Job Discussion Forums

[guest of Japan]

The recent dependent baggage debate has gotten me thinking about TESOL life for people with families.

I wonder what life is like; joys, fears, concerns, state of mind etc.

I'm currently married, but have no children. I have to honestly say that children are not at the top of my priority list at this time.

Ideas which I think about include:
limitations of job choices and country choices
health care
education for children including university
stability
cultural adaptation for children and wives or husbands

Obviously my list is not complete and probably does not even come close to breaching the complexity of the subject. This is why I turn it over to you all.

[khmerhit]

[cha muir]

I was hoping to get a thread started on this with my "family portraits".
I can tell you a bit more about our experiences.

First of all, my son just hit his head on the sofa and is crying. In many ways, life is the same for us here as it would be at home. My son has learned to ride his bike, is learning to read, scrapes his knees, gets upset when he is hungry. our daughter has learned to sit up on her own, started eating. All things that would happen back home.

This being said many things are different. We lack the family support that we would have back home. Luckily, I have a job which gives me a lot of free time and I am able to spend a lot of time looking after the kids, and my wife stays at home full time. Seems to me that many people back home (canada) have to work so much that they can't spend a lot of time with the kids. We have a high degree of family togetherness but sometimes J. (five years) can get on his mother's nerves. We tried him in Vietnamese day care but he didn't really take to it, mostly because the teachers and kids didnt speak english. Nowadays he spends time on the computer playing educational games and I bring him to Kung Fu class in the evening and he plays with the kids. The students at the Uni often come to visit him and it is easy for him to go out on campus and play.
I think playmates is one of the big issues for kids. He often relies on his mom and dad for play which can get tiring.

Airfare is another big issue: One wage, three and a half tickets.
Health Care? My advice? Breastfeed the kids as long as possible. Don't vaccinate them.

Limitations of jobs? Well I am thinking about getting into the international school system so we can continue to live abroad but have a foreign community and the kids can go to school.

Stability? Yes, it is more of an issue when you have kids. Though in some ways the childen PROVIDE stability. You are far less willing to take risks when you have kids.

Cultural adaptation? Much easier for children. For my non-working wife, she has far less neeed to fit in culturally. She spends a lot of time at home and has many of her social needs satisfied by her role as mother (some but not all, mind you)

Our story briefly: My wife and I met in Korea and conceived our first child, went home to canada for a couple of years. It was a difficult decision to go back to korea again, but we did so when my son was two-and-a-half. I went ahead of my family and set up the job and they joined me two months later. For our current job in Vietnam we arranged it before we left and had a lot of support from our canadian NGO. Our experiences have been very positive for us though sometimes we miss our families, especially the elderly ones.

Another nice thing about living in Asia is that, in general, children are more highly valued here. you would certainly not here the sentiment "dependent baggage". Children in Restaurants is okay, breastfeeding in public, okay, children peeing in the streeets, okay.

We have more freedoms here. Were free to decide how we want to raise the children. Free to let them do what the want in a culture that seems far more permissive than our typically "seen but not heard" environment.
In Canada we are lucky to have the option of homeschooling kids but in some countries children are required by law to attend government schools. I don't like the idea. This being said we are looking forward to going home this year after being away for two years. Try him in school, plan our next overseas venture (we are leaning towards Japan).

In our small mountain town, with small foreign community (about twenty heads) three foreign babies were born this past summer. Of course this is a gorgeous place to have kids. I couldn't imagine having all four of us in a small japanese city apartment>

anyways, i think i have said about all i can at this time. hope this has proved of some interest and i look forward to hearing from some of our other posters about their family experiences.

cha

[scot47]

In the Middle East some employers will still pay for some or all of the school costs for dependent children. That is one BIG reason to work in Saudi or other GCC coiuntries.

Another possibility is to get into one of the international schools where teachers' kids get free education.

[Teacher in Rome]

Cha,

Why don't you want to vaccinate your kids? There are some pretty horrible illnesses that a child can easily pick up: polio, meningitis, diptheria and so on. I was under the impression that there was more chance of contracting these in less developed countries, as well.

Do you have booster injections against illnesses such as tetanus? I don't know - call me old-fashioned, but I thought that preventative measures such as vaccinations are recommended, especially for children who have lower immunity. As good as breastfeeding undoubtedly is, it doesn't provide immunity forever - or does it?

Just curious!

[cha muir]

Dear Teach,

My wife told me not to write about vaccination. Its always a pretty hot topic. I'm not surprised that this is what was picked up on. Here goes:
My wife and I are whole foods and natural living advocates; we believe that the best way to prevent diseases is to build our immune systems naturally. From the reading that we have done, most vaccines seem to be of questionable quality, in fact many are shown to have negative effects, some children actually contracting illnesses because of them. I cannot say that vaccines are bad. I really don't know. in fact I think that most scientists don't really know. however, reading about how some of these concoctions are made (formaldehyde, animal parts) it just seems like a really scary science and our intuitions have just told us to go without. Of course we have read up on the various disease and how they are transmitted, and what the risks are. We haven't read up on this for quite a while so we can't give you an authoratative answer; i'm sure if you are interested a quick web search will give you a lot of (conflicting) opinions and information.

thanks for your question

BTW, my son is very healthy and rarely gets sick. i don't think his breastfeeding has granted him lifelong immunity, but this in conjunction with the (usually) healthy food we give him and the environments we have chosen for him, have helped him to develop into a very healthy child. i don't think tht we, as parents, are quite as fearful as many other people seem to be. I think that western medical practice tries to scare people in order to get them to subscribe. When we do have illnesses in the family we generally use homeopathic remedies from the kits that we have with us, or we take herbs or go to the accupuncturist.

