By Kathleen McAnear Smith

It was the midnight plane to London, or for me it felt like midnight.  Standing in the Dallas, Texas airport, my German-English husband and I (an American) were talking to another couple travelling on the overnight.  My two little ones were running around and I was hoping this stretching of the legs would wear them out. We’d been travelling so long and we were on our way home in a round about sort of way from seeing my parents in South Korea. I truly did not care if there were raised eyebrows at my children running through an airport.

I noticed the couple had what looked to be an over-stuffed articulated diaper/nappy bag. I asked, “Travelling with kids?”

I didn’t see any, and certainly not a baby.

The young woman looked tired, and she nodded and tilted her head to the right. It was then I saw an older woman walking back and forth, deftly avoiding my five year old tear away. She was holding and gently soothing a very new baby.

“Your mum-mom- travelling with you?” I was about to be jealous if she said yes.

She didn’t clarify any preference for a dialect of English. She sighed a sad and quiet “no.”

It was then I really saw what was going on. They had mentioned earlier they were a dual national family, and I could see grandma was deeply savouring every last moment holding that newborn. When the time came to go through security, I couldn’t bear to watch the baby being handed back but I couldn’t not watch, and a little of my heart broke as I caught a glimpse of this family quite painfully separate, physically but with seeming resignation.

“This is how we live now.” The grandma said.

In that moment I vowed that when I became a grandmother no one would ever separate me from my grandchildren.

Well, over the years we’ve added a few more nationalities to the family mix and as I became a grandmother the best I could manage is to at least have the grandkids on one side of the Atlantic. Can’t vouch for everyone else. Depends on how you classify “this side of the Atlantic.”  The Middle East? The Adriatic coast? White cliffs of Dover? This is how we live now.

Arthur Brooks of Harvard University Business School, in his book “Strength to Strength,” speaks of a “different kind of knowledge” you acquire when you are older.  The younger generation has a “brain fluidity” with constant learning, developing, setting goals and thriving on the new.  Those of us who are older have what he calls “crystalized Intelligence,” where we weave our memories into a wisdom that is meant to be shared and used to inspire, to hold each other lightly with an open palm. Perhaps when we are young our “fluid minds” egg us on into the bravery of adventure, and perhaps when we are older we chrystalise our memories of experience in the bravery of releasing our loved ones to their adventures -while still having a few of our own!

At Families in Global Transition, I am so thankful that those of us who are long-term expats have a space to share a little something of what we have learned as we raised families in the global arena. No one has a right to dominate conversations, but I am thankful that there is a seat at the table that is the home of our organization. We enjoy a multi-generational conversation with respect for the voice of all our experiences.

Diversity is about race, and gender and faith and time zones; but it also is about age. I would never consider myself up to date concerning technology (though some older than I am are tech savvy), but when a young mum/mom/madre/mamma (just a drop in the bucket of languages) says to me, “I’m about to take my first long haul flight with my baby,” I remember that it’s always about more than just packing a perfect diaper/nappy bag.

Kathleen McAnear Smith is wrapping up a four year term as Director of Membership for Families in Global Transition. She absolutely loves global family life and has felt it an honour to support the next generations of TCKs and TCAs. Her books Parents on the Move! and Beyond Broken Families may be ordered on her emerging business Global Grandmas.