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Vadim Nikitin's avatar

I guess it's also easier for us because neither of us if from here (even though we grew up here and lived here for longer than anywhere else, including our respective homelands) but youre raising your family in your husband's country. So that might make it harder to take constant umbrage at the mad French and their ridiculous habits of mind, and more difficult to resist their full scale frenchification without offending the in-laws etc. I'm sure I would face some issues if we were ever to move to Milan - despite my inveterate Italophilia there are certain things that I will never accept, eg the midnight bedtimes for toddler, eating basically dessert for breakfast, and everyone doing the same "correct" things the "correct way" etc but also bigger aspects like the still prevalent (admirable!) egalitarian attitudes against private schools and tiger parenting, which I also hate but can see myself taking up out of fear for the kids growing up in this zero sum world (thereby of course helping to create said world). I would also feel sore if Italian would start to displace their Russian, English and French, which would be pretty inevitable unless one really actively fights it, which could be interpreted as a slight or delusions of superiority etc. So it's complicated!!

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Vadim Nikitin's avatar

This really hit home :) When ila was diagnosed with GD in Paris the first thing the doc said to reassure her was "well it will keep the pregnancy weight off!"... Lolol. But sorry to hear that you're going through that, it is a real bastard!!! At least you're not as reliant on carbs are our italian household... As for the cultural aspect, it's something I think about a lot: what is the optimal level of contempt for one's adoptive country to instill in a third or fourth country kid? :) I often catch myself bitching about England and the English, their recherche approaches to food times, social mores, seasonal dress and personal hygiene etc, the list is Loooooong, but I wonder whether it might be confusing to a child who lets face it was actually born here and carries the passport. Not that I expect the English to accommodate us and our weird alien tastes and affectations; after all it was we who decided to inflict England onto ourselves (and ourselves on England!). I don't think we can expect England or any place to be all things to all people. In that sense i probably actually do support the "if you don't like it here you can bugger off back to ..." brigade. But what if, like our fourth country kids, you're not from any particular place?

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