The Moment My Daughter Called Australia "Dad's Country"

When we moved from Australia to America, I assumed my daughters would simply grow up with a connection to both countries.

What I didn't expect was how raising kids overseas would slowly change the way I saw home.

In this episode, I share the moment my youngest daughter referred to Australia as "Dad's country" and why it made me realise something important: home doesn't always mean the same thing to every member of a family.

We talk about raising children in another country, building a life overseas, watching your kids develop roots in a place that wasn't originally yours, and how living between two cultures changes the way you see both.

If you've ever moved abroad, raised kids overseas, married into another culture, or built a life far from where you grew up, I think you'll relate to this conversation.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Every time we cross back into Tennessee after a road trip, my seven year old daughter, Brianna, she gets this little smile on her face and says, We're home. The strange part is it's not that she says it. I think it's more so how much it makes me think about things. Because when we first moved here, America felt like somewhere that we lived. But somewhere along the way, it became something much more than that. And honestly, I don't think I realized it was happening. You better take cover. I guess the funny thing is that Brie would probably be very confused by this entire conversation because she was born here in Tennessee, and it's all that she's ever known. Her school is here, all of her friends are here too. So, of course, she thinks it's home. As far as she's concerned, I'm the weird one. She's never lived anywhere else. She's never had to explain Vegemwork to anyone, and certainly has never had to go into a discussion about why Australian and New Zealand accents are nowhere near the same thing. Yeah, to Brie, all of this is normal. I am the foreign guy in the house. And for a long time, I didn't think much about any of it. Bree was American. Of course she was. The part I didn't expect was how much raising kids here would change me. Because one day you realize that your kids aren't just living somewhere, they're building a childhood there. And childhood has this funny way of putting down roots. I think the first place that I really noticed it was at school. Both girls know the words to the Star Spangled Banner, and they wouldn't know Advanced Australia Fair from a Bar of Soap. They know the Pledge of Allegiance off by heart. That's just normal school life to them. The first time I heard one of them casually saying it around the house, I remember stopping for a second because as an Aussie, that's one of those things that you normally only see in American movies. Nothing about this is political or controversial. It's just a random Thursday. Georgia is a little bit different from Brie. She was born in Australia, which means that I get to watch two girls growing up in the same house with two very different ideas about what home actually means. And not long ago, Georgia came home from school after doing a project about colleges. Now, she's 10 years old. But she'd researched universities and she'd already decided that the University of South Carolina was her favorite because she loves their dance program. Now, at 10 years old, my future plans probably involved avoiding homework and seeing how long I could stay outside for before mum said my full name to call me back in. But Georgia has already found a preferred university, and I don't think I even knew what a university was at that age. I remember looking at the project and was thinking, you know, hang on, she's actually imagining a future here. That's a strange thing for a parent to see because one minute you're helping them learn how to tie their shoes, and the next minute they're researching universities. I'm still trying to work out where the last ten years went, to be honest. So I guess that's when it really started hitting me that the girls weren't visiting America. Yeah, we've been here for eight years, but they're growing up here. And then there are all the little Tennessee things, the things that you don't notice until you suddenly realize just how they've become so normal. A year or two after we moved here, there was a F4 tornado that missed our neighborhood by just a few streets. It tore through a big part of our town. And ever since then, whenever my phone starts screaming with a tornado warning, I get a little flashback to that night. But the girls, they barely react to it. They know where the safe room is. They've got toys down there. Comfort items, blankets, pillows. It's just part of life to them. Brie can look up at the sky and casually announce there's a storm coming. It's kind of like she's been working for News Channel 5 for the last seven years. The girls love Dollywood. They love Gatlinburg. Fireflies in the summer. They get excited when they see deer. Probably in the same way that Australian kids get excited when they see kangaroos. Which also makes me laugh. Because Australians watching this are probably thinking, mate, it's a deer. But to the kids, they're exciting. They're part of Tennessee. Now, Georgia also loves the preds. One year she bought me tickets for Father's Day. Which I strongly suspect was a Father's Day gift that she's also planning on giving herself. So I'm pretty sure that the conversation in her head went, you know, what would Dad like? Hockey tickets. What would I like? Hockey tickets. Win-win for both of us. It was a great night. And the girls know which exits gets us back home. They know the back roads. They know where traffic gets bad. Avoid that 440 I-40 split. They know where the best ice cream in town is. And somewhere in all of those little moments, I guess I realized that these weren't just things that they were experiencing. These were the memories that would become their childhood. And the thing that really drove it home happened when we went back to Australia for a visit last year. And I'd always assumed that Australia would feel familiar to the girls. And in some ways it did, but in other ways, no, it didn't. Breed loved it. It was her first time there. She loves seeing kangaroos and emus running along the side of the road as we drove through Western New South Wales, meeting family for the first time. She loved seeing the beaches and eating the food. But she wasn't going home. She was visiting. And at one point she referred to Australia as Dad's country. And you know what? She's probably right. I've spent the last few years talking about Australia on podcasts and YouTube videos. And at this point, she probably thinks I'm part of the tourism board. But she's right. It is dad's country. To her, Australia is a place that dad talks about. The place with strange animals and funny words like woollamaloo and woollongong and family that she doesn't see all that much. In Georgia, she was a bit different. She remembers parts of Australia to still feel connected to it. She still spells mum the Australian way. She still understands little references that go straight over Bree's head. And watching the two of them together was fascinating. One daughter looking back at memories while the other one was looking forward and making new ones. Both completely genuine in their own ways. If you ever moved countries, married into another culture, or even raised kids somewhere different here in the US, I'd love to hear your story in the comments. Because I've got a feeling a lot of people have experienced some version of this in their own lives. In fact, I talked about some of this in a bit more detail on this week's podcast because it's one of those topics that's really difficult to squeeze just into a single video. I'll pin a link of that one in the comments for you, T. So the thing I really didn't expect though was what all of this would do to the way that I see America. Because these days, when people make these sweeping statements about Americans, it lands differently than what it used to. And that's not because America is perfect. Obviously, it's not. No country is. Australia certainly isn't. But when I hear sweeping statements and generalizations made about American people, I don't picture a country anymore. I picture my daughters. I picture their teachers. The parents that I sit beside at every dance competition, every weekend. I picture the Chick-fil-A owners that I met last week. Or the truck company owner from Louisville, Kentucky, who spent 20 minutes telling me how much he loves traveling around watching his own granddaughter dance. The neighbors who welcomed us when we moved here. Real people. Because once you build relationships somewhere, it stops becoming an idea and it becomes people. The people that you care about. And I think that's what changed for me. America stopped being the country that I moved to, and it became the place where my daughters are growing up. And once that happens, your relationship with the place changes. And that's not instead of Australia, it's alongside it. Because Australia will always be a part of our story. It has to be. But so is this place now as well. So now when we cross back into Tennessee after a road trip and Bree smiles and says that we're home, I'll still think about it. No, because she's wrong, because she's right. And somewhere along the way, without really noticing it, the place we moved to became our home. If you'd like to support the channel, the podcasts, and all the stories that come out of this strange life of living between two countries, there's a buy me a copy link below. You better take cover.