While I am most definitely a ‘planner,’ I would say it wasn’t until Mr. Milk and I found ourselves with a great deal of thinking and talking time while living in Cambodia that we were able to really dive into planning our future as a family. Without meaning to, we essentially talked through and laid out clear-cut five, ten and twenty year plans for our life together.

Part of the five year plan included the sweet guy we welcomed just one year after returning home. While we initially thought we would wait until closer to 2015 when we had been married a solid five years, something about engaging in the family culture of Cambodia, where welcoming children is a natural (and expected!) progression in the life of a couple, pushed our thinking AND our timeline forward. Having Will before we planned to also has shaped our mindset that children don’t have to mean ‘the end’ of anything, and guides our approach to parenting and life as a family of three.

The next great adventure of the five year plan is the hope of taking this little family (with one more kiddo, by then, biology-willing) to live and work abroad. While Mr. Milk and I both love our current jobs, we find the appeal of crossing cultures to build our life too hard to ignore. We’ve always enjoyed exploring new places, especially together – beginning with an around the world trip we took together right after college, to the summer we spent road-tripping across the U.S. We would love for our life to be full of those little moments that stretch our comfort zone and push us to grow personally and professionally. We also fundamentally enjoy people and value learning from others – particularly people from cultures and countries different than our own.

Of course, knowing such a huge thing is in ‘the future’ has given me a great deal of time to ponder the pros and cons of making this decision. Most especially, I am trying to be acutely aware of how following this path will affect William, future-kid-two, and our families.

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skype
If/when we move abroad, there is sure to be lots of Skyping!

Here is what I have come up with, but I would love your thoughts and comments- especially if you lived abroad as a kid, know someone who did OR are doing so with little ones now!

PROS of Raising Kids Abroad

  • experience various other cultures and peoples, hopefully leading to a broadened worldview and compassionate heart
  • learn new languages
  • so much great food and ingredients not available in the US! Wider palate because of this?!
  • education from potentially strong, welcoming international schools
  • friends all over the world
  • seeing the world! Lots of experiences many never have, like swimming in oceans far from the US, hiking amazing mountains, visiting natural and man made wonders of the world.
  • lots of exciting change, hopefully creating a flexible, friendly kid
  • family can have extended visits, including grandparents perhaps coming for a few months at a time – LOTS of quality time

CONS of Raising Kids Abroad

  • lack of stability (not all personalities like change!)
  • holidays away from home and no set-in-stone traditions; miss the day-to-day interactions with aunts, uncles, grandparents. Lots of love and catching up via Skype, which just isn’t the same as frequent, in-person interaction
  • potentially not-great schools in certain places
  • exposure to many different diseases that are eradicated/minimal in US
  • no neighborhood to bike around in, find friends in, and play games in (some of MY personal favorite childhood memories)
  • miss out on cousins/family big events like birthdays, weddings, births etc
  • potentially very challenging to re-assimilate into home culture/ seen as ‘weird’ by kids in US

This doesn’t capture it all, but it does reflect my initial thinking. What might I be missing, on both sides? What are your thoughts on raising children abroad?