Repatriate – An Interview with Robin Pascoe – An Expat Expert and The Author of Five Books for Families on Global Living.
Robin Pascoe is a former Canadian diplomatic wife who got frustrated with the lack of support offered to families and decided to do something about it by writing and publishing books that would validate many of the challenges of global mobility and then share her own experience and the ways in which she handled those challenges.
As a journalist of 35 years, Robin also has been able to report on these issues and find research from many sources (expat and non-expat) that could help her offer advice from experts.
Expats Guide: Could you please explain the term re-entry shock? What are the re-entry shock phases?
Robin: Simply put, it’s the shock of being home. It’s reverse culture shock when your own culture seems foreign to you. The phases are the same as regular country culture shock: honeymoon, denial, anger/flight and finally reconciliation. But the stages last longer…often 18 months to 2 years before one feels ‘normal’ again, what normal is!
Expats Guide: Is re-entry shock harder on expats who had to return home suddenly as opposed to those who repatriate at the end of their contract?
Robin: It’s not necessarily harder, but it’s so unexpected as one doesn’t expect to feel foreign in one’s own country. But for someone who suddenly repatriates without warning, it means preparing for it can be more difficult and the shock much greater because they haven’t thought about it.
Expats Guide: Is it recommended to prepare for repatriation a few months in advance while still living abroad and how?
Robin: Absolutely yes! The problem is that when still living abroad, the reality has not sunk in so one avoids thinking about it. And then a family gets caught up in the pending repatriation with all the logistical details and puts it out of their minds. It’s why when the ‘crash’ occurs, which does for everyone, it comes as a surprise. But it’s very important to prepare for it. Most people don’t though.
Expats Guide: What are the main challenges for repatriate kids?
Robin: All the regular challenges of relocation only with a twist: children may speak about their overseas experiences and no one wants to listen, or worse, other children may think they are lying! Often, too, many children go ‘home’ to a place they have never lived, so ‘home’ to the parent is not ‘home’ to the children.
Adjusting to new school systems can be tricky and of course, the reverse culture shock may mean they can’t concentrate in their new classrooms nor feel like they fit in. It’s one of the reasons I always recommend to parents they have a responsibility to visit with their child’s new teacher, as I used to, and ask them not to single out their child with comments like, “so and so just moved here from ___ country: speak a bit of the language for us.” The kids just want to sink into the woodwork. They do not want to be singled out but rather fit in and have their new life and network of friends immediately and that’s not going to happen.
Children, as I always stress, can’t see into the future to know they will eventually adjust. They live in the here and now and become impatient. As well, their parents, especially their mothers, may not be coping well with the repatriation for reasons of their own…and that can be transferred onto their children. I certainly was guilty of that with my own children.
Expats Guide: What are the main challenges for repatriate professional expatriates?
Robin: They have been out of the loop and things may have changed at their organization…or indeed, they may repatriate without a job altogether and that’s challenging. Often, new co-workers think an expat has been living the high life overseas and now that they are home, should be brought down to earth.
Some expats have felt too that their overseas experience did not translate into a better job (with higher pay) even though they were told in the first instance that the overseas job would be good for their careers!
Expats Guide: What are the main challenges for repatriate accompanying spouses?
Robin: Probably too many to mention! But primarily it’s feeling isolated and having great friends who unfortunately live very far away. If their partners’ organizations do take advantage of the overseas experience, they may ask them to do more travel from home base and so the family (the mother!) may become what I used to call “a single parent without dating privileges!”
Re-starting their own career can be difficult not only because they too have been out of the loop, but because the expat experience has changed them and they want to pursue something different but don’t quite know what to do next. Or, as happened with me, I saw that my children needed me during the transition so it was difficult to run out the door and abandon them, even though it would have been super to make money again.
Expats Guide: Many expats repatriate few times to their home country. Speaking from my own experience I can testify that repatriating the second time to my home country was much harder. Is this a common feeling and why is it harder?
Robin: I think it is a common feeling because if you have gone through one repatriation, you think the second one will be easier…and that’s not always the case. The family configuration may have changed: one child may be off to university for example so there can be some empty nest emotions going on. The partner’s job may require more time away, as noted above, so suddenly it’s just not as simple as before. Some of these challenges are the same as moving abroad in the first instance…only there is not the same support one may have had abroad or a community of people who ‘get it’, that is, what the overseas experience has been like.
Expats Guide: You have written many books for the expats community. One of them is called Homeward Bound: A Spouse’s Guide to Repatriation. Could you please tell us a little about the book?
Robin: I wrote Homeward Bound: A Spouse’s Guide to Repatriation after our last repatriation, a permanent one as opposed to a temporary one (as in, between assignments) so I realized, hey, I won’t be moving again and what if I never travel again? Many people feel the interesting part of their lives is now over. I thought I would never travel again, for example, and have spent the last ten years traveling more than I ever did!
It takes a lot of time to feel settled again. And I was so tired and depressed all the time! I didn’t re-read the previous books I had written which dealt with repatriation (big mistake) and realized a book devoted entirely to this difficult transition was needed. So I wrote Homeward Bound almost as my own therapy but found that many women could relate to my experience as so many aspects are universal and cross cultures. At any rate, it was needed I knew…as many have told me over the years they found it very useful…when they eventually got around to reading it!…Too many women suffer the loss of their life abroad which may have been fancier, and go into the stages of grief which must be worked through and that takes time.
Homeward Bound was written to help women through those stages.
Expats Guide: Do you think that international companies should invest in repatriate programs more than what they are doing now and how?
Robin: Absolutely yes…but repatriation is changing in a globalized world. Many companies do not do what they used to do: move someone abroad and then bring them home at the end of the assignment. So they ignore this important piece altogether (although in the 20 years or so of doing this I have heard companies and organizations say over and over again they need to do more to help in the repatriation process but unfortunately, nothing changes. They still don’t.)
It costs money to have workshops and they simply want the repatriate to get on with it and quit whining! But it would be so simple to bring repats together in special debriefings, or network for them (or encourage them to do so). Ignoring the ‘giant elephant’ in the room, which is what repatriation can be, only makes it worse.
Expats Guide: Robin, thank you very much for your valuable time. Your books and insights are of a great value to the expatriate community and to repatriate expats.
Robin Pascoe is the author of five books for families on global living, including the newly-reissued “A Broad Abroad: The Expat Wife’s Guide to Successful Living Abroad”
Visit her website www.expatexpert for more information.