me up. Trips always had to be arranged and cost more than I could have afforded as a child.

@SpaceRaiders

YABU...I don’t think anyone is a position to judge unless they’ve experienced being a migrant and living far from family and friends. Irrespective of the length of time you live in a new country, you’ll always miss your home, your family, your culture. As it happens, I married and had children with a “native”. I will stay for as long as dc are young but will definitely retire back home when the time comes.

No you won't. It's not an absolute truth.

Some people will miss home.
Some won't.
Some will miss some aspects of home.
Some will feel completely out of place back home.
Some will feel unsettled in either country and hope another one will finally feel like "home".

While I understand that homesickness is very real for some people, it is also possible to blame whatever issues you are facing on the country you happen to be in, and think that at "home" these issues would just not be exist.

I grew up abroad, with parents who tended to talk about "home" as some utopia. Imagine their surprise when they finally retired back to England only to find is a very different place to the one they had left in the '60's and that some of their problems were not after all, due to living abroad.

@PlanDeRaccordement

What I am sick of is the idea that anyone can parent properly from 100s or 1000s of miles away. It's nonsense.

But that’s not what we are saying. The “parenting” happens when the child is with a parent. Why is it so horrifying if a child has to travel 3hrs or even a full day between their two parents to then get said “parenting”? What’s your cut off? 20minute drive? 1hr car ride? 45minutes on the Tube?

Can a couple that splits and one goes say, back to Manchester and the other stays in London not make arrangements to share child residence in terms of weeks/months with one parent followed by weeks/months with the other parent? What is so superior about parents that drop off the children every few days as opposed to every few months?

Not if they're at school. Then one parent will always get the "fun" weekends/school holidays bits, and besides the summer holidays none of them extend to months. That leaves the other parent with the bulk of parenting,hard work,homework,friendships,clubs and everything else .

Let's face it contact can be tricky enough for various reasons, adding more distance and obstacles is not exactly a good idea.

Can a couple that splits and one goes say, back to Manchester and the other stays in London not make arrangements to share child residence in terms of weeks/months with one parent followed by weeks/months with the other parent? What is so superior about parents that drop off the children every few days as opposed to every few months?

That sounds based all around the parents' needs. What about the child's friendships, belonging to sports teams, the just hanging around with mates at the weekend (let alone the problem of school attendance). You do actually understand that stability is good for children don't you?

I would never leave my children but I also know someone who is doing the opposite of your friend and dragging her dc from pillar to post while she finds 'happiness' and 'a place I belong'. By age 5 and 6 the children have lived in their home country (Ireland) and then both countries the parents are from in Europe (Germany and the Netherlands) and now she's unhappy again and wants to move to USA. The children are settled, live down the road from cousins and grandparents and finally have some stability. The last move a year ago caused all sorts of anxieties for 6 year old including sleepless nights, night terrors, crying to go home etc. The whole thing is ridiculous imho and the thing is my friend will never find what she's looking for because it doesn't exist. Her requirements include a 5 bedroom house, 3 reception rooms, a school where her children can be trilingual and are taught between 3 languages so no one language is stronger than the other, neighbours she likes, a neighbourhood where there are community events, a particular political party in charge, a fulfilling job where colleagues are more like friends, a major city within 30 minutes by train, housing that means they are mortgage free (on a 5 bed house!), an international airport that is within 40 minutes by public transit, enough money to holiday internationally 2x a year, enough money to have a second home (with a very small - under 50k mortgage), a city with free programming so they don't have to pay for children's activities and the list goes on. She also has a chart of what is acceptable from schools - top schools what % of children reach whatever potential she thinks is mandatory (university attainment etc.) and yet wants a Steiner philosophy that also nurtures the children's mental health and begins and ends each school day with mindfulness sessions. I mean the irony in that last statement.

In some ways honestly, she'd be better of leaving her ds and dd with her partner (a very loving father who is very stable) and going off and finding herself. She can't be happy where she is, but she shouldn't in her search for happiness be destroying her children's happiness and stability either. I also don't think she will like the USA though she may be able to get her 5 bed home and holiday home, so she also has a couple back up countries including France and New Zealand.

