This Week in America — When Your Kids Feel More American Than You Do

What happens when your kids grow up in a country that still feels new to you? In this episode of This Week in America, I share a simple moment at The Hermitage in Nashville that turned into something bigger — a quiet realisation about identity, family, and what it means to belong in America as an Australian.

Living in the United States for eight years, I’ve grown used to the questions about my accent. But hearing my daughter confidently say, “I’m American,” stopped me for a second. Not because it surprised me… but because of how simple it was for her.

In this episode, I reflect on raising kids between two cultures, how identity feels different as a parent, and how living in America has slowly changed the way I hear people talk about it. It’s not about politics or headlines — it’s about the everyday people, the small moments, and the shift that happens when a place stops being theoretical and becomes personal.

If you’ve ever lived overseas, raised kids between cultures, or found yourself caught between two versions of “home,” this one might feel familiar.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

You better take over. This week in America, we found ourselves at the Hermitage here in Nashville. It was originally the home of Andrew Jackson. He was the seventh president of the United States, and now it's a national historic site. But we went there for the history or to walk the plantation. It was just one of those normal family outings. Kids running around, parents kind of half-watching, everyone trying to enjoy themselves while quietly managing chaos in the background, making sure no one wanders off or falls into something historic. At one point, a lady greeted us and asked where we were from. I knew exactly why she was asking the accent. And that still happens regularly enough. I open my mouth and somewhere within 30 seconds we're discussing Australia. It's basically my opening line at any social interaction these days, I guess. You could probably say I'm getting used to it. But before I could answer this time, Brianna jumped in proudly and said, I was born here. I'm an American. Clear as day. No hesitation. No identity crisis. Just a little girl stating what she knew to be true. And the lady, in a thick southern accent, smiled and said, Oh, bless you. Isn't it great to be an American? It was warm and it was really genuine. And I thought about it a little bit longer than what I thought I would. Kids seem to handle identity a bit differently. For them, I think it's pretty simple. They were born here. This is where they live. These are their friends, their school. This is who they are. Adults seem to make it more complicated than it really needs to be. You know, we start adding history to it, memories, there's politics, get some regret, comparison, I guess even expectation. We turn it into something to analyze, but kids often just live it. And standing there, hearing seven-year-old Brianna say it so proudly, I realize something. My daughters belong naturally to a place that I arrived in later in life. And there's a quiet ache in that sometimes. It's not a sad one exactly, but it's more of a strange parental realization that I'm raising children in a country that still occasionally surprises me, confuses me, and catches me off guard all at the same time. They know school buses, pledge routines, and American playground games in a way that I never will. They'll grow up with childhood memories tied to places that I had to learn about as an adult. The roads that still feel slightly foreign to me are just ordinary to them. The accents that I still notice to them are the sound of home. And the traditions that I had to understand from the outside, well, that's just all a part of the furniture of their childhood. There's some beauty in that. But it's also a little disorientating. Because it reminds me that we didn't arrive here the same way. And that's kind of a strange feeling to explain. I came to America as an adult. I remember the airports, the green cards, confusion, the culture shocks, trying to work out how everything functioned. Shopping for furniture when we first arrived, and navigating a healthcare system which still feels like a group project I didn't sign up for. Trying to understand a place from the outside in, my girls won't remember any of that. For them, this isn't the foreign country that dad moved to. It's just home. And that's where identity gets interesting. Because I still feel Australian. And I guess I always will. I've got two passports now, and a genuine love of these United States. But passports and feelings aren't always the same thing. Australia still lives in me in all sorts of ways. The humor, my accent, the way I cook a Barbie, the way I say no worries, 50 times a day. That part doesn't leave. But at the same time, my children are growing up American. And I've noticed that changes something in you. Their references are American. Their school life is American. The little rhythms of how they move through the world are shaped here. They are American. And they're Australian too. Because somehow both of those are true. And I think that's probably more normal nowadays than we admit. Because the world is full of children carrying more than one place inside of them. What surprised me most though is how it's changed the way I hear people talk about America. Because when I live back in Australia, like plenty of Aussies, I'd hear the usual digs. Americans are loud and ignorant. Americans don't travel. Americans are all obese. Americans love their guns. And to be honest, I probably joined in at times too. Because it can feel easy to joke about a country when it's still abstract to you, when it's just Fox News headlines, movies, politics, stereotypes, and there's distance. But it lands differently now. Because now, when someone says Americans are stupid or Americans are ignorant, I don't picture a vague category of people. I picture my daughters. I picture their friends. I picture my neighbors, my own friends, school teachers, parents that I know, people who've shown kindness to my family, people who've helped us. People who are just living their lives. And I think it's not true. Or at the very least, it's nowhere near the whole truth. And that's what I didn't really get until I lived here. A country is rarely what it looks like from the outside. And to be fair, Australia gets flattened like that too. We become beaches and kangaroos, crocodiles, shrimps on the barbie. I guess every place gets reduced somewhat from a distance. And America especially gets reduced to politics. It's about the government, the president, the loudest voices. This week's cultural war topic. But America isn't only that. Just like Australia isn't only the suits and politicians in Canberra either. The country is made up of people. People that are doing school pickups. People paying bills. People worrying about their kids, going to work and just trying their best to get through the week. People getting some things right and some things wrong. It's the same as anywhere else. That's the bit you see once you live somewhere else. And maybe that's what's changed in me. I didn't stop being Australian. I didn't suddenly become a flag waving American with my hand over my heart, pledging allegiance. Because it's not that dramatic. I just started caring about somewhere else as well. Because when the people you love belong to a place, the place stops being theoretical. It becomes personal. That little moment at the Hermitage, it reminded me of that. My daughter said that she's American. And she was right. She's also Australian. And somehow hearing both truths at once made perfect sense. If you've been enjoying these weekly reflections, there's a buy me a coffee link in the show notes should you feel like supporting it. That was this week in America.