Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

I moved to California as a young child with my parents way back in the early 1960s. My Mother hated being here and it was extremely apparent how unhappy she was. My Father really didn't miss England much. So, I was sort of brought up in the middle, never really feeling quite "English enough" but not fully American either. Odd way to grow up. I still have a sort-of English accent that they think is Australian in the States (Americans think everyone is Australian, don't they). In Britain, I am assumed to be Canadian - guess I'm homeless!

Seriously though, I'm curious to know if anyone else experienced anything like this growing up here. I've met several British children whose parents were quite happy to be here, but they never seem to have experienced anything like I did.

I always thought I might end up in Canada, since it was a good compromise. I like Canada very much, but I did the next best thing and am now an Alaska resident and love it up here. (I'm still not a U.S. citizen, though!)

Thanks for any replies. Oh, and if there's any Scots reading this, you might be interested to know that Anchorage Alaska has four bagpipe bands! Bit of trivia for you. :)

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

We came to the US 12 years ago...our daughter was 11. When she reached 18 she went to uni in Toronto. With her course coming to an end later in the year she's considering moving back to the UK. She said if she's doesn't go back now and see what it's like...while she is young with no ties...she will always regret it.

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

We emigrated here when I was 8 and I know exactly what you mean. I never felt 'American' and, in fact, from about the age of 15, was determined to return to the UK. I never took up US citizenship (stupid, stupid, stupid), and, when I was 21, returned to the UK and got married. After the 'romance' of being back in England disappeared, I realized I'd goofed, big time, especially as my parents and sister remained in the US. I realized that, having been brought up in the US, I thought more like an American than a Brit. I finally made it back to the US and, although I'm proud to be British, and always will be, this is my home.

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

But your daughter has US citizenship..... right?

Would be risky otherwise!

I wonder how my lads will feel in a few years time (the 2 who are still here). ATM they are still very English and determined to return.... but who knows what can happen in the next few years.

My oldest who threw in the towel feels kind of lost........ neither here nor there.

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Yes she does. The problem is she likes living in Toronto and has a good life there...once she leaves she won't be able to go back so easily.

We don't realise the effects of immigrating on our children do we? On one hand they become more rounded individuals and experience more than most. On the other...they feel they don't belong anywhere. :(

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Very true.

So very true.

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

In 10 yrs our daughter has only been back to the UK once. That was two years ago...we spent a week there over Christmas.

One thing I am pleased about is the fact that we always kept her bank and building accounts open...despite my husband moaning about them when tax time comes around.

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

It would probably be a good idea to become a U.S. citizen, for a variety of reasons.

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Only once??? My.........

How come?

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Once our house was sold I didn't go back for almost 7 yrs. Felt it best that way...it was so unsettling and I was so depressed every time I came back. That's why I wanted to sell the house...to try to close one door and open another.

Since I've been going back more regularly...she's at uni getting on with her life.

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

I feel the same about the UK really....I was born in the UK, moved to Jamaica when I was 7, moved back to the UK at 19....Never felt like I was either truly Jamaican or English. Now I'm here, gathering yet another identity....

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

I think that's very true, too.

Even though I have thrown myself into life here, I have still been very, very homesick...my US friends here would never guess.
I have tried not to let it show in front of my daughters but it has and my youngest is the one who has picked up on it most.

She is the one now who will criticize the US and say she prefers the UK. I will say that she is the one who has been picked on and bullied at school for being British so that hasn't helped.

My two older daughters feel a bit displaced because they don't have "growing up" memories here , the youngest will have more. But as you say, they have experienced a new country and I do think it has made them more independent.

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

We are in a pickle. We went on an expat posting (supposedly for 12-18 months) to Singapore just a few weeks after our son's sixth birthday. We ended up staying there for 51/2 years and moved directly to the States a few months before his twelfth birthday.

My husband is transferring back to London (permanently) in late Summer.....and our son, now aged 19 has absolutely no intention of moving to the UK. I haven't even managed to persuade him to go there for holidays for the last couple of years, he's just not interested in going there. As far as he is concerned he has no friends there and his car and girlfriend (of two years) are here...:ohmy:

He has a greencard, so he's going to stay in the US.

