There’s no place like home for the holidays… Many people interpret home differently when they become adults. For me, home is wherever my family is. However, the definitions for both home and family have changed over the years. With each stage of life, they take on new meaning and I’ve shifted into different roles. When […]
The conscious decision to open or close a life-changing gateway is an emotional process. Before an international relocation (or a domestic one, for that matter) every component of the decision is weighed countless times over. Potential consequences from each path and direction are analyzed from all angles. The immediate, intermediate, and long-term effects are mapped […]
Every parent is afraid they are making a mistake when raising their children—abroad or domestically—and Jo Parfitt and Terry Anne Wilson are no different. In their book, Monday Morning Emails, they often question if their decision to move their families frequently throughout their children’s childhood results in their children’s inability to cope with difficulty. Monday Morning Emails […]
In an ideal world, there would be only perfect relocations. A world in which everything goes according to plan, nobody is running around at the last minute all sweaty with stress, and the children are well behaved on every flight and breeze through connecting airports. In this ideal world, here’s what a perfect relocation might […]
**This is an honest review of a book I purchased with my own money cause I’m a book hoarder.** Knocked Up Abroad uses affiliate links that deliver great content at no extra cost to you. I first met Chris O’Shaughnessy as the opening keynote speaker at the Families in Global Transition conference in 2016. He […]
The light bulb flicks on and all of a sudden, the hair raises on the back of your neck and goosebumps cover your arms. The aha moment. The sudden crash of insight as you realize that your perspective has been too narrow even though you thought it was broad. For me, it was a feeling of […]
Motherhood didn’t kill my career—moving abroad did. And by “killing my career” I mean that moving abroad completely changed how I needed to view my employment opportunities. It forced me embrace a field that used to terrify me—entrepreneurship. I never thought I’d be an entrepreneur. Not in a million years. Entrepreneurism was too risky, too […]
The fourth article in the Global Women Discuss Love, Loss, and Family Abroad series between Gabrielle of the Expat Coffee Club and a few Knocked Up Abroad Again contributors tackles moving abroad and the emotional challenges associated with these large transitions. Gabrielle: When my parents told me that we were moving, I was devastated. Despite the fact that we […]
The Families in Global Transition (FIGT) 2017 conference is coming up and their theme is Building on the Basics: Creating Your Tribe on the Move. The FIGT conference is not really a conference as one might think of professional meetings. It has been called, “A reunion of strangers,” because the attendees are members of the same […]
The hunger pangs subside and the bleariness of the morning-after-a-long-travel-day fade into uncontrollable laughter as I listen to the hilariously honest opening keynote narrated by Christopher O’Shaughnessy. I’m sitting next to Jodie Hopkins, a woman I had only met two hours earlier but yet we instantly connected, and I keep glancing over at her as we laugh at the […]