15 Ways to Spot an Expat Mum Living in the Sun
I’m a mum in the sun who has chosen to bring up her Brit brats abroad.
Yep, my life is full of day trips to the beach (which I can see from my bedroom window) and a wardrobe full of bikinis (still with the price tag on, because I’m still working on the mum tum).
But it’s not as easy for mums abroad as it looks, which is why we gather together into Expat Packs…because after living in a sunny country for so many years we do things differently from our fellow mums back ‘home’, yet are not quite in with the locals yet either. In fact we are a very strange bunch of mummies constantly battling between local customs and British standards – which sometimes don’t quite gel.
If you aren’t sure which ones we are, here are 15 ways you can spot us:
1) We enjoy hanging out the washing, because it’s the only time we get to stand in the sunshine without kids wanting to join in. Although we hang our washing inside out because of sun bleach lines. Most locals bring the washing in when it’s dry – after an hour or two – but we leave it out for two days (like you do in the UK) and by then it’s ruined and too stiff to fold.
2) We worry about our kids’ hair all the time. How do the local mums get children’s hair so perfect? Is it a special product we don’t know about, a spray or just good old fashioned spit? Plus while we are on the subject, how do these children never dirty their impeccable beige starched party dresses and patent shoes? And why are they dressed in their Sunday best at the park when mine look like extras from the ET movie?
3) We speak to our kids in English, but shout at them in the local language. That way they listen…because that’s the language the teachers bollock them in!
4) …except in public, where we tell them off in English (in hushed and threatening tones, so the local old ladies can’t judge our terrible foreign parenting methods).
5) The only shoes we own are a variation of the flip flop – plastic for beach, black for every day and glittery for evening. Heels are for when we go back to the UK where there are actual proper pavements and fancy places to go to.
6) We own three pairs of socks (because, see above) but make our kids wear theirs to school all year round, otherwise the teachers will think our child will die of freezingness – when it’s a chilly 27c!
7) A trip to expat British supermarket is an exciting day out for us, until we realise we have spent three times as much as they charge in the UK for a house full of shite food that will make us fat.
8) We don’t think it’s weird that our 3 year old is eating squid, lentils, olives and watermelon for lunch (but has never tried McDonalds or baked beans).
9) We worry when guests visit from the UK and leave hot tea lying around our home, as our toddler has never seen us drink anything hot…let alone from a mug!
10) When our kids play tea parties they pour out ‘sangria’ from their teapots and ask if we want them to make us a mojito.
11) We aren’t sure if the new words they are coming back from school saying are local swear words or made up words, and we have to Google them (without any idea of the spelling).
12) We realise that we have to go to extensive language classes when our kids come home from school with homework that we don’t understand. Let alone can help them with.
13) A boring weekend is spending the day on the beach and having a quick dinner of local tapas and wine in the garden…an exciting one is downloading the latest Disney film in English and stuffing our faces with expat supermarket goodies we spent a week’s wages on.
14) We tell our British mother-in-law that the kids got to bed ‘a bit late’ after the summer village fair…we don’t tell her that fun fairs in our new country don’t open until 10pm (and that’s just for the childrens session).
15) We only put sun cream on our kids when we are on the beach, even though it’s still over 30c for 300 days a year wherever the kids are playing.
So there you have it. We do weird things and our kids are torn between their British roots and their new way of life. But we wouldn’t have it any other way. Now kiddies, go make mummy some more cocktails while she goes sunbathing…I mean, hangs out the washing.
