To feel a bit sad my Dc isn’t having a British childhood

[Remembervoguingatschool]

Just looking at the Instagram pics of friends in the U.K. from their holidays, from places like Wales & Cornwall. Just remembering the caravan stays of my childhood, the windy, rainy beach walks, finding little coves with fishing nets, having chippy for tea most might, arcades etc etc.
We live overseas and my dd has a wonderful life, but it’s very different to the one I had, she’ll have very different memories. Is it weird to feel sad she don’t experience the same things we did? (Dh is from the same area and had a similar childhood)

YABVU. What is a "British Childhood"? There are endless permutations of whatever that expression means. Limitless. My own teen children have never experienced what you think of as a British childhood despite living in Britain all their lives. They havent been abroad either. That doesnt mean they've gone without - just had different experiences. Well they have a bit - but they've had different things instead and certainly havent been unhappy.

You and your kids live elsewhere and your kids have had different experiences different memories, experiences of a different culture that most British kids wont have had.

I live abroad with my two young children & DH. I miss home and I really want my children to fully feel British…we are moving back for a couple of years at some point so that they can immerse themselves in this culture. Hopefully they’ll have happy memories of growing up in both countries.

Depending on what family you see, get them to go with you?

America doesn't do Easter and Pancake Day? Why not? Introduce it!!

If it helps in any way (I accept it might not) it's rained basically all summer this year in Cornwall, so I don't think a camping holiday would have been much fun. This is the first summer in ages where I haven't been in the sea at all.

Is it an option to go camping somewhere where you are? It might not be the exact same experience, but if you could camp for a weekend near a beach, play in the sea etc then I do think that's a nice childhood experience to have?

If you live somewhere landlocked, YANBU.

I think they see it as too Catholic? But no reason not to do something for those celebrations!

I read the title and thought it said disappointed they were having a British upbringing and assumed it was another thread about how awful everything British is. So this is a nice change.

I don't think it matters what you define as British, it's about having a happy childhood and then your kids not getting to do those things. So whether you went camping in Wales or flew to Spain every summer, if those memories were happy it makes sense to want to recreate them.

Depending on where British home is, I'd Def try and get a few days by the coast in next time. Brittain is tiny, you don't need to go for long. 2 hours in an arcade in Llandudno and you'll be wishing back your new life

Americans don’t celebrate Easter? Well you learn something new everyday!

I think it’s normal to feel a bit sad about that, yes. I guess make a mental list of all the positive things she is getting, and remember if she buzzes off to say Italy, she have the same experience with her kids.

My dc spent their primary years in HK. We are now back. Totally understand how you feel although there’s definitely a “grass is always greener” element. I think it’s always discomfiting when your dc have a childhood that you can’t relate to your own childhood.

We always do Pancake Day at home but it's not really the same because it's a different day in Iceland so we're splitting it and Pancake Day is like an add-on. It's not as easy as replicating certain customs because it's different when you're the only ones doing it!

I never regret leaving the UK, I'm not homesick and I wouldn't move back. I feel my kids are having a nicer childhood than I did in lots of ways.

But there are little things that feel like home to me but are like being on holiday for them. And little things they just don't know about. It is strange when your children, the closest and most important members of your family, see you as a 'foreigner' and they are 'foreigners' for you. It doesn't affect the closeness of our relationships or anything. It's just strange, no matter how well settled and happy you are with your choice to move country.

Americans don’t celebrate Easter? Well you learn something new everyday!

Easter is definitely celebrated in the US.

The USA already has lots of holidays and celebrates things we don't - Thanksgiving, 4th July, Halloween (to a much bigger extent), and Labour Day. They also make a big deal about Valentine's Day. It's a bit strange Easter isn't a bigger thing for them though? Of course they have Christmas like we do.

By comparison we do Christmas, Easter and then we have Bonfire Night. It would be a bit weird for the US to celebrate Bonfire Night when it's about celebrating the failure of the Catholics in blowing up the HOP.

