How Do You Know When You Have Adapted Too Much? I Asked Aline França Right To Her Face.

Parenting abroad book
Written By Jessica Gabrielzyk

Yesterday I shared what happened when I asked Dr. Débora Pasin to read Parenting Unpacked before it launched. She endorsed it. Her phrase — silent transformations — became one of the most shared lines on this blog.

Aline França is different. She was one of the first people I reached out to when I was still figuring out what the book needed to say. Her work helped shape it. Her words are already in it. Chapter 19 is one of the later chapters but Aline was one of the earliest conversations. Always will be.

I have been on a rampage lately of asking the people who live and work inside this territory — families, specialists, practitioners — questions I am genuinely curious about. Because I actually want to know their opinion.

Aline has been working with image consulting for over twenty years. She works with women who are completely different from one another. Different routines, bodies, careers, stages of life. Her work does not begin with trends or personal taste. It begins with understanding where a woman is today, how her life truly works, and where she wants to go.

To her, image is language. It communicates before we speak.

Here is what she said.

Photo od Aline Franca holding a mug

You work with image and identity. Is there a connection between how we dress and who we think we are — and what happens to that connection when we move to a country that does not know us yet?

"Yes. The way we dress is often a reflection of how we see ourselves. When we move to a new country, that connection can shift as we adapt to a different culture, environment, and way of life. The challenge is finding a balance between fitting in and staying connected to who you are."

How do you know when you have adapted too much?

"When you start making choices just to fit in and stop seeing yourself in them. Adapting is part of the process, but losing touch with who you are is a different story."

What does it actually look like when someone has found their way back to themselves after a major life change?

"You start feeling like yourself again. Your choices become more natural, your confidence returns, and the person you see in the mirror feels familiar."

The person you see in the mirror feels familiar.

Aline is also in Parenting Unpacked. Chapter 19. If you know the chapter you already know which line is hers.

The book launches June 24th on Amazon.

Jessica Gabrielzyk

Jessica Gabrielzyk

Jessica Gabrielzyk is a Brazilian writer living in Switzerland. She moved there with her husband and daughter, who was three months old at the time and had strong opinions about the whole thing even then.

She writes about change.

The visible kind and the kind that happens inside a person, while everything on the outside looks fine.

Her first book, Maternity Abroad, explored what it means to become a mother far from the system you trusted. It has reached readers in more than fifteen countries across five continents. Parenting Unpacked, her second book, follows the experience of parenting through major life disruption, whether that's an international move, a career loss, a new baby, or a life that simply stops responding the way it used to. My First American Coloring Book was created to help toddlers engage with daily life in the United States through play and familiar imagery.

She is a member of SIETAR, the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research, and the International Academy of Brazilian Literature.

She writes for the parent who is still inside it, getting through the day, and wondering somewhere underneath all of it who they are becoming.

When she is not writing, she is walking forty minutes uphill with a stroller, telling herself the exercise is the point.

Next

“Identity Loss Doesn’t Happen All at Once.” Dr. Débora Pasin on What Parenting Unpacked Gets Right.