Do you wonder where they'll end up, your children?

[expatinscotland]

I feel sad sometimes, because I don't think it will be here.

Go with them then! Don't you ever dream of going home?

(am terrified mine will emigrate to Australia though)

if i ever manage to get home to oz then i think they will end up in the UK. Otherwise it will be other way around and will end up in oz.

Well I certainly never thought I'd end up here so who knows where they will be in 25 years time.

DH and I are already wondering which Priory DS2 will end up in - & he's only 3!
Hate myself for ending up in the town I grew up in - Know I'm here forever as DH's buisness is here. I'd love my C's to end up in another county,for a while, and then bring grand children back to live next door!

Yes, I do.

My parents went abroad when my sister and I were 10 and 12 and we both ended up with French partners, I am in Paris and my sister in Amsterdam. My mother's sister's husband was a diplomat and her daughter is in Sydney and her elder son in New York. Only her younger son is settled in the UK, and that only after many years abroad.

In some ways it seems sad to all live in different countries but actually there are lots of benefits and strangely, I see all my maternal family a LOT more often than my paternal family who are all in the UK (except one aunt in LA who I see more often...). The reason I see so much more of my maternal family is that we all have MUCH more interesting and richer lives and get around the world a lot more visiting one another. We have much more to say to one another and we are much closer emotionally.

EIS,I don't think distance matters.
I have my immediate family in France,Korea,Martinique,Saudi and Wales and we are all very close indeed and have bee for years.

For many years, since ds1 was a small boy and fascinated by all things American, we had a hunch he would cross the big pond. And he did. But by marrying an American, not as we'd imagined, through work.

Ds2 is to marry a French girl but I doubt they'll go to live in France. He'd probably make a lot of money in the US but his wife-to-be doesn't like the US so in the short term it's the UK for them.

Dd1 will be off to America like a shot if she gets the chance. Dd2 just trails around after us so she's currently experiencing life in Nigeria (well, not at this precise moment as we back in Scotland for Easter!) but she likes America.

Dh is at the stage of considering retirement plans and the US is v appealing to us, although I do have reservations about their healthcare system and gun laws.

The rest of both our families are pretty much superglued to where they live, my bro and sis and their families all living not ten miles from where they were born and raised.

We have many discussion about it with my 9 and 5 year old. The conversation changes almount every time. Sometimes they want to stay here (ITaly) other times think there go to some other place often want to go back to England. I always end up saying to them you never know what you'll do but enjoy whereever you are.

This is very close to my heart at the moment. We are about to emigrate to Australia - I am Irish and DH was born in the UK of French parents. We met in Australia, but have been in the UK for the past 17 years and all our children were born here. I never wanted to live in England and I don't particularly like it here. I haven't lived in the same country as my parents (mum now dead) for many, many years - my sister is back in Ireland now after years (and 2 of her children were born) in Australia. Our children will eventually make their lives wherever they choose - I very much hope that they will remember their childhood with much fondness and will want us to continue to be a part of their lives. I also hope that the three of them will have a bond that will last longer than we do. At the end of the day though I just want them to be happy and have fulfilled lives whatever they choose to do and wherever they choose to live.

DS was a real home town boy, never went anywhere, although as a RAF child I spent all my young life travelling the world, I really hoped that he would get 'the get up and go' to see the world, but I was beginning to give up on the hope when he turned 26 and no flutter of wings.

Then he met a South African girl, within 6 months was married and the wings are afluttering, they are going to live there for a while, although DDIL's mum thinks that they would be better off here, what is it with mothers!

I don't know where they will eventually settle, but at last he will have seen something of this world by them

I wonder about it a lot. It'll depend on whether we stay here for good or move back, and if so, what age ds will be at the time. I lived abroad as a kid and I have ended up doing so again more than once as an adult. Once you've done it once the concept is not alien.

'Don't you ever dream of going home? '

This is my home.

I often wonder this.

MY parents left Scotland for Canada ,thus leaving their families.

I left Canada for England and really don't want my dd to do the same.

I really envy people who have there families close by ,especially now I have children.
But on the other hand I could not live in the same town all my life ,it would send me mad I think.

Hopefully wherever they feel most at home. I know that as my DS is having a very internationl childhood, he will feel as at home in snow, on a beach, in a Muslim, Buddhist or Christian country, and he knows that home, really, is where his bed, his toys and those he loves most are. I do hope hespreads his wings and flies - maybe he'll be a real homebird as a rebellion against his upbringing. Lots of interesting reading on Third Culture Kids - their special personalities and what to watch out for to help them become balanced and retain a strong sense of identity despite not having a specific tie to a geographic location. DH and I were both TCKs and it sent us both overseas as soon as possible! We go wherever there is a job and that looks exciting.

Sadly I think by the time DD is grown up flying will be so environmentally scorned, she'll only get as far as Eastbourne.

And then only if she walks in barefeet, picking up litter as she goes.Living in Azer and seeing what the oil industry does to the environemtn round here, it makes the idea of UK recycling laughable. Still, I know every little bit counts. Will Eastborne still be there or will it be a remote island off the coast by then?!

I hope mine will do the opposite to what we did - my dh and I left our home countries straight after school - maybe the fact that we've lived without cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents will make my dc feel they want to stay near us (live in hope!) Dh already has the dream that they will atleast study at the university where he has a job as a professor (also live in hope!)