Oh and I think the reason they don't celebrate pancake day is because pancakes is such a common breakfast/dessert they don't see it as something special.

Easter and Pancake Day are definitely done in the States. I grew up doing both and going to IHOP(International House of Pancakes) for Pancake Day where they had a month long promotion for pancakes. It’s not a national holiday or on the calendar but it is done.

Easter involved dressing up, seeing family, doing Easter Egg hunts, and receiving Easter baskets full of sweets and gifts. You would draw Easter Eggs and bunnies in school.

This is something that I worry about. Being ‘foreign’ to my own children, I worry that they’ll never feel at home in the UK.

Lots of posters have hit the nail on the head I think, it’s more about that connection to our roots and the British/English part of them too. It’s sort of strange and sad that Dh and I had this whole other life, involving her wider family too-grandparents, aunties etc, that she won’t experience/understand in the same way

@Lollipopsandcandycanes How old were they when they came to the U.K.? Do they like it there or miss their old lives?

@Remembervoguingatschool i know you asked @Lollipopsandcandycanes but I thought I’d also answer. We have moved back from Aus to the U.K. and my kids are 10 and 13. It’s too old - they miss their home and can’t wait to go back. They like the U.K., we’ve come 1-2 times a year since they were small (covid apart) so they feel very at home here, but both have said living here as opposed to holidaying here are very different.
So if you’re going to move them I would say do it before they’re about 7/8.
Luckily we only came for a year to see what we thought about coming back but it’s made our mind up to stay in Australia.

I felt exactly the same.
To an unbearable degree. The homesickness can be acute. I don’t think non ex pats would understand at all.
I introduced every single traditions and a few more besides, and nothing felt ‘enough’
We had everything on paper, the dream, but something huge felt missing.
We moved back, I don’t regret it, I love everything about England, about home, even r the stuff I hated before.
For me, my life overseas felt ‘not real’ there was no substance or grit, it was a Disney life that I tired of long before I could admit it to myself.

Children are enjoying their lives. Their Childhoods and feeling ‘at home’ wherever you are, so please remember they are not suffering, this is your issue in the kindest way. I love England now after living overseas for decades, it’s really not perfect, but I no longer wake in the night in a panic. Kids are happy and had a safe and lovely country life. I wish you well 💐

@Remembervoguingatschool we haven’t yet moved back. We will though. It’s interesting that @Ozgirl75 mentions that a good age to take them home would be 7/8 because I was going to wait until they were 8&10, but perhaps that would be more difficult and they’ll miss the country we are currently living in…it will be all they know.

Most of us who live overseas don’t have “Disney lives”. We work, go to supermarkets, run our homes and all the normal things, just often with better weather.

That wasn’t my experience. It didn’t feel like real life, despite the length of time I lived there, we did all the normal mundane stuff ofc, but something real was missing. Just my experience.

YANBU to feel however you feel.

I don't miss the U.K. at all really but I relate to the feeling that my children might lack a sense of identity and belonging. My eldest is 6 and nothing renders him more confused than the simple question "where are you from?"

We are going back to the U.K. in December for the first time since he was 2, and I'm fascinated to see how he finds it. His mind is boggled by the idea there are whole cities where everyone speaks English like him

Americans definitely celebrate Easter. Usually with Easter baskets full of candy rather than a large chocolate egg.

We also celebrate pancake day but we call it Mardi Gras! Or Shrove Tuesday if you’re very religious.

I grew up in California and I sometimes feel sad that my dc won’t have the experience of 4th of July, Thanksgiving, high school graduation, being outside in the sunshine all the time, swimming every day in the summer, so many things. My dc don’t even like Mexican food; they are seriously not Californians!

But I chose this life for them and they have experienced totally different things than I did growing up. I don’t know which childhood is better, they’re just different. You may have to accept what they do experience.