how do you decide if you'll stay 'forever' or return to UK?

[ErnestTheBavarian]

We left UK 8 years ago. I've lived in many places in UK and didn't particularly care for any of them. It was at my suggestion we leave UK, 1st to Switzerland, now in Germany.

Our current house is on a fixed lease - we have to leave in 2.5 years. Having a BIG TAL about future - ds1 also 9, so approaching secondary school age. I would like to be settled by this time.

So talking about if we stay here, or return to UK. If we stay here, dh also need to plan wrt job and actively work towrds this.

OK; We both love it here, the life style is great, in winter can go skiiing every Sunday, drive to France, Czech republic, Italy, Austria etc, Kids have freedom they just wouldn't have in UK, dh has 20 inute drive to work.

If we lived in UK, dh would almost certainly be working in London, looking at 1 hour + commute, loss of the great lifestyle... But training, education & work opportunities would be opened up to me.

There is always that feeling of being an outsider, of not fitting in, I don't know, it seems like such a huge decision.

Plus atm 2 eldest boys currently at private school, paid for (for only 2 years) by dh work. If we stayed, we would probably have to put them into German school, and we're constatntly hearing huge moans about this.

As we're quite new here, we haven't really got any friends here. DH sees now that social life is important. DOn't think we'd find it easier to make frinds in UK, DH disagrees?

It feels like such a HUGE decision. I don't know where to begin. Part of me feels like just saying OK lt's go back to UK, just so the q doesn't keep popping up. I've been away so long, 3 of my 4 children were born outside of UK, we hardly have any family & they're all over the place - Kent, Durham, Lodon & Dorset, so it's not like we've got a home town to return to.

How do you decide? Up till now we've always been quite pasive and responded to circs as they've arisen, not dh thinks we need to decide and actively work towards that. But I don't know how to make that decision.

squeakpop - "you know how things work; you understand idiomatic speech and subtleties. It makes you feel comfortable and rooted." agree so much with this. I guess these are the sorts of things I mean.

"there's no place like home" see, I don't think of UK as 'home', I haven't got a 'home' to go back to.

So can relate to 1st thought, srongly, but can't fulfill it with cozy extended family and warmth of familiarity. That will always be missing.

Maybe answer is to stay put, but visit UK more often?

Haven't been back for ages, due to having baby & moving.

Maybe have to accept always feeling like a rootless nomad due to the path my life has taken?

MT, That's kind of the point, in that we need to make the deicision, so dh can actively work towrds the career path that will take us to destination X or Y, rather than leaving it to chance & fate, which is what we've done thus far..

thanks so much, will need to read back in detail all your thoughts - trying to do german H/W and pretend to look after 3 dc at same time

Well Ernest, we are not sure it's been the right decision, dh is a University lecturer and times are bleak... Plus we cannot stand the Berlusconi gov.

I think you are pretty new to Germany, and yes I'd wait a little bit before taking a decision. London would really appeal to me (but you know I like cities...)

Ernest - well you know that we are planning to move back when house sells..

Can you imagine yourself living in Germany when you are older, in your 70's for example? I could never see myself here at that point in my life yet if we stayed then the children would probably settle here too and then we'd have no choice.

It's the fact that I don't belong that gets to me.

Good luck with half term - we don't get one here.

Ernest, my 2 cts: knowing one of your sons may have ADD/ADHD and you're in Bavaria, unless you can stay within the International school system or go private, I'd leave Germany.
We're in R-P which is (slowly) changing the school system for the better but still, any child with any learning difficulty is sidelined even here.
And I say that not to do the usual 'German schools = crap' rant. Am much more involved with the school here now and there are a lot of positive changes in R-P but still, Bavaria is a whole different & scary world.
Only way to do it is stay on the side of wealthier expats, and that's not ideal.

deb, that's a good point re kids settling here.

btw, I don't nec want people to give me the answer to this Q, merely suugests points to consider. that is a good one Deb. FN, also a good one, tho I am v. pleased to say ds is so much better now. We stopped his med, as not happy with side effects, but you know, now I'd sa yhe realy doesn't ned it. But the school he's at is really great. But then, would it be the same stroy in German school? Hmm, the school is a v. important consideration. too pay for 4 children ourselves in IS would be impossible. Are we happy enough with German school? Not having any experience of it, excep ds3 in German KG, who I have to say is very very happy there.

