She Watched Her Son Eat Rice and Dal With His Fingers. That Was the Point.

Jun 5

I was in the research phase of Parenting Unpacked, looking for the real stories that would sit alongside the framework. The loss of felt competence, the invisible layer of knowing that disappears when you move somewhere that does not know how to read you yet. I needed the voices of people who had lived it, not just described it.

Cristiane had moved to India with her husband and son. She had her second child there. By the time we spoke she was still in India. She is now in Mexico with her family.

I reached out. She said yes. We sat down for a proper conversation, the kind where you end up somewhere completely different from where you started. After that I asked her the same two questions I asked every parent who contributed to the book.

She is in Chapter 18 of Parenting Unpacked. I probably should not do this but consider it an early spoiler between us.

"Cristiane Scheid watched Pedro scoop rice and dal with his fingers, bringing it to his mouth without hesitation. The fork lay beside his plate, untouched. She had encouraged it before, but she had stopped. This was simply his way now, something he had picked up from friends and school — a piece of India that had become part of him."

Do not tell anyone I showed you that.

Photo of Christiane Sheid — This is Cristiane Sheid

What unexpected strengths have you developed as a parent abroad?

"Losing the fear of handling everyday problems in another language. For a long time, I was embarrassed to speak English and avoided doing things. Today, I talk to anyone — even if my English isn't perfect."

What strikes me about her answer is that she is not describing confidence. She is describing what comes after the fear leaves. The specific moment when imperfect stops feeling like failure and starts feeling like enough. Fluency is a skill you build over time. Deciding to show up before you have it is something else entirely.

What do you wish someone had told you before moving abroad with children?

"Kids pick up on so much more than they express. My son misses family but understands that we're here for a greater purpose. He's happy with the adventure, even if he sometimes longs for home."

Her son carries the missing and the adventure in the same breath and does not seem to find them contradictory. She watched that happen and she let it. She did not try to resolve the tension into something tidier. That is the thing most parenting advice gets wrong about raising children abroad. The goal is not to eliminate the longing. It is to make space for both things to be true at once.

I am grateful she said yes when I reached out.

Parenting Unpacked 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.

She Watched Her Son Eat Rice and Dal With His Fingers. That Was the Point.

What unexpected strengths have you developed as a parent abroad?

What do you wish someone had told you before moving abroad with children?

Are You Cool About the Things You Love?