Kira's blog: The Dubai Dilemma

When Opportunity Meets Family Responsibility

Sitting on our sofa one warm June afternoon, our living room was filled with excitement and a sense of adventure. I’d spoken over the phone with a former colleague and had now sent off my CV and an application for a job four and a half thousand miles away. We had just taken the first step on a potentially huge family journey and in the thrill of the moment I tried to push down the quiet gnawing worry within.

The Opportunity

The idea of moving our young family to Dubai had only come about a few months earlier but it had quickly become all-consuming. It was a chance to immerse our family in new cultures and new ways of life. It was a chance to set ourselves up financially for the future and to prove to ourselves that there were still plenty of adventures and opportunities left in life, something that sometimes felt hard to imagine in the day-to-day reality of raising toddlers and going to work. 

It certainly wasn’t going to be easy. I’d have to go back to full-time work in a hyper-competitive environment, my husband would have to travel the region extensively for work, likely being away 4 days a week. We knew it wasn’t going to be a glossy brochure holiday in Dubai with super-yachts and a constant stream of luxury restaurants, but that’s not what we were going for. We were planning a 3-5 year project to build our family’s financial stability and progress our careers.

When Excitement Meets Reality

But almost as quickly as the rush of excitement had come, so too came the sense of dread. How was I going to tell my parents about this plan and was I actually being selfish in making this decision to leave them behind? I was suddenly aware how many factors would go into following through with this decision.

A move to Dubai wasn’t about escapism, it was a credible and tempting option to move our family forward. Nothing we could do in our current life would give us this kind of stepping stone. A promotion or a job change might give us a little raise, but it wasn’t going to truly ‘move the needle’. We could make incremental changes, but Dubai could be a launch pad for bigger things, and doesn’t everyone dream of that?

Our children were still young enough to be resilient in the face of such a change. We were far from the crucial exam years and they too stood to gain so much from the opportunity.

But as much as I saw the opportunities, I also felt a nagging obligation. While our children might have been young enough to embrace the transition, were our parents too old to be left behind? My mum was 70 at the time and my dad 80. They were both in good health and lived full and independent lives, but I knew they were also reaching the age where anything could change at any moment, plus I’d be taking their grandchildren away too. I felt that I was needed here in ways that weren’t urgent yet, but felt inevitable.

Big moves like this are often framed as ‘brave’, while staying is ‘safe’. I was being pulled in two different directions: if we don’t do this now, we might never get the chance again, but if we go and something happens back home, could I ever forgive myself. It wasn’t made any easier when a family friend mentioned the potential move within earshot of my mum and she quickly responded, “Oh no, you can’t take my grandbabies away”.

Caught in the Middle

I’d heard the term, the ‘sandwich generation’, before but it was only now that it started to resonate with me. We are the generation of working parents with children who need stability and routine, and parents who need presence and proximity. Even though at this point my parents were far from being reliant on me, when it came to big life decisions it felt as though I had two sets of dependents who needed to be taken into consideration. That felt daunting, almost overwhelming. It made me feel like I was not in control of my own life. We were trying to do something because we thought it would put our family in a better position for the future, but by giving to one side, would we be taking away from the other?

Redefining What Ambition Looks Like

As we delved further into the practicalities of the move we had to ask, what does responsibility look like at this stage of life? We had to be clear on what success looked like when family was part of the equation. If making this move set us up better to care for our parents when the time truly came that they needed us then surely that was a good thing. And shouldn’t we show our children that life is full of potential and adventure, that there’s more than just staying in the same job and house for decades to provide stability?

What all this made us realise is that choosing thoughtfully is not the same as playing small. It’s not about choosing less or choosing the easier path, it’s about choosing deliberately and then making the absolute most of that decision, so you don’t look back with regret.

Kira is a Product Manager, wife, mum of two young girls and a lover of books, good stationery and a well-organised calendar.