― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
What happens most commonly is that after some time abroad you marry (usually a foreigner) and have children who belong where they were born. What now? I speak from experience.
I wish people would pause for a moment before universally recommending something that they either have not experienced, or they have gotten away from. Such as Terry Pratchett, who never even lived abroad!
Where did I refuse to acknowledge that, exactly?
Our choices indeed have consequences. And it is popular to paint "moving abroad" as a universally positive experience, so I want to counterbalance that with information about some of the common real-world consequences that come with that choice. How is adding some information and nuance a problem?
When was the choice to get married and have kids not an obvious choice with consequences. That happens when you get married and have kids in the city you grew up in all the same as it does if you find a partner abroad. It's not abroad that I read as your issue, its your marriage and family keeping you in a place. That's obvious.
ps. there's no reason for the pratchett quote to not apply to regular travelling, as pratchett must have done a little of since he apparently shot a documentary with a bunch of orangutans in borneo.
Sure. I may well have misinterpreted what they said. I hope they accept my apologies.
> This idea that someone should not recommend something if they are not actively doing the thing at this very moment is ridiculous
Is it possible you made a "not very charitable reading" of my post as well?
> They are, if anything by their own explicit example, vouching for the holistic experience of traveling a lot at one point in life and then settling down
...which is not always possible, as I have tried to warn people multiple times in these threads. Once you move to a foreign country, you often end up with professional, relationship, and cultural ties that it is not possible to "settle down" -- by which I think you mean "return to your country of origin", please correct me if I'm wrong.
And, in the meantime, you will progressively become estranged from friends, family, and your own cultural heritage. It creeps up on you and by the time you notice it's often too difficult to do anything about it, especially if you have built family ties in your new country.
Look, I am happy that things turned out great for the OP of this thread. I really am. But recommending it to everybody without caveats is a step too far for me.
In the end you can never really go home, because home as you knew it isn't there anymore, and you yourself have changed.
It can be very detrimental in more practical ways too - things few people pause to consider.
Edit:
Beware of the dreaded Ds such as death, divorce, debt, disability, etc. It's easy if you are young and consider a short stay abroad - but growing old abroad is another thing entirely.