This week’s Recommended Reading is a bit of an odd mix – some practical tips for cross-cultural parenting, some expat friendship, some big emotions, and lots of interesting stories. There really is so much great content being created around the internet, and I love being able to bring some of it to you – and maybe even introduce you to some writers and websites you aren’t already aware of in the process!

Finding the Right Words: Cultivating No-Fear Friendships In Your Expat Life
World Tree Coaching
Another powerful piece by Jodi, addressing the fear that can creep in and prevent us from engaging deeply in expat friendships. She encourages us to find words – values, really – to guide us in continuing to forge and maintain deep friendships. Intentionality really is important – and this is a great tool, a way of thinking that can help.
“I don’t want to oversimplify how very difficult it can feel at times to create new friendships when you’ve moved to a new place. It’s not just about building new relationships either; we carry the baggage of the friendships we’ve left behind with us too. We’re grieving what we’ve lost while also trying to build something new from what may feel like ruins. Even when we don’t want to, we compare the new faces with the old ones wondering if we can really create another bond that will survive the miles. Yet, research on the importance of strong friendships in our overall health is quite clear. Even when we find it difficult to build relationships, the task remains essential to our survival.”

Loving Our Kids Through Transition
Velvet Ashes
I’m constantly impressed by the quality content on Velvet Ashes, and how much of it is broadly applicable to expatriate families, even though its core audience is missionary families. This piece is no exception, and it has great practical advice on how to walk through transitions with kids – especially how to provide some constancy and tradition in a new country.
“I have tried to keep some constancy in our home décor. We’ve had to sell most of our stuff when we’ve moved, but I kept some of our Christmas ornaments, sentimental wall art and pictures. The delight on their face discovering those things, after months being packed up, has been priceless. We’ve prioritized exploring and making memories in our new country – even when it is a lot of work. It helps our kids to connect this place with the feeling of joy, togetherness and even at home.”

Tragedy and Our Souls
Travel Lite
Another piece from the missionary world, this one dealing with the powerful emotions surrounding grief at a distance. I don’t want to say much, but rather let you read for yourselves:
“One result of the leaving lifestyle is that we each end up with many dear relationships flung between continents and it is impossible for us to keep up with all of them. But when tragedy strikes it is as though time shrinks and we can see ourselves with that friend and memories come flooding back… we feel the impact of the grief and yet feel helpless to enter in, to do something in response. We can choose to retreat. Distance ourselves from social media so that we don’t even know when tragedy happens within our far-flung community. We can choose to post a condolence. We can reach out to those we know who were affected by the tragedy. All are valid options. But what do we do with our souls and the impact that these tragedies have on us? Where do we go with the grief? And are there ways that we can enter into the grief and tragedies that come upon our community even when there is this distance made by time and geography?”

How far being a banana got me
TCK Town
This is an amazing piece, full of vulnerable self-exposure, the story of an immigrant kid trying to fit into the majority culture, trying to fit into whatever group would bolster an external sense of self. It is a journey, toward self-acceptance – and learning the difference between fitting in, and belonging.
“I started focusing most of my energy into accumulating white friends, and felt proud to be the only Asian when we did go out together. While I didn’t shun my Asian companions, I didn’t want to identify with them or participate in any of “their” cultural practices… For years to come, as I migrated from one country to another, I would identify with cultural groups I deemed as priority to get approval from. I wanted to be the lads at the pub, the pretty boys getting stares in the club, the snowboarders smoking weed in the mountains, or the fashionistas on Instagram… Through my travels, I realised that I didn’t want to fit in. Rather, I wanted to belong. I wanted to be in a place where I wanted to be and associate with people who wanted me for me, and not because I can be like everyone else. I have been through enough to know that I am enough. To be able to love myself wholeheartedly and embrace my complexities.”

