The Expat Mom Podcast

How is Your Personality Affecting Your Mothering Abroad?

May 10, 2022 Jennie Linton Episode 82
The Expat Mom Podcast
How is Your Personality Affecting Your Mothering Abroad?
Show Notes Transcript

Have you ever noticed some moms seem to sail through sorting and moving fairly smoothly, but others are scrambling and stressing?  Have you noticed some expat moms take a long time to adjust to a new place and others seem to adapt quickly?   Have you noticed that some moms encourage their kids to get out and have new experiences, while others are an emotional safe space for their kids?  Our personalities can have a significant impact on how we mother and how we navigate expat life.  In this episode we discuss the impact of personality on our emotional health as an expat mom and how our personality impacts the emotional health of your children. 

On this podcast you'll learn:

  • How personality impacts your mothering abroad
  • What attributes research shows tend to predict success in expat life and in mothering
  • Four types of expat mom personality types
  • The superpower and limitation of each type of expat mom personality

Expat Mom Personality Test
https://www.tryinteract.com/share/quiz/6098aee0341e7b0017c866d2 

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Episode 82. How is your personality impacting your mothering abroad? 
 
 What Type of Expat Mom Are you?  


Happy Mother’s Day!  I want to take a minute to recognize expat moms and all moms around the world.  I know for some mother’s day is a wonderful celebration of an important part of their life and identity.  For others mother’s day can be a difficult day especially if you you are feeling you aren’t the mom you want to be, or you have a difficult relationship with your own mother or your own children.  Having lost my own mother, Mother’s Day can often be a tender time.  

I think it’s useful to step back and think about what mom’s do.  We are amazing.  
 The Chicago Tribune ran a column they entitled, “A job description for mom.”  I’m going to read it and I’ll add some additional descriptions for expat moms.  


Job title: Mom

Job description: Care for, discipline, teach, raise, guide and nurture children. During the first few years, you will almost never be apart from the child. You will feed, bathe, and change the child, do his or her laundry and dishes, and keep the home tidy. If the baby is awake at night or needs changed, you will be required to assist. There are no exceptions. You also must be able to drive children to doctor appointments and participate in mommy and me at Gymboree. As the child grows, the job entails driving the kid to and from school and other activities, including but not limited to music, art, drama and sports activities. You will also be required to plan and execute birthday parties each year, help with homework, teach him or her how to drive, wait up for him or her to come home late at night, implement consequences for irresponsible behavior when applicable, and offer emotional support for friendship and romance dramas that will most likely occur. The mom must also be willing to be a role model for the child, keeping in mind at all times that everything said and done is having an impact that will greatly affect how the kid turn out as an adult. In other words, the job entails leading by example every minute of every day.  I would add for expat moms:  raise children in a different culture than your own.  You will experience culture shock, overwhelm, isolation, as well as amazing adventures.  You will watch your children struggle and suffer and thrive and be resilient.  

Job hours and pay: Work hours are 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with no sick days, and limited vacation days—unless you are willing to take the child on vacation. There is no monetary compensation.  In fact, the job entails the opposite – you pay for everything for the child from birth through college and possibly after.


Job requirements: All applicants must have a valid driver's license and skills in housekeeping, cooking and nursing. Experience in building with Legos, assembling complicated toys and creating unique art projects is a plus. The job also requires immense patience and humility, especially since there will be no evaluations or feedback regarding your performance, with the exception of negative comments from the child from time to time. Additionally, applicants should be skilled in communication so they can offer support and guidance to the child, teaching right from wrong, as well as how to respect, appreciate and treat others. Lastly, the job requires someone with unending energy, as there is very little or no downtime in this position. Not needing a lot of sleep is a plus.  For expat moms:  You will need to completely reinvent how to parent since you don’t have a model for how to parent your specific children with your specific personality, in this specific country.  You will also have the added stress of expat life complicating your mothering and you must compensate for the added emotional risk to your children with important skills to maintain their emotional health.  
 

So, why would anyone want to be a mom? The benefits!