I’m finding there are a lot of preconceived ideas on this thread.
Eg that people can’t avec been happy in their home country if they have decided to move to another country

I mean this might be these if you are coming from a country with high levels of overtly or war wo a doubt.
But I actually never envisaged moving to the uk as such. I came for 6 months ‘placement’ within in own company and met my now DH. I went back to France and then decided to move in with him rather than keeping a LDR. I never intended to leave or come to the uk as such. He is the one and only reason why I’m here (which yes then can make it harder to stay if the relationship fails)

Btw, I fully agree that moving back home doesn’t solve all the issues you might have.
Things willl have changed as you are away. A lot of things will be hard to accept because you are used to do things differently.

The reality is that you will feel out of place there too. A curse and a huge benefit from having lived in different places.

I was a child whose parent moved to another country without me. Our relationship never recovered. Not necessarily from the distance, but the knowledge that he could do that and leave me behind was symptomatic of his approach to parenting which was that it was something to be fitted in around his wants and needs. As a child, I was heartbroken. As an adult, with a child approaching the age I was when he left, I'm utterly confounded and it's one of the reasons that I never miss having him in my life.

I was also a day student at a school that took boarders. I've never met more fucked-up people than the boarding crew there and, as adults, the ones I know still are almost without exception low or no-contact with their parents. I'm perfectly prepared to believe that there are plenty of happy, well-adjusted children that board/live with parents in different countries/only see one parent in the holidays. But I'd be astonished if anyone really believed that long-term damage to the parent-child relationship is not a risk you take when making that kind of decision. It's not one I would take if there were any alternative.

What I am sick of is the idea that anyone can parent properly from 100s or 1000s of miles away. It's nonsense.

As I said before, this is certainly what happens with some army personnel deployed in different places.
Are we happily saying that those men (and women) can’t be good parents and should never ‘be allowed’ to stay in their job?

@TonMoulin I don't really think that's what people are saying.

If you read my post and the post of the person who had a similar experience with their father buggering off to attend to his own business, you can see it harmed both of us.

What amazes me now that I am a parent, is that he could stand to do it. I couldn't leave my son, I just couldn't. I'd change j

*job, do whatever I could to stay close by, because being there with him as he grows up is irreplaceable to me - you can't replace time spent with anything else, imo.

Having said that, I think the thing is my dad said all the right stuff, but I just wasn't a priority for him in the way that I would have hoped to be. I don't know very much about forces at all or how parents work it, but I wouldn't automatically judge in that case, because I'd imagine it's a conscious decision from the children's birth and the distance is mitigated by conscious love and care. I wouldn't do it myself because of my own experiences but I can see how it's possible.

But the ops case sounds like 'my wants are this, I will pursue them despite the detriment to my child' - and honestly, fuck that. That would hurt that ten year old so much.

@Waspnest

Can a couple that splits and one goes say, back to Manchester and the other stays in London not make arrangements to share child residence in terms of weeks/months with one parent followed by weeks/months with the other parent? What is so superior about parents that drop off the children every few days as opposed to every few months?

That sounds based all around the parents' needs. What about the child's friendships, belonging to sports teams, the just hanging around with mates at the weekend (let alone the problem of school attendance). You do actually understand that stability is good for children don't you?

I just wouldn’t judge a parent for returning to their home country and leaving a child with the other parent. I think OP is being unreasonable to do so.

Yes, I understand stability is good for children. But that’s not the only factor, otherwise we’d be telling mothers to not split from the father of their children in the first place! Because it’s been proven that separation/divorce does damage children’s well-being. But we recognise that sometimes it is absolutely the best thing overall for parents to split instead of “staying together for the children”.

This falls under the same concept. The “homesickness” of an immigrant is really using the word “homesick” to minimise the very real and very strong stresses of acculturation. These stresses happen to all immigrants and is the direct cause of why immigrants have higher suicide rates compared to native populations. It’s not something that can be dismissed or mocked as not good enough of a reason to return to the home country.