J. ,at five, has never drunk a soda pop.

cha

[Teacher in Rome]

Hi Cha

I agree that eating healthily is the best way to build immunity. But I think that contracting illnesses can also be a bit of a lottery, and children in particular can pick up all sorts. In some cases this is positive - getting chicken pox or German measles at an early age is not usually a problem. But there are more serious illnesses about for which vaccinations are generally the only protection. For example, before I went to Vietnam I was advised to get up to date on all sorts of things - tetanus, polio, meningitis, and strangely, encephalitis - which I declined. The fact that such advice exists surely means that there is at least some risk of contracting these things.

I agree also that western science uses scare tactics, but it surprises me that vaccinations can be of questionable quality. I thought that they were tested thoroughly. Maybe this is ignorance on my part, but I was under the impression vaccinations contain some element of the disease so the body can build immunity. However, the element they contain is too small to actually harm you.

Anyway, as you say, it's a big area, with plenty of controversy and conflicting opinions.

Glad you enjoy living in Dalat..

Teach (er in Rome) - sorry if I offended you writing "Cha". Just that I couldn't remember the second part of your name!

[Aramas]

I've thought about trying to support a family on $1000 a month doing ESL and I tend to stall on the health care. $2000 a year seems fairly normal, and 2 months pay is a lot! One bad accident requiring an evac flight and a few weeks in hopital can easily cost $50-100k+, so pay-as-you-go is not an option for most of us. Somehow I can't see myself essentially forcing my parents to mortgage their house in order to pay my bills.

Any way I look at it, I just couldn't afford a family.

Oh, and I thought I should add that the 'family as baggage' stuff is mostly tongue-in-cheek, and also partly a fear reaction. The idea of being responsible for a little person scares the crap out of me

[Capergirl]

Plenty of ELTs have families in various countries all over the globe. I'm sure none of them are rich (monetarily), but who in their right mind goes into this line of work for the money anyway?

I have one child and hope to have more someday. I plan to continue teaching ESL/EFL regardless...and very likely in another country. Certain things will have to be taken into consideration, health and education being the top two. Nonetheless, no one can convince me that it cannot (or should not) be done.

[Will.]

How many more do you want Capergirl? Would you adopt?

[johnslat]

Dear Will,
Gee, I think you're probably a bit too old to be adopted. However, I can appreciate why you'd be interested in asking Capergirl about it.
Regards,
John

[Will.]

You cheeky git!
it wasthe redhead reference that provoked the input and like yourself i wanted to get a word in before Khmerhit made an offer.

[Sherri]

After teaching ESL/EFL for 15 years I started a family in Tokyo. Now I have 2 kids under 3. We have decided to go to the States to raise our children for many, many reasons. In the end it is a family decision, there are no right and wrong answers.

As for the points the original poster mentioned:
1. limitations of job choices and country choices

Yes, this has to be carefully researched. You will certainly have to aim for better paying jobs and jobs which include benefits for your family. The middle east, as Scot47 mentioned is a good choice for families for this reason.

2. health care

Again, depends on the country. You don't want to have a very sick child with no adequate hospital facilities. My daughter developed a chronic illness a year and a half after she was born and we have been so lucky to be near an excellent hospital and to have health insurance to pay for it.

Cha Muir, you wrote "My advice? Breastfeed the kids as long as possible. Don't vaccinate them." No vaccinations? That is very dangerous advice. If that is what you and your wife have decided, fair enough (though I definitely do not agree with it!), but to actually offer it up as advice so flippantly is downright irresponsible. Breastmilk is best for babies but it is not a miracle drug.

3. education for children including university

Education is a major issue for me and my (Japanese) husband. Here in Japan international schools cost about 2 million yen a year (approx $20,000 US). That is a major expense. Japanese schools are of course an option, but not for us. I have done my research and have decided they are not for us--but that doesn't mean that I think that the non-Japanese or mixed couples who decide to send their kids to Japanese schools are wrong, it just doesn't suit us.

As for university, who knows? I hope my kids will want to go, but in the end it will be their decision not mine. I just hope I will have the resources to send them to the school of their choice when the time comes.
stability.

4. cultural adaptation for children and wives or husbands
I lived in Japan for more that 10 years before having kids but I found that my need for cultural adaptation increased not decreased when I quit my job to be a fulltime mother. I have to get along with the neighbors much more, I have to deal with the other Japanese mothers in the park and other play spaces, schools (preschool), doctors, local government officials. It is much more intense. It is hard on my older daughter since she is not being accepted as Japanese since she has a non-Japanese mother and she does not look "Japanese" enough for them. We get lots of stares and curious looks wherever we go. I imagine if we were staying it would only increase.

I have enjoyed reading other people's responses to this topic. I am also looking forward to moving to our next foreign-ish destination, Hawaii. I haven't lived in the States for over 20 years, so it will be like a fresh new experience for me.

[Capergirl]

[cha muir]