Job benefits: The sight of your baby will be so breathtakingly beautiful that you will take dozens of pictures every day, which you will show to anyone who is willing to look. You will laugh every day of your life, either because of something your child says or does, or because of the joy and giddiness kids bring to your soul. Falling in love with your child will make you want to have more children, and many of you will. You will take your kids to really fun places and watch their expressions the first time they ride the merry-go-round, pick pumpkins, ride a pony, sit on Santa's lap, go on an airplane or play in the snow.  
 

Why would anyone want to be an expat mom?  Because you raise your children a rich and rewarding life.  It’s exciting and adventurous to live in a new culture.  You get closer by struggling together as a family, and by having new experiences together.  Your children build confidence from doing hard things.  Because you and they get to reinvent yourselves when you move abroad.  Getting to watch the evolution of children who are confidant, compassionate, aware of the world, who are adaptable, resilient, good communicators, and have a beautiful, complex identity.  Because it gives you a chance to serve others in ways you wouldn’t otherwise be able to.  

Happy mother’s day to all you mothers and to all you expat moms.   You are amazing.  And of course expat dads are amazing too.  We’ll have an upcoming episode on expat dads. 
 
 Understanding Personality in Mothering

On this podcast, a lot of what we discuss is about skills we can develop with regard to mothering or perceptions we can change to improve our mothering and our emotional health. Because, as we all know, one of the best things we can do for our children is to be mentally and emoitonally health ourselves.  There is something we haven’t addressed very extensively that plays an important role in our mothering abroad.  That is personality.  Our personality has an important impact on how we mother.  
 
 Have you ever noticed some moms seem to sail through sorting and moving fairly smoothly, but others are scrambling and stressing?  Have you noticed some expat moms take a long time to adjust to a new place and others seem to adapt quickly?  Have you noticed some moms make friends quickly and get involved while others enjoy being at home?  Have you noticed that some moms encourage their kids to get out and have new experiences, while others are an emotional safe space for their kids?  Our personalities can have a significant impact on how we mother and how we navigate expat life.  


Studies confirm the significant role of personality in mothering.  

“Mothers have an important role in child-rearing, and maternal personality has theoretically been considered as the most influential factor determining the parenting style” *Baharami, 2018)


“Given the importance of personality for the ways in which people live and experience their lives, it is hardly surprising that personality has been proposed to be related to one of the most central, challenging, and affectively charged tasks that many adults are faced with: namely, parenting,” said  Amaranta D. de Haan, Maja Dekovic´, and Peter Prinzie of Utrecht University, who conducted a study to determine exactly how the personalities of parents and adolescents affect the parenting dynamic.

Understanding Impact of Personality in Expat Life
Personality also has an important impact on how we navigate expat life. A new study from Florida Atlantic University shows that expatriates’ personality characteristics have a lot to do with how well they adjust and whether they succeed.  Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology.

 Studies on Personality & Specific Attributes That Were Useful

While there is not “ideal” personality for being an expat mom, there are certain traits that studies suggest make mothering abroad easier and more likely to be successful.  While there are very few studies done on outcomes of different personalities of expat moms, there are studies on personality attributes of expats, and separate studies on personality attributes of mothers.  Here’s what’s amazing…some of the top characteristics that were useful  in both areas line up!  


Personality Attributes for Success as an Expat Mom
Interestingly several studies conducted totally separately showed that similar attributes made for a successful mother as it did for a successful expat.    Extraversion, ability to connect with others, openness to new experiences, emotional strength and conscientiousness, the ability to navigate difficult emotions in a healthy way.
 
 Room for All to Be Successful
 
This is not a blame fest.  This is not a guilt trip.  All of us are doing the best we can as moms.  These studies are useful, but only as a starting place.  Even moms with introversion, reticence to new experiences, anxiety, depression, and discouragement can be incredibly successful expat moms and raise amazing kids.  I happen to be an introvert who has experienced depression and I’m not always particularly organized.  It’s taken me a while to learn how to help my kids navigate difficult situations.  However, as I’ve leveraged my own strengths, I’ve been able to be an awesome mom to my kids.  And, as I’ve worked on these weaker areas, some of them has actually become strengths!   Having worked with many expat moms, I’ve seen that moms with MANY personality traits can be successful in raising healthy children abroad.  There is room for all of us with all sorts of unique personalities and qualities to be successful. 
 