I can just envisage seeing myself living on two continents....spending a few weeks in the UK and then a few weeks back here....:eek:

On the other hand our daughter just did not want to live in the States and after doing her IGCSE's in Singapore chose to go to boarding school in England. She loves to travel and spent part of her Gap Year trekking in India and the Himalayas. She prefers to be in London (more cosmopolitan than the New Jersey suburbs LOL) and then goes on cheap trips to mainland Europe. However, she says that she feels 'international'....:)

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Join the club... one here, one there, and parents all over the place... :eek:

However, YOU are returning to London......... you lucky devil! (Do you need a housekeeper/concierge/dogsbody... :sneaky:)

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Recently I've started to think seriously of at least maintaining a home in the US if we retire to the UK, and spending some time in each country, so that my daughter won't feel like she's just been left here on her own.
My children, now in their mid-twenties, were aged 8 and 6 when we moved to America. Looking back on it, I think it was very good for them that we lived for the first five years in an inner suburb where they were (in a way) less "foreign" than some of the other children, new arrivals from China or Russia who were also struggling with a new language, for instance.
My son applied to a couple of colleges in Canada, but chose to go to school here, but now he's in England for postgraduate studies and he's making plans to make the move permanent. His sister, meanwhile, is settled in a job here.

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

My husband will be based at Canary Wharf....we still have a little house which we bought about 20 years ago in Epping Forest.....however there is no way I want to live there again and I know that our tenants would like to continue to stay there (they don't know that my spouse is returning to London...!).

He is quite happy to just rent a bedsit initially, as he's going to be doing a lot of international travel to Asia and back to the New York office from time to time. There is no point in trying to sell our house here in NJ as the market is not great (although we are in a great location as we can walk to the station for the direct trains into NYC); the problem would be converting the $ into pounds right now.

The other problem of course is where would our son live? He needs a home/base. I think that we will keep the house for another 2-3 years and try to work out what to do then (and hope that our son will become financially independent....some hope that will be since this is one of the most expensive areas to live in the USA LOL! :lol:

I'm just wondering how feasible it will be to live both in the UK and US and what to do about health insurance over here.....? Now maintaining my green card is another problem.....!:eek:

Elvira....yes you can come and do the cleaning whenever you want LOL! :rofl:

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Be sure to let me know if you find a way... :thumbup:

(btw, I was thinking more in terms of Lady's Companion rather than getting my tender hands dirty. I know my way around all of London's galleries, and how to get the best affordable seats at the ROH......... and much else besides............. if this helps...

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Wow! Hearing these stories is wonderful. I've always felt that I was rather unique about feeling "between two worlds" since the two countries were England and the U.S. I've always felt that people are more sympathetic to other, obviously foreign cultures (Asian immigrants, for example) as they have an obvious reason to feel different. It's been hard for me because Americans looked at me and wondered why I was different while growing up - not knowing the pressures I got from my parents. That's why I have such an odd combination of accents. Now I just tell people that I'm "bi-accented". They usually have to think about that for a second, and then they smile.

Thank you for sharing stories about yourselves or your children. It's really opening my eyes to the fact that I wasn't so unique after all! (And that's a good thing!!!!!) :thumbup:

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

I agree, it's an interesting thread. For me it's going to be an interesting time ahead as my 4 year old is technically British but wasn't born there, or here. Right now she's indistinguishable as different to the other kids at daycare, but I think that as she gets older and realises that her parents are different to the other kids, she'll wonder about it. I'm hoping that we'll have citizenship by that time, but I know that me and the hubby will always sound (and probably act!) British even if we do get to call ourselves American.
I remember having a hard enough time as a kid myself when my folks moved across country and I had a Southern accent in a Northern school!

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Take a read back through some of the threads in the Moving Back to the UK forum. There's been plenty of people who left the UK when they were children and much later in life have returned...in some cases leaving their family behind. There was a program on UK TV recently about the 10 pound Poms. One lady...in her 80's I think...returned to the UK because she didn't want to die anywhere but the UK. She returned alone. :(

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

My daughter arrives tomorrow night.....we're off to see Patrick Stewart as 'Macbeth' on Saturday afternoon in NYC...:thumbsup:

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

There is a term for it: "Third Culture Kid" ie. an expat child growing up in a different culture and not sure where he/she belongs. Google it.....:)

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Oooohhh . . . I fancy Mr. Stewart. Lucky you and your Daughter!!!!

