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Deciding to Emigrate AbroadMigration and defending your choice to leave home for a foreign countryIf you've made a Big Move, far away, even left the country, you're an exception in today's world. How difficult is it for those who stayed to understand why you left?
The majority of the world doesn't leave home: they move at most a couple of hours away. When you've moved much farther away than that, perhaps even left your country, you might be asked to explain your decision to leave. The request is often made with interest and respect for your courage and strength to deal with the homesickness. But just as often, it is far from appreciative, even implying: "Don't you like us anymore?" Belgians, for example, don't leave: the emigration rate is less than 1%. And Belgium is a small country, about the size of Maryland, so children leave to live at most a two hour drive away. In my family I was the third in the span of two generations to move abroad. In a world-wide context, that makes my family exceptionally migratory. The United Nations concluded in 2006 that only 3 percent of the world population is an international migrant. An exception is the United States, where mobility rates are high. The Census of 2000 determined that, since 1995, no less than 8.42 percent of its respondents had moved to another state and 2.86 percent to a foreign country. When such a big move isn't prompted by economic hardship or concern for one's personal safety, and can be called by all to be voluntary, the one who left is bound to be asked why, and not always out of kind interest. Back home I am sometimes confronted by minor acquaintances and strangers who observe, "So it wasn't good enough here?" What a comment! Surely only few have the luxury to say "This stinks, let's leave!" You don't choose to leave: you get chosen by certain circumstances (study, a job, a partner). It is usually something positive (elsewhere) that draws you in, and not something negative (at home) that pushes you away. This is an important difference that the critics are only happy to ignore. And they can ignore it because they have never left. People live their lives the way they want to. I wanted to do it differently than the average Belgian or, for that matter, world citizen. But honestly, I still don't fully understand my own motives and the circumstances that lead me on this path. I still struggle with homesickness: no longer that initial homesickness, so intricately entangled with culture shock, but the realization that my newfound home is more precarious than I like to think. Other Articles in this Series:Leaving Home: A Journey Through Homesickness You Can Never Go Home Again: On Not Fitting In Anymore The Precariousness of Home: Did You Know That Having a Baby Changes Everything?
The copyright of the article Deciding to Emigrate Abroad in Family Adventures is owned by Katrien Vander Straeten. Permission to republish Deciding to Emigrate Abroad in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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