- Andrew Jernigan, 51, has moved with his family between the US and Brazil multiple times.
- The last time he lived in Brazil, his children were teenagers and found the move difficult.
- He says that when moving with kids older than 12, parents need to think about safety and college.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Andrew Jernigan, CEO of Insured Nomads. It has been edited for length and clarity.
The first time I moved to Brazil was in 2000 to marry a Brazilian woman I had been introduced to by a friend and had been writing to for quite some time. We were engaged on my first visit and married the following year after I moved there.
My family has moved four times between the US and Brazil. We learned that there are more things to consider when moving with teenagers than when moving with little kids.
We moved to Brazil, so our kids could connect with their mom’s culture
After getting married, my wife and I moved back to the US and then to Ghana for a time for her work. In 2008, we decided to take some time to live back in Brazil with our three young children. We wanted our children, who were half Brazilian, to learn Portuguese and be exposed to different cultures. We also wanted to live somewhere for a while with a low cost of living to enjoy the benefits of the dollar’s value.
We moved back to the US when I had a job opportunity in Northern California. It was an adventure with fun times in the Bay Area, hiking in the mountains, and a community of diverse nationalities that the kids thrived in as well. My wife pursued further education while there, then her MBA and MPH at the University of Alabama. A company in Brazil hired her, so we made another move to Brazil in 2019.
When we lived in Brazil without children or with young children, there was nothing but good about living abroad. The cost of living was cheaper, and the children could attend local schools, pick up the language, and experience Brazilian culture. As a family, we’d escape to the mountains and seaside for days out. We felt that we could have lived there forever.
During the last stint of living in Brazil, from 2019 to 2021, our children were all over the age of 12, and we had to consider their futures and their safety.
We had to budget for private schools
My kids wanted the opportunity to attend universities outside Brazil. This meant that we couldn’t put them in the local Brazilian schools because they wouldn’t allow them to work toward SATs or A-levels to get into American or British universities.
Instead, we budgeted to place them in the American School of Rio de Janeiro. They got a great education and were exposed to expats from all around the world, but it was very expensive.
The school didn’t have the same level of sports clubs as in the US. My daughter had played lacrosse, and my son wanted to row for the crew — neither of those sports was available to them in Brazil.
We moved back to the US for many reasons
As teenagers, they wanted to be independent of us, but we had to be very watchful of them due to safety concerns. They could be targets of theft and even kidnapping. We know it happens, and were very protective of them going around the city on their own.
Whereas in the US, we wouldn’t think twice about leaving them at parties or going to a friend’s house, we were always on alert for their whereabouts and who they were with if they were out of the house while we were in Brazil.
There were little things they missed, too. They missed comfort foods like peanut butter and American candy. And we all missed our extended family.
But the main reason we came back to the US in 2021 was my kids’ trajectory in school. Reintegrating back into American schools as teenagers had its challenges. Their friends had been in school together, going to birthday parties together, and attending summer camps together for three years.
My kids had missed all of it and had to figure out how to insert themselves back into their old world.
We miss life in Brazil
Even though we knew moving back to the US was the right thing to do while our children were still teens, we still remember the incredible beaches, forests, and mountains of Brazil. We all miss being able to quickly access the rugged, wild outdoors. There were always cultural activities we could go to as a family, and we spent hours eating together at restaurants with some of the best food I’ve ever tasted.
Even though we haven’t ruled out living in Brazil in the future, we’ll wait to move back until our kids are out of the house. But we’ll be sure to visit often until we return to live again.
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