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| photo of NY subway taken by the Princess |
This
is what my 5 year old asked three months after our arrival to NY, a move I resisted because I thought my kids would be better off based in a small
town in the north of Europe with swans, deer, and cycling paths amongst the
trees. Turns out my monkeys prefer the concrete jungle. Trouble remained
silent, too in awe of the tractor
digging in front of us to comment. Coming across a dead rat was another highlight of our initial months here.
“momma, can we go live in India?”
This is what my five year old asked after
7 months living here.
A
classmate of hers had gone to India for a month with her parents as volunteers in a school. They did a presentation in her class and she was mighty
impressed. Now I can get her to eat anything as long as I say they eat it in India.
Me –
“you mean you want to go on holidays to India”
Princess – “no, when we are done living in
NY, can we go to India, to live?”
***
Recently I was in Bangladesh for a job.
Someone suggested I could explain to the kids why I go to these places. Try to help
them understand what is so important for their mom to leave them for long
stretches of time. I thought it was a good idea. The project at hand was on
gender violence, which I decided a 4 and 5 year old were not ready for, so
instead I told them about poverty, about how not all kids can go to school, how they might not have new clothes or toys, ever.
When I came back with shiny and tingly bangles the princess asked:
“can we go live in Bangladesh?”
Me – “I don’t think you’d like it sweetie,
it’s very poor without all the nice things that India has to offer” (apologies to
Bangladesh, but from what I saw I found it a very depressing, dirty, and over crowded place)
***
“all the people live here. We don’t. we go to different countries to see which one we like best”
This is what my 5 year old said 9 months
after our arrival in NYC.
“our home is Holland” replied Trouble.
A place that we lived in for just three years and with which we have no ties.
Every year we fly back ‘home’ to Italy and Spain in an attempt to secure their identities and strengthen their "mother tongues". These are the places the hubs and I call home, even though neither one of us was born there.
A place that we lived in for just three years and with which we have no ties.
Every year we fly back ‘home’ to Italy and Spain in an attempt to secure their identities and strengthen their "mother tongues". These are the places the hubs and I call home, even though neither one of us was born there.
At least I can say that they seem to like
it. So far. Only god knows how they’ll feel about this mess further down the road.