 Being aware of your personality…your strengths and weaknesses can help you navigate your mothering in a way that helps you take care of your emotional health and your children's emotional health.

And, we are not responsible for our children’s choices or even their mental health.  However, as moms we CAN create an environment that can help our children have the opportunity to thrive.  As moms, we have the incredible and intimate honor of being our children’s primary attachment figure—the one to whom they set patterns with which to orient to the world.  By recognizing our strengths and weaknesses, we know what we’re dealing with and where to put our energies.  


 
 Expat Mom Personality Types
Knowing the significant impact of personality both on mothering and on expat life, and understanding certain common factors that created more success, I’ve been interested in how a mother’s personality affects raising children abroad.  As I’ve coached expat moms around the globe, I’ve noticed trends in how moms who share similar attributes and personalities navigate mothering abroad.  These moms seemed to share some similar types of strengths and struggles.  It occured to me that if expat moms recognized how their own personality interfaced both with expat life and with mothering, they might be able to better recognize their amazing strengths.  When we know our strengths, we can leverage them and expand on them.  In addition, understanding our personalities can also help us  be aware of our weaker areas and find ways to improve them, or compensate for them where possible.  No mom is perfect or has to be perfect in order to improve the emotional health of their children.  However, we CAN offer more to our kids when we know ourselves better.    
 
 I wanted to create a tool that was easily accessible to help expat moms identify their own personality strengths and weaknesses for raising kids abroad.  Combining the psychology of personality, research about mothering, studies on expat life, as well as my own experience with coaching expat moms around the world, I’ve identified 4 general personality types of expat moms.  
 
 Each personality type shares similar groupings of attributes.  Each category has superpowers and strengths as well as weaknesses and limitations for mothering abroad.  These categories of course are generalizations.  Each person is unique and has a unique set of traits and experiences.  No one will fit exactly neatly in just one category, but it can be useful to identify general patterns that can help us understand ourselves, our experience, and others better. 


 




Every personality type of expat mom has strengths and vulnerabilities.  

Knowing your expat mothering personality type can help you leverage your strengths to help your kids thrive in a way that is unique to YOU! 


Let me briefly share an introduction to the 4 personality types of expat moms


  1.  Adventurer Expat Mom

You are an adventurer as an expat mom.  You love to have new experiences, go new places, meet new people and help your family do the same!  You tend to be optimistic, enthusiastic, hopeful.  You enjoy connecting with others and others often report that you are energizing.  You have great vision!  You have lots of ideas and are very flexible.  


One of your superpowers is that you are able to help your family adjust more quickly because you get your family out to enjoy things and have new experiences.  You are an enthusiast that gets your family motivated and you make things fun.  You aren’t afraid to try new things, go new places and get lost or make a mistake speaking the language. As a result you often learn the language quicker!  You model for your kids that’s it’s okay to make a mistake.  They gain courage to be in a new place and try new things. As a result, you have so many rich experiences!  You also have lots of ideas.  Your creativity helps you and your family get through negativity.  You are a bright light in your family’s life even when things get hard.  

  

Some of your challenges include that as much as you enjoy things, you also sometimes feel discontented or antsy quickly.  You sometimes wonder if you are as happy as you could be.  Sometimes your kids may pick up on this and feel a bit antsy as well.  You are sometimes bothered when there is too many logistical things to do, or when people get too bogged down with details.  This means sometimes you don’t do things on time and you’re scrambling at the last minute for things.  This can cause a lot of stress in your family.  
 
 You also want to be noticed, valued and approved of.  So, at times you may find yourself people pleasing or trying to change how you act in different circumstances.  Sometimes people think you are forgetful, irresponsible or disorganized.  This makes moves particularly challenging!  You have wonderful vision and get excited about projects, but You also get easily distracted and sometimes have a difficult time finishing projects.  You tend to miss home and your friends and family who aren’t with you.  You aren’t always the best at keeping in touch regularly with people but occasionally you’ll reach out which sometimes exacerbates the feeling of distance.  


