How We’re Handling an 18-Month Overseas Work Assignment With Young Kids at Home
The email pinged my phone at 7:12 a.m. last March, right as my 7-year-old spilled oatmeal down the front of his school uniform and my 4-year-old stuffed half a piece of my toast in her pocket for later. The counter was sticky with syrup, the kettle was screaming, and there it was: a formal offer for an 18-month posting to Singapore, a role I’d been working toward for three years.
We shut the laptop after the kids left for school, sat on the worn couch in our living room, and did the quiet math. If I went alone, I’d be home for 10 days every 3 months, which worked out to just 50 total days together in a year and a half. We tried that arrangement for a 3-month project two years ago, and by the end, my 7-year-old had started wetting the bed again after three years of being dry, and my daughter would hang up on me mid-video call screaming because she wanted me to tuck her in, not a screen. So that wasn’t an option this time. But dragging two young kids halfway across the world, pulling them out of their schools, their friend groups and their favorite neighborhood park – that felt like a huge parenting risk.
We had our annual well checks for the kids the next week, and I mentioned the whole thing to our pediatrician, who does a lot of work with early childhood development. Everyone else we told just said “kids are resilient,” which felt like a way to avoid actually talking about the hard parts. She didn’t do that. She gave me three small, specific things to try, and that’s what’s actually made this work so far.
First, she said, give each kid a “constant” that doesn’t change, no matter what. Not a vague “we’ll call family sometimes” – a specific time, a specific routine that stays exactly the same, no exceptions. We picked Sunday 4 p.m. for our 7-year-old to call his best friend Leo back home, and Friday night pizza and a movie for the whole family. We wrote the times on their paper calendars with a thick marker, so they can see it whenever they want. When we got here, the 12-hour time difference shifted everything, but 4 p.m. back home is 8 a.m. here on Sunday, so we just make sure we’re up and on the couch by then, no plans, no exceptions. It’s non-negotiable. The movie on Friday can be the same Frozen II they’ve watched a hundred times, if they want. It doesn’t have to be new or exciting. It just has to be the same.
Second, make a memory box before you leave. Not a big fancy scrapbook you spend weeks putting together – just a plain shoebox, and tell each kid they can pick 10 small things from their current life to put in it. No rules, it can be anything. My son picked a crayon drawing he made with Leo, a smooth gray rock he found at our neighborhood park, a sticker from the checkout line at the grocery store we went to every Saturday, and the plastic spoon from his favorite ice cream shop. My daughter picked a feather from her preschool playground, one of her old pacifiers she doesn’t use anymore, and a band-aid with unicorns on it that the school nurse gave her once when she fell. We packed those at the top of their suitcases, and now they sit on the shelf next to their beds. When they’re sad or missing home, they can get them out and look through them. I used to think this was a silly little activity, but I’ve seen my son pull his out after a bad day at school when he couldn’t understand what his teacher was saying, and it calms him down faster than me saying “it’ll get better” ever does.
Third, let them pick one small thing about the new house that’s theirs to decide. Our new apartment had a virtual tour online before we left, so I pulled it up on the tablet and let each kid pick where their bed goes and which corner their toy bin sits in. My daughter wanted her bed right by the window, even though that means the tropical sun wakes her up an hour earlier every day – that’s her call. I didn’t argue. It’s such a small thing, but it gives them a little bit of control when everything else feels like it’s changing. Young kids don’t understand what “18 months” means, or why we have to leave all the people they love, but they understand getting to pick where their bed goes.
Now, we’re two months in. It’s not all perfect. Last week, my son came home from school crying because all the other kids run faster than him at recess and he didn’t know how to explain that his ankle hurts when he runs too long. My daughter still refuses to eat the mango all the other kids bring for snack, and she cries every time we go to the local market because the noise and the crowds are too much. I still lie awake some nights wondering if we made the wrong choice, if we’re messing up their sense of stability for my career.
But the small things work. The Sunday calls happen, every week, even if we’re out exploring and have to take the call sitting on a curb outside a coffee shop. The memory boxes get pulled out at least once a week. Friday night pizza is still on, even if the cheese is a little different here than it was back home. I packed our three favorite bedtime books in my carry-on, so we still read the exact same pages out loud every night, just like we did in our old house.
In 16 months, we’ll move back. I don’t know if the kids will have lasting changes from this, or if they’ll even remember most of it. Right now, we’re just taking it one week at a time, leaning on the small, constant things that don’t shift when everything else does. That’s enough for now.
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