Deb, you've really made me think .

PArt of this dilema, is that although I don't have a 'home town' or family to return to, ultimately, I still feel 'British' and the familiarity & comfort that goes with it. My kids - what do they feel? They've never lived in the UK. I'm now wondering if by living here, they won't develop this sense of identity and something will always be missing. Or am I getting too deep? I connect with dh in many ways based on our childhood experiences, tho very different and in different parts of UK, but getting the Beano, buying undies from M&S, the ice cream man, all these very British things. I wonder all of a sudden, if our kids will be between 2 cultural stools, never German, but never fully British? IS this the case, and will this psychologically screw them up for life?

this is actually a bigger Q than I originally realised? On the one hand they are gaining the wonderful knowledge of being in another country & growing up bilingual, otoh, they're not quite getting the full experience of either cultures. Is this damaging?

Hmm. This has really made me think. Shame really, cos Munich is fab fab city.

Ernest - you've summed up just how we feel too, which is why we decided to move back.

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Good post, Pitchounette (btw, what does your name mean)

I met a woman over 10 years ago and she told me to go home immediately. She was German and had been living in Spain for 30 years and she said she felt "weder Fisch noch Fleisch", she was not Spanish but she had been away from Germany too long to feel at home there. I still think of her.

As to the children, they are always going to be stuck between two identities, their UK/German upbringing is something that makes them different to other children. I try to give my DCs a glimpse of UK culture, but they are more German than British. It is something that I have to accept. I don't think that this alone is going to damage them, it is how you present it to them that is important, iykwim. If you make it a positive thing for them then they will accept it as such.

The other thing is after so long in Germany, how would they really cope with going back to UK?

OK, totally second MME - DCs will have huge advantages whether they stay here or go back from being bi-cultural and lingual etc. Not a case of not being truly either, but being both.

BUT whether they would LIKE the UK is a big point and you won't know unless you get to spend some time there with them.

Did not realise you have a possible problem with ADHD. IF it is likely to persist (not sure as you said the meds have gone and everything seems better) then I have some experience to pass on. Have a friend in my village here who has had really awful time with their 14yr old son. 3 schools and a lots of hassle later they have finally found somewhere that can deal with it, and they are German! Not sure if it is indacative of the WHOLE chibang but .....

As to the rest of it - I think everyone goes through this dilemma at certain intervals when have emmigrated.

Could be post preg/emotions/hormones etc taking over at present too. Must say though similar dilemmas are resounding round Gabster household at mo and although could say same for self, DH feels the same so it looks like we are seriously contemplating returning. Like you, we don't have a hometown as such, but are looking on it as advantage - can choose ANYWHERE, possibly place with lowest crime rates and best countryside.

Could also just be lure of decent tea bags on tap and delivery services with good customer service.

How long has it been since you went back? Maybe you should experience it first hand for a while and see if it all still seems as enticing!

Hey Ernest - they're still looking for families for that tv programme I did - they'll give you a taste of UK for a week

hmm, ernest a lot of your dilemma is also shared by us. So far, the balance has just tipped towards staying. there are a lot of good things that you just take for granted after a while.

dont underestimate teh schools problem. Kiga is nothing compared with what your dc would face later on in the system. How on earth can a job pay private school for only 2 years, that is just postponing the agony.
On the bright side, so many people want change, that it might happen. (well, some time in teh next 100 years, anyway.)

my children consider themselves british, except dd2, who doesnt remember britain. I cant face going back to poverty there.

About the only thing that would drive us back, is teh schools issue.

Havent a clue where we could settle that would give affordable housing and a job, unless I retrain as a teacher, dentist, pharmacist or other similar small town job.

Not got time to read all messages, as promised to take dss to Legoland today but spoke further with dh last night.

He doesn't see it as much of an issue as I do, tho acknowledges what I've said. We don't neeed to make decision for about a year, but by then we will have had to decide.

The certainties are - if we stay, boys will have to leave IS and go to local school. (Have some experience of Swiss system v. mixed - ds1 = nightmare, ds2 = v. good, but both just early years not when it gets tougher/helping w. homework etc)

We need to make more of an effort to visit UK more, so boys can develop their british nationality.

