“Parents now are acutely aware of how quickly time goes by. They say, ‘Look, we’ve got this fabulous family and no time to spend with them. We’ve got these wonderful kids. Who are they?’
“And that’s what happened to [my husband] Michael and me,” Elisa Bernick says. “We were about 40. Asher was 2, Cleome was 7. I was working part-time, so I saw them a lot, but Michael didn’t. And I said, ‘You know, these kids don’t know you. Soon they aren’t going to want to hang with us. We’d better hang with them now.’”
The Bernicks decided they needed a sabbatical, a large chunk of time together, somewhere far away from their St. Paul home. They chose San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where they lived for 18 months. Michael and Elisa put their jobs on hold – she’s a journalist and he’s an architect – and rented out their house. Cleome did part of second grade and all of third grade in Mexican schools.
“We’re trying to be achievers and be successful and go, go, go … suddenly we’ve got no time to spend with the kids except in a car heading to or from somewhere. So we knew we couldn’t find any way to spend more time with them here, even though we’re really conscious human beings, unless we lifted ourselves and went, made a clean cut.”
The family didn’t just pick up and go, however. They thought hard about why they wanted to get away and where they could do it. Elisa used her journalist’s knack for research to look for books and other resources on living abroad long-term with kids. When she came up empty-handed, she decided to write about the experience herself. The result, The Family Sabbatical Handbook (The Intrepid Traveler), is a step-by-step, practical guide to everything from budgets and residence permits to what to do when you’ve been with the kids round-the-clock for months and boredom sets in.
She also advises families who are considering a long-term stay abroad to consider what their goals are for their time away. Those goals will largely determine where to travel and for how long.
The Bernicks knew they wanted to find a place where some language other than English was the primary language, accessible enough for friends and family to visit, with good Internet connections, with a temperate climate, and where children are beloved and welcomed. Originally, they thought about moving to Europe, where Elisa and Michael had both lived for a time. But the high price of living in Europe would have made their primary goal impossible: They wanted to find a place that was affordable enough that neither of them would have to work while they were there.
A chance encounter with a friend led to a rental house in San Miguel – and important advice for people planning a sabbatical: Tell everyone you know about your plans. “You start talking to people about this great adventure that you’re about to have with your family and people say, ‘Have you ever thought about there, or there.’ People are so happy to tell you about places they either love or hate. And both of those are valuable,” Bernick says. “And that talk, talk, talk helps get you jazzed. Because you come up with this crazy idea and it doesn’t feel real, and maybe not even everyone in your family totally believes it yet.”
Another piece of advice is to learn to give up a little bit of control. “I think Americans are really used to being in control,” Bernick says, “particularly regarding their kids’ education. … It’s important to give yourself and your kids the chance to try things. It’s not about finding the right school, it’s about the right fit for your family given your goals.”
Also, even paradise isn’t really paradise. There will be tough times on a sabbatical just as there are tough times in day-to-day life. Kids and families will face challenges like homesickness and the stress of adjusting to a new language and a new culture.
“It was a hard transition for us,” Bernick admits. “It took us three months to get it.” She tells the story of how the different pace of life in San Miguel finally clicked in her mind.
“I think I was picking Cleome up from school one day and all the kids ran out. It was mango season and the vendors were lined up outside of the school, sprinkling on chili and sugar and all sorts of other things. And every single family gave their kid a few pesos and said, ‘Go get a snack.’
“I’m not sure why I hadn’t seen it before that. We’d been grabbing our kids and just taking them home, so they hadn’t been able to go with their schoolmates and get a snack! I thought, ‘Oh boy! So, that’s how we’re going to get to know people. Okay!’ We had stayed in a narrow little path for a little too long. We had been trying to live the life of a disciplined American family.”
That openness to a slower pace of life is among the many positive things Bernick says her family brought home with them from Mexico, along with a bigger capacity to dream.
“We dreamed big to go to San Miguel,” Bernick says. “I think we very much got in touch with our mortality, and now our dreams are pretty big. I can directly correlate that to San Miguel. [After returning to the U.S.] we added on to our home to bring the outdoors in, so we could duplicate that life we lived down there where we lived outside 24/7. We built the house. We did the work. Michael started his own architecture firm, and that was a big dream, too. That includes risk, but we understand what that risk means and we have a pretty large comfort level with risk now.”
What’s the next adventure? Cleome, a preteen now, is pushing for another family sabbatical before she moves on to college. She’s eyeing France, but her mother wants to stay out of the comfort zone. “I think something more adventurous might be fun, like Vietnam.”
Tricia Cornell is a writer for Minnesota Parent.
