Ten Sure Signs You Are An Expat Dad Living in Singapore

Expat Dad Michele with Alexander and Eliot

1) Your children's international school fees leave you fairly disconcerted...($30,000 for 3rd grade? What are they learning? Rocket Science?)

2) Your kids boast about staying in 5 star resorts. Your childhood holidays often involved a tent.

3) You welcome 11 pm conference calls with California...not really.

4) Business trips are fine...unless they include a Sunday or a night flight from mainland China.

5) Your wife keeps very close track of your frequent flier miles.

6) You accept that a bottle of wine costs as much as a mini-vacation.

7) Business trip to Bangalore. Yoga retreat in India. Not the same thing.

8) You know which Asian airport has the best lounge, best sushi, longest taxi line.

9) You could be playing golf or relaxing by the pool, but you're not doing much of either.

10) Your wife no longer asks you which business destination has the best looking women. But she has noticed that Tokyo is the only city that makes you whistle while you pack.

(Published in Expat Living, April 2012)

"I'd Rather Be Reading Naruto..."

You may have been a green beret, a navy seal, or the CEO of a large corporation but nothing will prepare you for helping your eight year old son with his homework. First of all, this is 'help' he does not want and does not appreciate. In fact, any 'help' you will give, no matter if it is in the tone of Mother Theresa handing someone a bowl of rice, it will still be misconstrued as 'judging' him. In his mind, an innocent: "you might want to check the spelling of frenly, I'm pretty sure it's spelled friendly," will warrant an extreme reaction: "I knew it. You hate me."

Lately things have gotten a lot better. He just tells me he doesn't have any...who am I to argue. After all, life is short.