I guess we'll never fix that - ds2 was born and has lived whole life in Switzerland, and considers himself swiss. Ds2 too young to care. Ds1 considers himself English.

Just wonder cos things like shopping, school/education system, health system, complaining in shops, everything is intrinsically understood "how things work". And I don't know if you ever fully "get it" in new country. So will adult life for our kids always be never fully getting it in either country? (Rhetorical Q, just musing)

Deb, if they could let me do it with dh absent & me with a paper bag on my head...... Do you think they'd go for it?

When return from LL will have a good long read. Thanks for input. It's not at all clearcut, is it?

Just my twopenn'orth...we have decided to stay where we are rather than return to UK. I have no family in UK (parents emigrated to US, sister about to move to Oz). DH's family all live near London. If we went back, his job would be in Canary Wharf and in order to have the same quality of life we have here we'd probably be adding at least an hour's commute onto his already long day. Our kids are too young to know "where they are from" - DD has lived in France since she was a baby, DS was born here. DH and I both speak French and kids go to local school. At times, I do feel like an outsider, but I think I'd have that in the UK too as I don't have a "home" to go to. We lived in Edinburgh before coming here and although we both LOVED the city the work situation was too dodgy - both of us lived with constant job insecurity, companies making people redundant, being sold off, being taken over...Here we know that if DH's job ever disappears there's plenty of other similar companies he could apply to. We also love the lifestyle here, although much more so since we moved out of the "expat belt' and into an appartment surrounded by other French people. My DD is at local school, and doesn't have lots of friends yet but she also has SN so would have problems fitting into an English school, too! She loves her school and her teachers. She enjoys going back to the UK but always seems to miss French food as that's what she's used to.
Speaking to friends of mine with English parents who grew up in France, most of them think of themselves as being French, rather than English. Some of them go back to the UK for university, just to try it out (and because UK universities have a better reputation!) and many of them come back here because this is there home. I don't know why we chose here over UK particularly...I think we just felt very happy where we are and saw no reason to move back.

I very much doubt I'll ever move back to the UK. My DP is French and would be unlikely to get a job in the UK, and he has two sons who are French and whose mother isn't going to move. For the foreseeable future - the next seven years - we will be concentrating on getting the boys through secondary school and into higher education. After that we will have a window of opportunity, in that our DD will be moving to secondary school and we could conceivably move country at that point. But, as I say, unlikely.

There are some very good things about living in Paris: I love the short commute to work and school that is common here. Commuting is such a horrid waste of time, energy and money. I love the cheap and really quite good schooling that is available, providing you are prepared to move to live near it. I love the quality of the food, and I love being able to live without a car - it is really much healthier walking everywhere.

I don't like the French way of despising domesticity and not investing creative energy in family life. But that can be largely overcome, if you have the will.

We are probably staying in France, too, as DH would have to re-train to get work in the UK. I would be far better paid and less generally despised as a university lecturer in the UK than here, but I love many things about France and am happy to stay here.

I do miss some things about Scotland; my French is pretty much perfect, but I can't do humour half as well in French and feel that the sardonic element that characterises my personality is thus lost over here, making me a different person. I really miss Edinburgh sometimes, as it is an amazing town. DH would love to live there, but knows he'd get no work. We moved to France from the Indian Ocean so that DS could know his grandparents and have regular contact with Scotland, and I am so glad we did that, in spite of missing our old friends dreadfully.

I am also concerned about DS's education, knowing what effect the current reforms regarding teacher recruitment will have on the standards of teaching in the already struggling French state system. I am not well-paid enough to move somewhere where he could attend a private school or an international school (well, we could move to Manosque but DH would have a 2hr commute each way every day). I hope we'll be able to move closer to Aix so DS can attend a good collège/lycée when the time comes. And I'd never, ever encourage my children to attend a French university, unless they wanted to do medecine or law. I'm hoping they might want to go to Scotland, or else I'd try and steer them to another form of higher education in France.

I agree that listing pros and cons is abstract. Gut-feeling is important, although sometimes the reality proves different. You need to experience things to be sure - not always easy!

