In both my pregnancies while living as an expat, one of the questions I have been asked frequently - right up there alongside "How far along are you?" and "Is it a boy or a girl?" - is "Are you going to go home for the birth?"
There are plenty of expats who do return to their passport countries for the births of their children, so I know this is an understandable question in my community of expats, but the first few times people asked me my initial response was still a somewhat startled, "No. Why would I do that?"
This is a trend that extends beyond just childbirth. Plenty of people also assumed that I would flee back to the United States when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020 or "go home" at least long enough to plan and hold my wedding after I got engaged.
It makes sense. In times of crisis (or celebration) people naturally want to be where they feel at home. Where at least their environs are familiar and they feel the most supported, but what I found myself explaining to my friends whenever they raised this question was that the US was no longer "home." As an ATCK from a highly mobile family of origin, I was more familiar with the life I had built in a foreign country than I would have been returning to my passport country. I had no support structures there to return to. Sure, my parents were back in the US at that point, but they had moved towns within the US four or five times since I had left for college, so as much as I would have liked to see them again, their house would hardly have been a familiar place. I couldn't imagine bringing my babies "home" to a guest room with a fold-out couch and a couple open suitcases.
At this point, I have lived longer in Türkiye than anywhere else to date. (Cumulatively I have still lived more years in the US, but this has been my longest consecutive stretch in the same town). When I did the math to arrive at that realization, I wasn't sure what to feel about it. I am not sure that Türkiye feels fully like "home" either - I never meant to settle here - but as things turned out, I met my husband here, got married here and both of my children have been born here. Türkiye has certainly left an indelible mark on my life. If this isn't home (at least for now), I don't know where home is.
When you are not sure where home is, just imagine facing a crisis that makes you say, "I want to go home." Where do you go in your mind's eye when you say those words? Irregardless of where your passport says you belong, the place you feel homesick for in a time of turmoil is likely the closest thing you have to a "home."
I doubt this is the end of my travels, so I do expect to have to farewell Türkiye at some point, and I am beginning to suspect that will be a harder goodbye than I ever anticipated. Whenever we have to leave Türkiye, I imagine I will find myself wishing I could "go home" to the apartment my husband and I furnished and repainted as newlyweds, hunkered down in through a global pandemic, and then filled with memories of all our children's firsts. By choosing this place to be our sanctuary through crisis (and celebration) it has become home.
It is also the only home my children have ever known, so far, the only place they can feel homesick for, and however much I may feel homesick for Türkiye when we inevitably move on, that homesickness will be surely be multiplied for them while for me it will divided among all the other "homes" I have known.
And this finally brings me to my purpose in writing this article, for while asking oneself where you find yourself wishing you could "go home" to in a crisis may be an interesting personal litmus test, its real usefulness comes when applied to families and communities. Facing crisis as an expat family or community will likely reveal that different members call different places "home."
The COVID-19 outbreak certainly had this effect on my community. When the pandemic was announced everyone scrambled to figure out how and where they would weather the storm. My husband and I chose to stay where we were, but when the dust settled we found ourselves in an entirely new social landscape as many of our expat friends had gone home to their passport countries.
A global pandemic is a dramatic example, one that I hope will not be repeated in my lifetime. More frequently though, I have seen (and experienced) personal crises send expats scrambling "home." When families are involved and not all members of the family identify with the same sense of "home" this becomes complicated.
When monocultural parents of TCKs are drawn back to their passport countries in times of personal crisis (usually due to work or culture stress), the prospect of going "home" relieves some of this stress for the parents, but simultaneously creates an entirely new crisis for their children who are being pulled away from their "home."
I point this out not to condemn parents who make this decision - sometimes there aren't any better solutions - but simply to encourage better understanding between parents and their TCKs in such situations.
Imagine for example the expat parent who for whatever reason must leave his or her job. Assuming that job provides the family with the work visas required to stay in that country, a return to their passport country may well be inevitable. The parent may refer to this move as a "return home" and perhaps even feel some sense of relief re-entering a familiar culture and environment, but their children may not feel that they are regaining their home but rather losing it. Thus a move that relieves culture stress for the parents in that family, creates a crisis of transition for the children. In such a case it can't be avoided - without the requisite visa the family simply cannot stay - but it can be approached with sympathy.
When my family left Japan under similar circumstances, I was old enough to remember the US and maintained some illusion that going back would be "going home," (we ended up relocating to an entirely different part of the country , so that wasn't the reality...) even so I looked back on my parents decision to leave Japan for years wondering why they couldn't have found another way to stay, wishing that they had at least considered other options.
Now, my daughter tells me she wants to "stay in Türkiye forever" and guilt wells in my throat knowing that we probably can't, knowing that whenever we leave it will be harder on her than it will be for me, and for who knows how long afterward in moments of sadness she will probably cry, "I want to go home" and I will know that she is picturing our apartment in Antalya.
If you are reading this and realizing that your child or spouse or friend pictures a different "home" than you do when they say "they want to go home" please don't lose heart. Crisis need not drive you apart even if you find it tugs you in different directions.
Wanting to flee "home" in time of crisis is a natural instinct, but no particular place however familiar provides the necessary safety and security that we need to endure crisis (or enjoy celebration).
When I chose to stay in Türkiye during COVID, get married, and give birth to my children here it wasn't really anything to do with my geography that made me feel at home. It was my then fiancé's parents who made me feel at home with them when I stayed with them through the lockdowns of 2020. It was in no small part my pastor who made me want to stay and be married by him, rather than having a ceremony performed by a stranger. It was a trusted doctor and doula that gave me the confidence to navigate pregnancy and childbirth in a foreign country (and a language I barely understood) because I knew I could rely on them to see me through it. And through it all, it has been my husband's faithful companionship that has reminded me that wherever I may be I am at home with him.
Perhaps this all amounts to a textbook example of how TCKs are said to build their sense of home more relationally than geographically. There was a time when I know I whole-heartedly agreed with the idea that my "home" was entirely tied up in my family and friendships and had nothing at all to do with my environment. I don't think it's quite that clear-cut to me anymore. Having built more of a home than I have ever had before I do believe geography has meaning, but relationships mean more.
So if you are facing a crisis, remember that while it may reveal where you feel most at home, in focusing on that place you are drawn to don't lose sight of the people beside you who can see you through no matter where you end up.
