It’s become a mantra amongst the expat set: ‘We’re raising our kids to be global citizens.’ Fabulous. Great idea. But what exactly does that mean? Does it mean teaching your kids five languages? Does it mean being able to sing the National Anthems of every country they have lived in? Does it pertain to cultural habits so that they never confuse their Sawasdee with their Konnichiwa? Or is it maintaining their sense of national and cultural identity despite being a million miles from ‘home’?
Being exposed to different cultures doesn’t guarantee a global mindset. In fact, sometimes it causes people to become more insular, more protective of their own cultural identity. It’s like the more they see the more blinkered they become. Their bodies may travel, but their minds remain stagnant. So if exposure alone doesn’t create a Globie, there must be something else in the mix. Is it pride perhaps? You feel proud to be different, proud to be privileged, proud that you’ve bungeed off the Burj or hiked the Great Wall. You regale your self-centred exaggerations to anyone who is remotely within earshot. Pride doesn’t make you superior, it makes you a plonker.
Pride and…’Plonkerness’?
Yet I think that sense of pride and ‘otherness’ comes hand in hand with being an expat and raising expat kids. The enormous houses, magnificent views, top-notch schooling, exotic holidays, drivers, nannies, cooks, guards, all contribute to making us different. Different from the locals around us, different from our friends we left in our home countries, different from 99.9% of people on our planet. Different. Not better. And so this sense of pride and entitlement doesn’t make us global citizens either, and it certainly doesn’t create a global mindset in our children. It’s precisely this sense of entitlement and false grandeur that can turn sweet impressionable kids into expat brats.
Expat brats
Oh that dreaded thing! The expat brat! But more often than not bratty kids have bratty folks, and so the cycle of brattiness is perpetuated. I think of this often because I am raising expat kids. I am raising global citizens. How can I avoid raising expat brats? The formula is there: big house, gorgeous view, private school, exciting holidays. Pitter-Patter S was a silver member on Star Alliance before he was two. When we talk about school holidays we aren’t planning camping trips (which we really should do!) but creating convoluted, jam-packed itineraries that include three countries, five airlines and as many friends and family as we can cram in. ‘Let’s go to Thailand Mama! I want to see Suvarnabhumi Airport!’ says Pitter-Patter S, ‘No, I want to go to the Acropcolis’ chimes in Pitter-Patter N, and I secretly love the fact that both are a possibility. Anything is always a possibility. That’s the expat gift. But it’s also the expat curse, because at what point do they start expecting or demanding bigger and better experiences? (They’re still young now, so any demanding they do usually involves ice cream or juice).
Conclusions?
So after all this mulling, here’s what I’ve come up with: being a global citizen is not dependent on how many countries you’ve lived in, how many places you’ve seen, how many nationalities your kids have in their schools, how many languages they speak, whether they start the skiing season in Europe and end it in Japan. The key to being a Globie (in my house anyway) is humility. Being humble enough to know that you are one person in 7 billion, and that whilst you are unique you are not superior. Being a global citizen means watching the sunrise over the Taj Mahal, and knowing it’s the same sun that rises over the Great Wall, Angkor Wat, Hagia Sophia, the Statue of Liberty, the Andes, the Ganges, the Amazon, the Thames, and feeling the connection between it all. Being a global citizen means feeling small in your grandeur, insignificant in your magnificence, grateful for your lot, being humble in your pride, and knowing that the world does not exist for you, but that you exist to make the world a better place. My kids are seeing the world, they are creating the story of their lives against the backdrop of different cultures, points of view, languages, beliefs, and attitudes. It’s my job to ensure that they grow up to be creatures of substance, global citizens with a story, privileged yes, conceited no. It’s my job to help them to grow up global…without the baggage. Easy as pie…right?
How do you keep your expat kids grounded?