I have been in Italy for just over 3 years and in that time I and my family have changed. I know because of this we would find it very difficult to live in the UK again. There are just so many things that would drive us crazy. However even though I have a home and my kids are in school, I have friends and a job, a life if you like, I have a feeling that a sometime I will go somewhere else. But I don't think about that I think about now and whats best now. Realistically we are committed to staying here for another 15 years (till kids have finished school). This is our committment.

I have many English friends who have gone back to the UK. Only one of them is happy and two or three hated it so much came back here. I suppose that life moves on with or without you.

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Pitchounette,
I think the school system as it currently exists is pretty damn good in France given what it is up against. It's certainly better than the English state system.
It's the future that scares me: the reform will scrap the concours such as they are and replace them with new ones which will not assess vital elements: French skills of primary teachers will not be assessed, there will probably be no oral in English for English teachers and the content of the concours will be radically altered, to consist almost solely of didactics and epistemology (which is what the Ministry calls learning about the history of how your subject has been taught over the past: don't see how that is useful in any practical way).
The CAPES has been a good filter to ensure that teachers knew both their subject matter and a degree of didactic theory. Even that didn't ensure that all English teachers were necessarily very good at speaking English. Remove that filter, and I am very, very pessimistic about the level teachers will have in the coming years.

Ernest,

if your concern is about your children growing up rootless there is a website about Third Culture Kids, which is the way of describing kids who spend time living in a culture different from that of their parents, I have found some of the articles interesting and thought provoking.

I don't know how to do the linking thing but the web address is www.tckid.com

We are in our 2nd year and 2nd country, so far I like that this life offers the children a different perspective on the world, and I get concerned about the fact that we are actively choosing a different life for them and have to live with all the effects that that has both now and in the future. Hope that makes sense, am very tired tonight.

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I just wanted to add my thoughts to this very interesting subject:

I very much agree with whoever it was that said home is not some mythical place where you happened to be born, it is basically where your life is.

I've been away from the UK for twelve years, but I've only really felt that Germany is home for the last three or so. I'd always assumed until then that some day we would move back to the UK. What made the difference for me was really becoming a part of my local community (this happened mainly as a result of both having a baby and getting a dog!). Now, I belong here. I have found my place. Yes, I will always be "foreign", but that no longer means that I am an outsider, being That Tall British Lady is now part of who I am

Pitchounette, TBH I think most people in France other than those directly involved in the concours don't know about it.

When the reform was announced in the media the focus was on how candidates for teaching will have to have a Master rather than a Licence and will thus be better qualified. The actual content of their qualifications wasn't mentioned. Nice spin job!

Re reading this thread I had another thought come to me.

My parents are immegrants to the UK (they're Irish) my family moved over just before I was born. I grew up much the same as you describe. I always knew I was different, being Irish is wasn't a religious or language thing but it was defineatly different, seperate. However when every year we took the trip 'home' I was different there too. So I was both and neither. Having now moved away from the UK myself I am deeply aware of what I have done for or to my children. I say that because

My husband being British through and through, found being deferent a terribly difficult thing to cope with. My DH is not good a changing situations. My children are because they have moved many times and happy in all situations. In fact the move to Italy was fantastic for my daughters self confidence. The challenge of a new language/school/country enabled her to see she can do anything she puts her mind to and now she never says I can't (as she used to) but just gets on with it.
We all have moments of insecurity and don't feel part of our home, gets frustrated etc but we also feel so lucky. We got to choose the life we wanted. This is good and bad. The problems are ours and well as the rewards. We also have those glass half empty or half full momements. Now my daughter is 10 and becoming more aware, she is experiencing this especially having been told last week to go home (to England they meant). She has coped admireably with this.

I've been thinking about the stay forever or return to UK question alot too. Recently we moved areas for the 3rd time in our dc's life. The first move hit ds hardest as he loved the old place and had a great school and friends but I hated it there so I was glad to move to Berlin. In Berlin he hated it and dd loved it - now we've moved again and it's dd who is unhappy and missing her old school and friends. I am wondering if we will ever get it right and if it's going to be possible to please everyone. I have the possibility to move them back to UK and I think they might both thrtive on it and love it but what if not..?

Ernest, you've go 4 to please so always might have one or two not happy with where they live. However I do think if you want to give them all the best chances in education you should try to get them back to UK as soon as you can because German schooling - well you might have been on our school thread so you know what I mean!