I grew up on the tiny island of Guernsey in the English Channel. Wherever you are on Guernsey, you are never more than a fifteen-minute drive from the ocean; whichever direction you head, a sandy bay or dramatic cliff awaits. It sounds idyllic, and it is.
I spent my childhood cycling around the island’s narrow lanes, meeting friends at the beach, jumping off piers into the freezing water of a British summer. For a long time, I assumed I would raise my own family on Guernsey, and that my children would experience the same sort of childhood as I did.
But, as I reached my teenage years, Guernsey began to feel stiflingly small. I longed for new places to visit, to be able to get in a car and keep driving, to see wide, open spaces, to climb mountains (or at the very least, to see one!). I left for college on “the Mainland” (England, to everybody else) when I was nineteen, but I intended to return to Guernsey at some point, probably sooner rather than later.
I graduated from college and got married the same year. Lily, my eldest daughter, was born two years later. Even nineteen years ago, 25 was relatively young to be a mom. In my new baby group, the next youngest mom was nine years older than me, and I was treated kindly, but as something of a curio.
I found motherhood in those early years to be challenging – my own parents did not travel well, so I saw them infrequently, and severe postpartum anxiety (the first of two episodes) hampered my ability to enjoy my lovely new baby for the first year of her life.
When Lily was two and I was pregnant with my second child, Charlie, we moved to Singapore for my husband’s job. As a stay-at-home mom, I was fortunate to support my family through the move and enjoy the amazing opportunities that living in Asia had to offer. It was something of a relief, however, to move back to the UK and to be closer to family three years later, as I was pregnant with my third child, Lena.
By this point, I realized that I would likely not be returning to Guernsey and that my children would have a very different childhood from my own.
In the London suburbs, there was no bike riding for the kids – far too dangerous – and the nearest beach was two hours away. Although there was a lot to love about London life, some part of me wanted the same kind of freedoms for my children that I had enjoyed.
When my husband was offered the opportunity to work in New York, we came to visit friends who lived in Westchester, and we all fell in love. Here was a place where the children could play outside, ride their bikes, and visit the beach in the summer – all of those things I had loved about Guernsey – but with everything that New York City had to offer only a train ride away. We moved here in 2015 and have never looked back.
Although it wasn’t easy being a young mom of three small children, often far away from home and family, I now find myself a youngish (it’s all relative!) mom of three teenagers.
One is at college, and the other two are increasingly independent. I’ve been back to college twice since my first degree – once to pursue a Master’s in Creative Writing, and then to retrain as a teacher.
I now balance motherhood with a new career teaching high school English, as well as tutoring, and working on my writing. I’m passionate about education, both supporting my children and students academically, as well as being a lifelong learner. I hope to share some of what I’ve learned over the years with other Westchester County moms.
I even recently, with my children a little older, had time to get in my car and drive to the mountains, where I can enjoy the wide open spaces I’ve always dreamed about!