Walking The Spirit
The Black Expat
This post is an example of The Black Expat blog doing what they do best – telling fascinating stories about interesting people. Very much worth reading!
“If you ask Julia Browne how she came up with the idea for Walking The Spirit Tours, a customized tour company which focuses on Black heritage, she would tell you it was completely unplanned. But an encounter with a historian triggered a curiosity that led to the successful travel business she runs today. However to get the story of Walking The Spirit you have to start with her own… I very much felt my Canadian-ness when I was with my American friends. But then I was conscious of my North American self when I was with women from other parts of the diaspora [in France]. Then there’s just being treated differently by the French because you’re American, or Canadian. Canadian didn’t mean much for the French at the time. They just assumed there were no Blacks in Canada, so you’re American.”

My baby has two cultures. Naming him wasn’t easy.
Washington Post
I thought this was an interesting piece – and perhaps one many international familes can relate to! When you and your partner come from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, how do you choose names for your children?
“My wife is from Ohio. I was born in Pakistan and took a detour through Massachusetts. Northern Virginia is home, except when work takes us around the world — as it has for eight of the past 10 years. For our family, “Where are you from?” has a lengthy answer. The entanglements of cultures and languages affected our choice of baby names. Shake my family tree and Muslim-sounding fruit will drop at your feet. Her people are more diverse, if your idea of diversity is the expanse between “Tim” and “Will.” After weeks of looking for a name culturally appropriate for both sides, we began to suspect that none existed.”

Why Swedes Are Chiller Parents Than Americans
The Atlantic
This post is about a book – and way more fascinating than that headline suggests! The article is an interview with one of two authors of a new book about parenting – and economics! The theory being “that economic conditions have a lot of influence on the way parents raise their children”. There’s some interesting ideas and a little data from the research that went into the book. Here’s a taste of the author’s background, just to whet your appetite!
“Fabrizio Zilibotti was born in Italy and met his wife (who’s Spanish) in London. Their daughter was born in Sweden, where she spent some of her childhood before the family moved to the U.K. and then Switzerland. As he spent time in each of these countries, Zilibotti — who now lives in the U.S., teaching economics at Yale — became intrigued by the variety of parenting philosophies he encountered, from Sweden’s laissez-faire style of child-rearing to the U.K.’s more rule-oriented approach. Parents in every country, he reasoned, loved their children more or less equally, so it seemed a little puzzling that they had such divergent ideas about what was best for their kids.”

Far Away And Growing Old
One & Only
And here’s another parent-child relationships – the difficulty of caring for ageing parents from a distance. I particularly appreciate the final sentiment – that many parents appreciate seeing their children enjoying their lives. I’ve heard similar comments from several people just in the past few weeks. Now, not all families operate this way. This advice is coming from an Australian social worker, and Australia is a highly individual culture. But there’s still good advice here, and good thinking points.
“Each situation it unique and depends on specific family circumstances but Ana McGinley, an Australian social worker working with older adults, says the two common key words are communication and planning…But above all, stop feeling guilty about being away. Worrying about ageing parents is unavoidable. But if you are too hard on yourself, if you allow the distance to become a subconscious source of constant stress, it will have a negative effect on your own life. Parents want us to keep our lives moving forward. They don’t want to be a burden. Our decision to move abroad is always reversible – but giving up on life chances offered by expat careers is not. The best thing we can do is to take care of ourselves and share our successes with the parents to keep their spirits up.”

7 tips when you have more than one culture in your life.
Linked In
A short piece, but a good breakdown of some of the ways cultural differences can impact our relationships – and our assumptions about others.
“Don’t underestimate the cultural aspect. One might put disagreements down to personality differences, and that might be partly true, but there is also a cultural aspect that, if not neglected, could contain the key to smoother relationships.”

Interview with artist Nicole Pon Horvath
Me and My Crazy Mind
I’m ending with something different – an interview with an artist, an ATCK and expatriate who finds inspiration in the different countries she has lived in.
“The environment is crucial to the outcome of my works. The nature found in each of the places I have lived is all very different, but similar in the way that it affects me and my art. Each place brings about different inspiration in the colours and materials I choose to work with… I get my inspiration from the colours in the skies I have found in Japan, Nice and Amsterdam. They are a gentle reminder of my youth in Algeria.”