Home? Where is that?

We are heading home. After nearly 8 years of traveling!


It took my English/Australian family a long while to decide where home would be for the next few years. I consider us pretty lucky that this is one of our biggest problems, England, Australia, England, Australia. Both beautiful countries with a lot to offer. 


Lots of my expat friends say they don't know where home is. Home is in so many places for them that living within an expat community, somewhere, is what feels like home. I get that. Not so for me though, I spent the first 22 years of my life in Sydney. Sydney is my home and always will be. It was as an adult that I have travelled.


I was fortunate enough to be part of a discussion and talk on Third Culture Kids given at an AIE (Alliance for International Education) Conference in Shanghai a few years ago. 
The term 'TCK' refers to a child who has lived abroad for a part of their childhood and then returns home, to her parent's home country or the country of her passport to live. 
Their third culture is created by mixing their parent/passport culture with the culture of where they have lived. In the calves case, Australian/English/Chinese.


One of the main points of this discussion was the emotions children go through and the difficulties they may face when they first arrive. The idea rests on the premise that local children will have had a different experience to the returning children, they will have a different set of popular culture and will perhaps not understand the experiences the new children have had.


I'm not sure how this works for Home-Educated children, but I will keep you posted. 
The calves have travelled frequently to their home countries and have a pretty good idea about what life there is like. Today, so many families with children travel and spend time abroad, that I wonder if the idea of the local children having had 'different' or even 'limited' experience really applies.
I am talking a lot to the kids about 'the big move' and so far they seem excited. Mostly to be nearer their grandparents. 


I have loved the experience of living and working abroad, it has challenged me EVERY DAY and I have grown a great deal, I hope. 
Maybe due to the fact that I have such a strong connection to my home, I am now feeling the importance of giving the calves that. I value travel, I hope they will do a lot of it, but I want them to have a place to call home. Only time will tell where that is for them. 
Perhaps, hopefully, it will be wherever their father and I are - and who knows where that will be!
.......Off to daydream about that for a while.