Gratitude for the resilience of expat kids on Children's Day

Each year on Children's Day, I'm reminded of just how impressed I am with how resilient my kids are with living here. I'd personally never been outside my passport country until I was an adult (part of that is Australia being so far from everywhere else!), but my kids have only known Japan as their "home". 

That comes with quite a few challenges, especially given Japan is still a very homogeneous society and my kids aren't ethnically Japanese...so it's very easy for them to be cast as the "other". In saying that, I am proud of how they advocate for themselves, adapt, and navigate this life, in a language that they've learned from scratch!

I know that there are some other parents who are part of the expat community here on City-Cost, so give your kids a pat on the back today!