“I don’t care what you call me!” she wrote in the comments. “Who cares?! If a few words is all it takes to upset you I worry for you” she went on. “Okay you fat ugly heiffer” someone replied....
“I don’t care what you call me!” she wrote in the comments. “Who cares?! If a few words is all it takes to upset you I worry for you” she went on.
“Okay you fat ugly heiffer” someone replied.
Except they didn’t because that would be really rude wouldn’t it?
We teach our children not to comment on people’s bodies, to see the beauty within, and respect all heffers no matter what they write in the comments. #notallheiffers
The truth is that words matter. Words are powerful and rightly so. A great writer, poet or lyricist has the ability to have you dancing at the beginning of the album and sobbing by the end. That’s what words can do – it’s what makes them magical yet terrifying. The thing about language is if we’re feeling particularly vulnerable it can be the slightest inference that takes us down a path of self doubt. “Did you hear what he said…?” “What do you think she meant when said…?” “Did I just hear that correctly…?”
My entry into the expat world coincided with one of the most vulnerable times of my life. With the combined chemical catastrophe of pregnancy hormones I left a career, a country, and a solid group of friends to enter the expat world with my new husband. While the term Trailing Spouse had been used in the Wall Street Journal well over a decade or two earlier (I believe it was first used in 1982) it hadn’t yet caught on. I didn’t hear it in those early days. It’s disappointing to admit the most common term thrown around for a woman like myself who seemed to be either pregnant breastfeeding or pregnant again was expat wife. It’s inference was one of privledge laziness and indulgence. “In my next life I’m coming back as an expat wife” my husband’s new boss announced at a company bbq. It was a joke that was often told because it always got a laugh.
Seven years later I eventually got myself back into the corporate world after the birth of my fourth child. I was living in North America and working in Human Resources – by then the term Trailing Spouse had hit its stride. In the world of HR with tenders required for international moves and mobility we needed a term to group the “dependants” the jokes continued, someone at the office suggested “excess baggage”. I have no idea why it never occurred to me at the time to suggest “Accompanying Spouse” it’s so much kinder when it comes to comparison
For the past twenty three years I have lived an international life. And while it has been a life of priviledge and excitement it has also provided the usual everyday ups and downs. When I fell in love with my husband he told me he wanted to be an ordinary person living an extraordinary life and I think he’s pretty much got his wish. Our lives are so very ordinary with conversations about grocery shopping, meal planning, what’s on the telly, whether it’s time for a haircut and where the best place to get fuel is.
The bigger issues have involved a change in school systems, the sale of a family home and how to break the news to your children that you have cancer. We have done all of this together. We discuss the possible outcomes of company mergers (three times now) and the possibility of what to do next. It’s been very much a side by side arrangement which is probably why we’re both still brushing our teeth side by side at the same bathroom sink 23 years later. This is why the term trailing is so disappointing and this is why it needs to change.
I didn’t put my hand up all those years ago and say it had to change but I think I’ve earnt the right to make a suggestion now. No more trailing, we’re accompanying. The Trailing Spouse is dead if you hear it call it out, this Accompanying Spouse plans to from now on.