SUPERPOWER: Experience Creator 

COMMON MISTAKE: Disorganized



2.  Connecter Expat Mom

You are the connecter for your family—meaning you are the one who keeps each person in the family connected emotionally.  You tend to be more calm and gentle and loving.  You tend to be the one people come to for help or support.  You are kind and loving.  
 
 Your super power is being an emotional safe place for your children and your spouse.  They know they can come to you and you will listen and care.  This is one of the most valuable things studies show can help expat kids navigate emotionally—is having the emotional support of a trusted adult.  You are wonderful at helping your family get settled and feel comfortable in your new home and country.  This means you sometimes stay closer to home until you feel settled.  You love to help others outside your family too.  You often do thoughtful things and are a wonderful listener.  These are connecting things; you make wonderful lasting friendships and like to stay in touch over time.  


Moving frequently can feel disruptive as it takes time to feel comfortable and build good friendships.  You are careful with details and organize in piles—so getting everything in order can feel a bit daunting with a move.  You are often willing to sacrifice your health, your preferences, your career, your comfort to help others.  This means that sometimes you become depleted.  It also means that sometimes you may lose your sense of self as you live abroad and are consumed in a spouse’s career or managing everyone else’s needs.  You tend to be self-critical and notice your own inadequacies.  


You love others deeply, but you also feel deeply hurt and you feel losses deeply when you move.  Your children sense this grief which can be good modeling if you process it well, however it can also be disorienting to them if you don’t know how to manage it.  You sometimes have a difficult time making decisions.  This means sometimes you don’t follow through on things you’d like to.  Sometimes people say you are too serious.  You love to be remembered and appreciated.   Sometimes feeling you have to write long correspondence or be comprehensive keeps you from connecting but when you meet back up again it’s like you never left!


About Your Superpower:  Emotional Safe Space 

About Your Vulnerability:  People Pleasing


3.  Doer Expat Mom

You are the type of expat mom who gets things done!  You are organized, motivated and pro-active.  Your family can depend on you to get life rolling anywhere in the world they land!  You are good at figuring things out and you aren’t afraid to make decisions.  
 
 You are a master at getting your kids in school and organizing schedules, setting up playdates which helps kids get quickly integrated.  You are good at making decisions quickly, you can whip up a sink of dishes quickly and you are a master at getting your family out and about!  You plan amazing trips for your family which gets them out and enjoying things which is an important anecdote to culture shock.  You believe in your own capability and have the confidence to try new things and do new things.  You are an awesome problem solver—you don’t sit around feeling sorry for yourself, you figure out what needs to change and take care of it.  This models for your kids an “I can do it!” attitude.  


Sometimes this same attitude can cause you to get burned out because you load a lot on your plate.  This means you aren’t as available to your kids when you’re exhausted.  


You sometimes can feel a bit trapped or thwarted as an expat—you notice the discrepancies in opportunities and efficiency between your host country and your home country.  You sometimes think about how much easier and faster things would be in your home country.  You sometimes feel frustrated with your career--that you aren’t able to pursue what you would like due to being abroad.  


Your kids pick up on this frustration.  Others may judge you as being a bit bossy or insensitive.    You enjoy people, but don’t always make it a priority with everything else you have to do.  Sometimes this means you feel a bit disconnected.


 SUPERPOWER: Problem Solver
 
 COMMON MISTAKE: Burnout/Less Sensitive 



4.  Anchor Expat Mom


You are an anchor in a crazy storm for your family. You are calm, practical and organized.  You are often unflappable in stressful time which allows your family to navigate change more smoothly.  You don’t get as weighed down by emotional drama and you are kind.  


Even during times of change or struggle, you are able to be a safe, consistent resource for your family.  They can depend on you for normalcy even when everything else is changing.  You don’t get offended easily and you don’t have a lot of interpersonal problems because you are careful about what you say and how you interact with others.  You think before you speak or act.   This means when you leave you often don’t look back and regret interactions with people.  


Your kids see respectful behavior modeled for them.  Your clear-headedness allows you to focus on your family and the things that are most important.  You don’t tend to be distracted, so your kids feel that you are focused on them, which is an important thing for expat kids.  


