I don’t know about you but I make psychological contracts with my host countries.
The psychological is formed in your head.
Those psychological contracts, that I form in my head, are “comprised of a belief that some sort of a promise has been made” to me by the country*.
How did I become aware of it? I got angry, very angry when I arrived in Australia.
And this is harmful, believe me. Being angry is not good for your health. How can it affect your children in this specific context? Read on. I’ll explain it at the end of the article.
This is what happened:
I lived for 15 years in the Flemish part of Belgium before coming to Australia two years ago.
I originally moved to Belgium as a trailing spouse, pregnant with my first child.
On one hand, I was happy to leave France because this meant starting a real family life. During the last three years, my husband and I only saw each other in the week-ends.
I was excited to live in another country with another language. Even though it was so close to France, it was different. It was special.
We also massively increased our quality of life: trading a 25 m2 apartment in Paris CBD for a huge 90m2 flat, halving in passing our rent. My husband went to work in 20 minutes by bike and came back home for lunch! No traffic jam, no queue at the supermarket.
On the other hand, it felt very lonely. A small town in the middle of nowhere. No job, no friends. When we arrived there in September 1995, it was fall. The days were becoming shorter. The sky was cloudy. It was raining. The temperatures did not exceed 10°C. Everything seemed so dark, brownish and grey.
I did not speak Dutch at the time.
I was very naive. I had never heard of culture shock and did not even think of asking the company for a language course!
After a few weeks, I joined Dutch lessons sponsored by the city council and met a few foreigners: mainly older ladies quite friendly but not exactly at the same stage in life as me. I remember Odile, a French woman, who had been living in this town for 35 years. She was longing to go back to France where she had built the house of her dreams, waiting for her husband to retire in a few months. She still couldn’t master a simple conversation in Dutch. I didn’t want to end up like her.
Her kids had grown up in that place and went to an international school. Yes, in this small town, there is a European school! When her daughter got an internship at a local branch of an international company (Estee Lauder), she could only communicate in English. She couldn’t speak Dutch. I knew I didn’t want my kids to end up like her.
This is when I started to form my psychological contract with Belgium.
I wanted to belong.
I did not know how long I would stay in that country but I did not want to remain an outsider.
Little by little, I found my way around.
I embraced the language, got a job, chose a Flemish nanny to look after my children. Later on, we sent our kids to local schools. They would play soccer in local teams, go to karate training, join ballet and drama lessons, play the violin, the cello, the piano. My daughter participated in an extraordinary pageant featuring the nearby city “Gheelamania” with more than 415 actors, musicians, dancers for 15 representations in a row. Weeks of rehearsals, countless hours spent with a few hundreds local volunteers caring for costumes, decors, light, catering.
We met great professionals: extremely competent doctors, dedicated teachers, hard-working employees.
We built a house, greatly contributing to the local economy. We paid taxes at the highest rate.
Because of the history (the French did invade Belgium and Flemish people were poorly treated by the French speaking Belgian “bourgeoisie”), I even downplayed my nationality. I deeply empathized with the Flemish people.
For me it had become home.
When the proposal to go to Australia would come out of the blue, I didn’t jump out of joy.
Yes, this was a fantastic opportunity for my husband and my children. For me, I didn’t see anything in particular. I had started a business on my own in Belgium 2 years before, investing time and money to build a small local customer base, I could already speak English, I was not particularly interested in natural parks and unique wildlife.
I entered this adventure with a sense of extended holidays, for 3 years.
But living in Australia proved to be the most life-changing experience I’ve ever had.
After 6 months in Tasmania, I had more friends than ever in my life.
By friends, I mean people inviting us for several days on their boats (!), neighbors giving us the keys of their shack, ladies proposing me to make preserves together, looking after my children all day long, bringing them to their soccer games and watching them (!). At my daughter’s first drama lesson, I teamed up with another mom that I had just met, for carpooling. We relied on each other each week for a year and a half, until our daughters stopped.
When I was looking for a baby sitter for an important meeting, a neighbor offered to come home to look after the children. The other day, I got a text message from a mom warning me to enroll quickly if my son wanted to participate to a triathlon. She knew he’d love it. I didn’t have to ask for the bike. She had already offered to lend me one in her message! She had read in my mind.
When I go for a walk, random passers-by smile at me. They very often greet me. While I was queuing at the cashier in a shop, a lady mentioned that I was before her and offered me her place. While I was carefully driving back on the carpark at the supermarket, an employee went out of his way to guide me. A lady ran after me and knocked on my window to offer me reduction coupons she couldn’t use. I could mention so many other examples…
So I got angry at Belgium. Terribly angry. My psychological contract was broken.
I realized that the twinge I felt when I smiled at someone in the street but didn’t get any reaction back, this twinge was justified. I remembered all I had done: greeting people in the street or even closer acquaintances (like the nanny of my children!) – did not get an answer back, helping at school fairs or parents meetings – couldn’t engage in any meaningful conversation, even told off when offering new ideas.
When I was alone to take care of my 4 children while my husband was away each and every week during 2 years, I would have loved to arrange some carpooling. Neighbors would bring their children to the same school, dance, circus lessons. But there was always a good excuse to decline. When I started my translation business, I tried hard to network. I became a paying affiliate of a small business association. At networking events, people would politely listen to me, say that it was interesting and wish me good luck. That was a dead-end.
When I saw the stunning difference with Australia, I realized what I was desperately looking for: a smile, a warm welcome, an encouragement, an affectionate comment, a caring look, a spark of love, affection or genuine interest.
Not because I was a prospect, a customer or a patient.
But because I was me.
I was angry at Belgium because I had been hurt. I had fooled myself. I thought I was one of them. They just did not care.
Now, you’ll wonder: why does it have to harm my children? Because being angry against a country which represents a significant part of the identity of your children can be very disturbing and confusing for them.
What about you? Have you ever felt strongly towards your host country? What kind of psychological contract do you have? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
* According to the definition of Denise Rousseau, professor at Carnegie Mellon University in her article “Violating the psychological contract: not the exception but the norm”