Learning To Be a Diplomatic Mum
#BlackLivesMatter
THIS ARTICLE HOPES TO RAISE AWARENESS FOR
BLACK WOMAN FOR WELLNESS
who addresses the health inequalities black women and their children face
When you say ‘diplomatic’ or ‘expat’ life, you automatically think about life on the move from country to country. Every couple of years, you put your whole life in boxes and leave everything but your family behind, to start fresh and go into the unknown. It sounds idyllic to some, maybe scary and complicated to many. But trust me, it gets even more complicated once you have kids. It is not just extra baggage, voluminous toys, school books, or countless gadgets (those who have been through it know what I am talking about).
As the wife of a career diplomat, I was expecting a life of traveling from the very beginning. We moved for the first time when I had a toddler in one hand and was 7 months pregnant with another, so you could say I started ‘big’.
Look for a proper kindergarten, look for a paediatrician, look for fun activities to do every weekend…
The most intriguing part was when I realized I was raising trilingual kids. Imagine the chaos of the first few years, Romanian, German and English mixed together in a way that it took us sometimes minutes to realize what exactly it was that our own children were trying to tell us. I remember the staff from the kindergarten told us from the very beginning not to worry: language fluency will come a bit later. Our patience was certainly rewarded, as they became native speakers of three languages and were able to switch between them almost unconsciously, the minute someone spoke to them in a different one. The human mind never ceases to amaze me!
As diplomatic or expat kids, of course, speaking as many languages as possible is an advantage and it makes the adaptation period shorter when moving to another destination. English is certainly a ‘must’. But the fact that they picked up German from the very beginning, a language which is quite difficult to learn properly later in life, is a great thing too.
I never spoke any German before we moved for the first time, to Vienna, but I was quickly persuaded to learn it once I realized my children were in fact chatting to each other in a different language than my mother tongue, Romanian. An international kindergarten or school offers the perfect setup for different cultures and people to meet and share traditions and customs. Diversity is truly beautiful! But please try to imagine a room full of toddlers that come to ask you for something, looking at you with their big, innocent eyes, and talking in a language you just can’t understand, when toddlers are not very famous for their patience. That was not funny at all. So I started to pick up just the basics, at the beginning. Now more than 10 years later, I am fluent in German, but I still get sometimes that look from my children, when we are together and I ‘venture’ to speak German in front of their friends, probably making inherent mistakes and having a strong foreign accent that they totally lack. I wrote all about this and much more in my new book, ‘Just a Diplomatic Spouse’, which is a collection of events, funny memories, and also a comprehensive guide of my life abroad.
I read somewhere that speaking in different languages changes your tone and attitude. That is certainly interesting and is something I saw in my kids too: different accents, different tones in their voices for each of the languages they have mastered.
I often try to put myself in my kids’ shoes, try to see things from their perspective. I really hope that in the future, they will look back to their young years and recognize the endless possibilities that their upbringing offered. I raised international citizens, not too attached to places or people, that they might need to leave behind one day. For a child raised in such an environment, immersion in different cultures is easier. In a globalized world, linked by technology, where distances seem to fade, adapting, and feeling ‘local’ wherever you go can be nothing but a great ‘plus’.