Drag March "Coming for your children"

[Dill]

(06-30-2023, 06:06 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Wait, so you were actually living in Europe, and elected to move back??  For someone with your political and social views, isn't that like getting to heaven and then electively coming back to Earth?  Not to go completely off topic, but my Grandmother on my Mother's side was from France, then moved to Canada prior to migrating to the US.  When I was a child she did her best to explain the cultural differences between Europe and the US;  Areas such as children indulged in wine at the dinner table so that they learned to not become drunkards and how human sexuality was openly a part of life and not a "taboo" to unspoken about in the home or around the children.  I only got to see her on three week long visits, with the last being the year I turned 12.  It would have been nice to have gotten to know her better as an adult.  

Well Sunset, originally, we only planned to stay two years, then three when it meant my wife could earn more money. 

Then my daughter required cancer treatment and that, plus the follow up, kept us another 7--10 altogether.

It was a very good life for my kids, and we could have easily stayed, but my daughter's illness cost my wife
serious freelance work and I had no real work future.

Main thing though, my wife and I grew up with lots of extended family. Our children were missing that, so that moved
us to return before it was too late and their extended family were strangers. Right now I am sitting in my daughter's
house in Three Forks MT while she and my wife are visiting cousins in the Mission Valley. Just got a text message from
them, kayaking on the Flathead river. 4th of July well be at my sister's ranch on the Sun River, where my daughter
will socialize with 8 cousins. Now she sees at least one of them or my sister every other week. And we are altogether
once a year.

That's what we came back for. But yeah, I took a lot with me from Germany, in terms of cultural comparisons, especially
the stuff you can't learn from books. Same for my stay in the Middle East. So for me American culture and politics
are framed by that background. Can't get into a healthcare debate without remembering Germans had a better
system than we do. (Not intended to put the U.S. down, but to urge people to think of alternatives.)