I (28m) have lived in the UK since I was 5 when my father got offered a job here with his company. This was meant to only be for a few years but we ended up living here for most of the next 13 years, with my family moving “home” when I was 18. I’d already applied to university here so I stayed in the UK and then got a job here when I graduated.
I never thought this was overly strange, I have my British passport, don’t have an accent and culturally feel British. I occasionally visit my parents home country, more so at the start but covid and work have got in the way of visiting more than once a year, normally for Christmas or a family event.
This year my girlfriend flew out for a couple of weeks after Christmas, to meet my parents for the first time. We’ve been dating for 4 years but this was the first time my parents met her.
We were talking about plans for the future and mentioned knuckling down and saving to buy a house in the next few years. I think this flicked a switch in my mum’s head. The next day she started asking me about when, not if, I planned to move “home”. We ended up having a row, the gist of which was her being upset that I see myself as British and don’t see her country as home. My point of view was surprise that this was news and being annoyed that she was upset with me. It was a fairly short conversation, and it was never brought up again for the next few weeks.
After arriving back in the UK, I called my dad to let him know I’d made it home. This set him off, telling me I was an a-hole for saying this and what I’d put my mother through. We haven’t spoken much since and other members of my family have been in touch to ask why I’ve been upsetting them.
AITA for not seeing my parent’s country as home?
NTA
Home is where you make it not where you are from.
NTA. But you will need to have a conversation with your parents, try to let them understand how you feel, and that you are an adult, you have your own life.
Simply put, home is where you feel the most comfortable and suited to you.
They took you from their home country for over a decade and are now surprised you have acclimated and assimilated . Strange
Exactly
> They took you from their home country for over a decade and are now surprised you have acclimated and assimilated .
Over a decade when he was young and first forming his identity as a person no less.
NTA, Although you’re parent’s country is home to them. Most of your memories and experiences have been in the UK so it’s only natural that the UK is home to you.
I can kinda see where you’re parents are probably coming from. But to have the expectations that their home country is also yours is wild imo. Given you don’t have the same level of attachment or connection to their home country.
So your parents raised you in a foreign country, then expect you to somehow feel connected to the country they came from.
You are not the AH. This outcome is a result of their adult choices when you were a child. At least you make the effort to go see them. It will take a lot of effort to continue to visit as your family grows. Hopefully they’ll take some turns coming to see you.
This makes me think of my great grandmother who immigrated from Sweden to the US. In her case it was her choice. But she never saw her family again. They traded letters, but travel was too difficult and expensive back then.
NTA. I see this with so many of my friends who are first generation in the country I live in. They don’t see their parents’ country of origin as their home. They feel here is their home and it does cause rifts.
You’ll always be considered an outsider there because you were raised in the UK. Fact is, for most of your life you been in the UK, it IS your home. NTA.
NTA. Your parents are not being realistic. They had a whole life in their home country before their 13 year stay in the UK. But the UK has been your only home since you were 5. This might be more about the distance between you. Not getting to be a part of your life and future grandkids lives.
I know it sucks for them as one of my kids left after uni to make a life in another country, but you are an adult and your parents must respect where you choose to live and call home.
Totally NTA. Immigrant parents need to accept that this is the reality of bringing their kids up in what is to them a foreign country/not home. The fact that you are so well integrated and happy is actually a sign of success and you should not feel bad about that at all.
Your parents are being selfish and just thinking of themselves.
Yeah this.
I am also a child of first time immigrants and had struggles of my parents not understanding me feeling more aligned with the culture I grew up surrounded by it.
My father even had the delusion for quite some time that i’d be marrying someone from „my own culture“ and they totally expected me to act and think like people in my home country and adhere to their cultural and social norms, which is much different than the country I grew up in. Like, what do you expect really? That‘s a sign of illogical wishfull thinking and lack of common sense.
There are some pretty misogynistic and sexist views and toxic thinking/behaviour/expectations/family enmeshment in that culture I don‘t really like about relationships and marriage for me to want to entertain the idea to marry into that ..situation. No thank you!
I had to have many fights and arguments with them to get them to understand that I was not budging and have my own atonomy as an adult.
For your parents, 13 years will have passed in a heartbeat but for you it’s been most of your life! It’s all about each perspective being a proportion of your total lifetime.
You’ve lived here 72% of your lifetime, and the remaining time you were a literal toddler. They need to understand this. NTA.
NTA if they wanted the other country to be home then they should have raised you there