You know, even with a funny "sort-of Australian" accent (as Americans think), I've still had a lot of fun being who I am over here. It's not all doom and gloom. I think the thing I didn't get so much of was a real sense of being o.k. regardless of being "different" when I was much younger. Because my Mum was so negative about the U.S. and America, I grew up thinking I wasn't so great because I was educated here. That's tough on a young child. I think the really important thing is to make your kids feel comfortable with who they are regardless of where they are. If they feel secure in that, they can be happy anywhere.

And by the way, having an interesting accent has certainly never hurt me in attracting the opposite sex. It's a great ice breaker, don't you find?

Yes, I think I should be a U.S. citizen. I've never been sure about how to negotiate the two passport thing. I'm going to search and see what others have said about that in other threads. This is a terrific forum!

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Welcome to BE Arctic Gal. :)

The two PP thing is easy. Just remember you must use your US PP to leave and enter the US...it is a legal requirement. You can use either to enter the UK and most other countries. Now go and download for N400 from here and start the ball rolling:

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/usc...0045f3d6a1RCRD

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

You have just given me a piece of information that I've been searching for. I knew there had to be studies about this, but I've probably never looked hard enough to find this. I never knew what I was called.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!!!!!! :thumbsup:

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

[QUOTE=Englishmum;6154501

I'm just wondering how feasible it will be to live both in the UK and US and what to do about health insurance over here.....? Now maintaining my green card is another problem.....!:eek:

:[/QUOTE]


and that's what i've been doing for the last 4 yrs....hoping it would help me settle here knowing that i have a house in the uk to return to whenever i want for as long as i want (within the limits of my Green Card) but tbh it's pretty knackering after a while. i want to work again, miss not working but no-one would employ me being as i'm always heading one way or the other across the pond. my son now lives in la jolla, ca and is a usc and may return to the uk to live one of these days but is enjoying life with the girlfriend at the mo so watch this space ;)

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Problems arise if he gets married to a USC and at some point wants to move back to the UK and she doesn't...especially if children are involved. :(

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

she has lived in the uk and when they were over at xmas with us in the uk they went all around her old stomping ground...enjoyed it all so much they have just booked tickets to go back again this summer. it's not a problem for me, my son and i don't live in each others pockets and plus i don't go looking for problems as they may just never happen :)

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Will you be applying for/have you applied for US citizenship? (I don't know how long you have held your Green Card for?). What are you doing regarding health insurance in the US - do you 'suspend' it when you are in the UK or do you just keep it going year-round? (Sorry, I don't know if you are covered by your spouse and don't know if he's in the UK or US) :confused:

I'm just trying to get my head around as to what to do for the next few years! I know these questions are rather personal and if you do wish to reply, perhaps you may prefer to send me a PM...;)

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Is she applying for US citizenship? :rofl: Hang onto your hat EM. :eek:

BTW I suppose if you are coming here as a visitor you can use travel insurance to cover healthcare. Your son of course poses a different question.

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Just a general comment. We read of too many people on BE...especially in the MBTTUK forum who have that very problem...even if they don't go looking for it. ;)

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

yep i'll pm you ;)

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

yep and it may bother some folks but i don't worry about that it's out of my control...he has his life, he's not a teenager anymore, he's a man :p as long as my son is happy wherever in the world he's living then i'm a happy mum :)

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

I personally think that having lots of choices is a blessing : yes it has a downside in that you worry about making the right choice, but the *world* is truly your oyster to choose, rather than being stuck with no choice. Even in a bad situation the knowledge that you *could* move countries might be a comfort.

My motto is "keep your options open" and "don't burn your bridges" so those of you eligible for US citizenship I would encourage to get it. :)

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

I don't really know how the mother/son relationship came into all this. :unsure: I was talking about our kids and their lives.

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

you asked me the question above and i said it's not a problem for me..... that's how it all started....

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

depending on what she studied and looking for work, she could look into the NAFTA thing?

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

I absolutely loved being different at school. I was 12 though, and in Jamaica being foriegn is a GOOD thing....My son (7) suffered for the first six months here being teased because of his accent, but he's done an amazing job of ridding himself of all traces of his English accent and we've moved him to another school where he loves it....People here keep saying I sound English but he DOESN'T :rofl:

I always loved the fact that I was different, exotic even....And felt pity for people my age who had never been abroad let alone lived in another country....

Re: Any long-term residents who emigrated as a child?
 

Or read all about it in the handy BE Wiki. :)

Naturalization US Citizenship Resources

The Rich Wales FAQ is well worth reading!