Immigrants on the Move

Our current location is the first time I’ve not been surrounded by mums. The trend for economic migrants in my age bracket has always been stay at home mums that get together for play dates for their children. While they were generally welcoming to me, there’s nothing more awkward than being in a group of mums and babies and being asked which ones yours. I’m just the weirdo who is here at a baby and mother event with no baby.

Moving overseas lands you in a sea of unknown, as an outsider, desperately grasping at any common links you might have to connect you with the community around you. We all look for the ‘common’ factor, hobbies in common, situations in common, language in common. It is an endless treasure hunt for ‘your kind of people’. The thing is having children gives you an easy and automatic ‘in common’. I’m not saying it is easy for people moving overseas with children, I understand from my friends that the opposite is true as you are then responsible not only for your own integration but also that of your child. I also know that often the mums that socialise for their children’s sake are not always compatible outside of the mother/child scenario. BUT, and this is a big but, it gives you an easier in, it helps you make links and contacts and connections far more easily.

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibres connect us with our fellow men. – Herman Melville

I have created a view in my mind of making friends overseas, it could also be applied to making new friends as an adult. To me it is like a tree diagram, you meet the first round of contacts at an event, sometimes you get lucky and meet someone you can really connect with, but often it is just new faces and polite chit chat. One or more of those people introduces you to more people, and you have further things in common, then finally you meet their friends and that’s the connection you were looking for to help you feel less alone in this new place.

I’m not saying this is the same experience for everyone, nor that the strong connections you think you needed are always the friends that stay. But in terms of creating a community overseas it is a useful model to understand.

There are times when I question if this means I’m using the people I meet, but I never think of this diagram until after I’ve made my way down the tree diagram. The people I meet in the first contact I’m genuinely interested in, and we enjoy spending time together, but the people that set my soul ablaze are the blue figures who often take a little time to appear in any new country.

So if you have children, don’t be afraid to use them as a means to also find a community for yourself, even if the fellow mums aren’t your people you never know the connections they have that will help you meet your person. For people like me, I’d say don’t be afraid to attend events aimed at children when you’re invited, you don’t have to stay long and you never know who you might meet.