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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]2 questions..

Do you have family stateside and if so, do you regret not having them heavily involved in your kid's lives?

Are you ever worried about your kids not having a home base or staying in one school system?

DH and I  lived abroad until we decided to have DS.  Then we wanted to be near family.  As DS is getting older and our parents' health is failing, weve started to discuss moving abroad again at some point.  But we are concerned about the impact on DS because he will likely be around 12 when that would happen[/quote]

We are fortunate with family. I am in the US for most of the summer with the kids in part because it's too bloody hot in Dubai. We literally move in with my parents, who are very happy to have us around.  My inlaws are exotic travellers and try to organize flights through Dubai enroute to Africa or India or Asia so they can see us for a few days, and both my parents and inlaws have come out to see us during the winter months, staying for a few weeks each time. We've had family trips to Europe with my parents and sister/BIL and their kids. So we do see family and keep in touch with them.

It's not quite the same as my sister, who lives a mile from my parents and whose kids are over at my parents all the time. My sister is.... as much as I hate to admit this, closer to my parents because of the distance factor and I do miss out on the proximity of having grandma down the road. But on the other hand we probably see more of our families than many people in the US (just look at the family sub forum on here!). DH gets six weeks vacation a year and that helps tremendously. Even if we had never left the US we may very well still have moved to another city in the country and wouldn't be seeing family as frequently.

I am also fortunate that my parents and inlaws are all in excellent health, even in their 70s. It will be very interesting to see what happens if their health starts to decline and we are still abroad but we will cross that bridge when we get there. That would be the difference between being only just a few hours' flight away and a 14 hour flight away.

I know plenty of expat families who moved their kids abroad in their teens. It's a mixed result. Some kids blossomed living overseas while others did not and fell into the spoiled expat kid syndrome too quickly. 12 is probably a good time to do it. High school would be more challenging. [/quote]

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