choices, doubts, and doing the right thing

I have so many questions about whether or not I’m doing the right thing for my kids.  The decision about going or staying would be so much easier if we didn’t have any children, not that I would trade any one of them or the whole horde for easy choices. 

We devoted so many hours to this, both individually and together.  I have contacted friends around the world, ones who I thought would think the way I do and others who I hoped would not, to weigh in on various aspects of it all.  There have been many e-mails, late-night e-chats, discussions over cups of tea at the kitchen table, and a memorable phone call down by the garden while my youngest planted the contents of four seed packets into two square feet of soil. 

The choice was for all of us to move to Harare, Zimbabwe, all of us to move to Doha, Qatar, or to send my husband to Doha alone while the kids and I stay in San Francisco.   Like I said in my previous post, it was largely a choice between two imaginary places with a side option of sticking with a known home but splitting up our family.  He had only been to Qatar for 24 hours, for his interview, and neither of us had ever been to Zimbabwe. We debated the pros and cons of what we knew of their climates, access to the rest of the world, working for a Qatari-run organization vs American-run one, possibilities in each to maintain our outdoor lifestyle, safety, security, access to medical care, and compensation packages.  I struggle with living up to things I said I believed in before.  I tell myself firmly, sometimes even harshly, to stop whining about having a choice between two places providing a furnished place to live and schools and medical care paid for.  No 

matter what I tell myself, it doesn't make it simpler.

With the help of many friends and for a complex combination of reasons, we decided that he should accept the job in Doha and that the kids and I will move to join him after this school year finishes.  I resolved that once we had chosen I would put as much positive energy as I could into treating the move as an interesting challenge.  I started making lists of documents we need and which of our belongings we would store, ship, sell and give away.  I started contacting international schools in our new home and barraging contacts there, who are friends of friends, with questions about what it’s like to live in this city in the desert. 

And then a friend- who has a talent for striking nerves and pissing people off- questioned our choice.   He asked why we would leave the liberal Bay Area for a more conservative environment in the Middle East.  He asked why we were depriving our kids of the opportunity to maintain solid friendships.  Those questions by themselves were easy enough to answer in the moment but also somehow managed to re-spark my concern over whether or not we had made the right choice. 

I went back to considering the possibility of letting my husband go on alone to work there while I stayed with the kids in San Francisco. Why would I want to leave a place where my kids are thriving and there are more possibilities for me to find work outside my family? Do I want to split our family across the world?  Which is more valuable, family stability or home/school stability? Why does quality of life seem so much at odds with financial stability? We'd be leaving behind friends, miles of beautiful trails, placement in schools we like, that view of the bay that changes every day- why again do I want to leave here?

And my friends continued to weigh in.  They are so wise and thoughtful and eloquent.  Here are a few things they said:

Oh Maria, we have been accused of ruining our children's childhood and that we are creating future confused and lost adults, because of our life style. But do you know how many confused and lost adults I know who have never ever left their hometown once in their life? So, yes, my children will be different, they might be lost adults one day, but I think that this could be said for anybody, because there are so many variables in life that we don't control. Do you know what I love about some of the expat families with grown children that I met? It is their sense of unity, of relying on each other, their tolerance towards the world and its diversity. Meeting these teenagers has been a huge eye-opener, because I know that my children are not doomed as some people might suggest. Is it different that than how kids back home live? Yes, but different is not always bad. And living in Dhaka and seeing what I see every day helps me to remember that a destructive childhood is certainly not what my children are living today. Qatar is Qatar, there is nothing to add, but it is your own attitude that will determine whether you can make it work there or not. Your children will be happy if you are happy, because they are still of the age where as a parent you can influence how they react to a different environment. I know you enough to say that you are certainly doing the best for your family and this is something you should never doubt.

You know lots of us have these issues including us - have we done the right thing moving Noah to Laos not even for as long as 3 years... in our case there is an element of being selfish parents but he's had the opportunity to live in another country and culture, to meet children from all over the world and experience a completely different school system which can only make him more flexible... I lived in the same house and same village all my childhood and I just wanted him to know you can do it differently.

This moving around expat lifestyle is not for everyone. But it works fabulously for some. We love it and our kids do too. Yes, it's true that they won't live in the same house their whole life, so what? They have traveled the world, learned bits of 4 languages (and two fluently), met people from all over the place with different ideas, different religions, different ways of life, they eat every kind of food and love it, are always up for new adventures and new friends, and are generally great people. I think living this life has helped them become this way.

I moved every year or two because my dad was in the Army. I didn't always like it, but everywhere I moved I made plenty of good friends. It made me a flexible and open-minded person. I am still friends with many of those people and learned so much from all the different cultures (yes, even in the US there are many different cultures) I was exposed to. I'm sure I grew up with a certain amount of dysfunction, but I don't believe that you escape dysfunction by living in the same place your whole life. And frankly, we didn't have a choice. Made the best of it.

I am so grateful for these and all my friends’ contributions.

And my husband and I keep discussing it.  As I’ve said before, nothing is certain until we are getting on the plane, tickets in hand, but for now we have decided that staying together as a family is the most important part. Our family will be stronger for it and the kids more adaptable and more aware of the varieties of choices people make for their lives.

And still I wonder if we’re doing the right thing.