You don’t spend a lot of time sitting around wondering if you could be happier, you just do what needs to be done.  You are an excellent observer and notice the needs of others.  You often serve others by doing things or buying things you see they need.  Moving isn’t overwhelming for you since you are fairly organized and don’t tend to be excessive in your purchasing.  You are good at making a plan and sticking to it.  You are good at creating routines and systems for your family which provide continuity wherever you live.  


You crave independence, sometimes it can be frustrating being abroad if you feel like you are dependent on a spouse or your phone or other things to navigate the city or get what you need.  This can cause conflict with a spouse or dissatisfaction in the lifestyle.  


Sometimes you can feel like others don’t respect you and that you give and give and they don’t always reciprocate.   You are open to new ideas, but feel irritated by demands.  


You can also feel it’s inefficient to constantly be moving and re-organizing.  You have an eye for efficiency and may have a particular proclivity towards criticism of another culture.  You may be bothered by things and have a harder time seeing why others do what they do.  You may tend to think you know the best or right way to do things.  Your kids may pick up on this irritation and have a more difficult time accepting the new culture.  You also get a bit overstimulated by lots of social, or new stimulation.  


You sometimes hold things in and blow up when you are pushed too much.  Others may feel you are critical.  You tend to make a few close friends and aren’t as likely to make friends as quickly or deeply abroad even though you often do kind things for others.  Sometimes you feel a bit lonely.  


SUPERPOWER: Calm in the Storm

COMMON MISTAKE: Critical


Examples and Application

Here are some examples of how different expat mom personalities might respond to a similar experience.  
 
 When you arrive to a new country, what are you most likely to focus on first?

  1. Get out and explore, try new foods and meet new people, enjoy new country
  2. Help everyone in the family feel settled, make plans, do things and eat things that are familiar and comfortable
  3. Move into action to get playdates arranged with kids, tour the school, find the most efficient grocery options
  4. Get household items organized at home, get food, get routines established


  1. When you encounter a cultural difference are you most likely to:
  2. Feel interested or excited, take pictures, tell friends about it
  3. Feel curious, give them the benefit of the doubt, wonder why they do it that way
  4. Feel annoyed, notice how it is different or inefficient
  5. Feel critical and notice how they could do it better or more efficiently


  1. When your child is having a hard time you are good at:
  2. Helping distract your child or helping them see the sunny side of things
  3. Listening to your child, and reassuring them
  4. Helping your child find solutions and address the issue
  5. Staying calm, see things clearly, show kindness, little services


Again, these personality categories are just generalizations that help us learn more about ourselves and others.  They won’t be exactly perfect, but that can be useful. 

Our Emotional Health & the Emotional Health of TCKs

There isn’t one way to be a good expat mom.  No type is superior to the other.  Each type of expat mom has strengths and vulnerabilities.  The strengths are protective factors for her children and their emotional health, however her weaknesses may make her kids more vulnerable to disconnection, discouragement, isolation, grief, and hopelessness.  
 There are many things that impact a child’s mental and emotional health, however the way we mother abroad has a big impact on the emotional health of our TCKs. 
 Currently: 70% of TCKs may experience depression or anxiety sometime in their life due to their experience abroad.  That is incredibly high!  The good news is, this isn’t a fact and it doesn’t have to include your family.  Of course there are many factors at play here, and as moms we don’t have to feel fully responsible for our children’s mental or emotional health.  However, there are things we can do as expat moms to create the opportunity for better mental and emotional health in our selves and our children.  


Quiz
I will link the expat mom personality type quiz in the show notes so you can take the test and see what your dominant personality of expat mom is.  Not only will the test reveal your expat mom personality, it also has some fun mothering and expat comics on some of the questions which make it fun.  You can also find a link to it on my website.   After you take the test, you’ll receive your results to your inbox describing your strengths and vulnerabilities a bit more.  I will also have follow up information to help you know how to leverage your strengths and shore up your weaknesses.  


Happy mothers day amazing expat mamas!  Tag me on social media @theexpatmomcoach and let me know what type you came out as and any reactions or insights you have as you take the test.  Share the test with another expat mom.  The more we understand each other, the more we can support each other.