Our daughter, now 9, was born in Fort Lauderdale and is growing up here. My family lives a 10-hour flight away in France, while my husband’s family is a six-hour flight away, in New Mexico.
This means there is no free babysitting or backup childcare, no matter the situation. We’re on our own if we want a date night, just the same as if one of us falls ill. We quickly realized the importance of creating our own support system and of making special efforts to connect her with our families from afar.
Having no family around was more difficult when my daughter was an infant
Coming home from the hospital with a newborn and dealing with back-to-back sleepless nights without any family nearby that we could ask to watch her for a few hours was the hardest part. My husband was working long hours, and having recently moved from France, I didn’t have many friends to rely on either.
This situation was mentally and physically draining, which influenced my decision to postpone my return to work. As a communications manager, I was accustomed to unpredictable corporate hours, and I wasn’t ready to leave my newborn in the care of strangers for extended periods. We then understood we needed to build a support system for the well-being of both our daughter and us.
Courtesy of Virginie Romary
We created our chosen village
In Florida, we are not an exception. Many parents come from different countries or states and raise their children without family support nearby. It has been easier to connect with other families like ours, whether they are neighbors, acquaintances from the park, or parents from school, who face similar challenges.
Our daughter also joined Cub Scouts, which was one of the most effective ways to build another community. Spending weekends camping with other parents and kids is a great way to bond and build trust.
Over time, we’ve created a great mutual support system with other parents; we watch each other’s children in emergencies, take each other’s kids overnight to give parents a break, or pick them up from school if needed.
We spend our vacations with family and tell our daughter family stories
It’s important for us that, despite the distance, our daughter knows her family and her roots. Every summer, I take her to France for a month, and afterward, she goes to New Mexico with my husband for two weeks. My husband and I cannot take the entire summer off, so we spend this vacation time apart.
These trips allow our daughter to bond with both sides of her family, build relationships, and create lasting memories. We believe it will be harder to do this when she becomes a teenager, so we enjoy it now. For the holidays, if we have enough time off, we go to France or New Mexico together, and we never choose to go anywhere else.
To stay in touch between visits, we have weekly video calls, though they are brief because our daughter doesn’t enjoy communicating this way. Instead, we share many family stories, especially from our childhoods, and often reference relatives in our conversations. This helps her get to know them better and feel closer to them. I also speak French to her as much as possible to avoid language barriers with my family and reinforce her identity.
Our child may not have family nearby, but she knows that many people, whether close or far away, care deeply for her.
