Her mother-in-law's advice was that crying helps babies develop their lungs. The advice from home was the opposite. Sasha Romary was raising her first child in Paris, caught between two cultures that agreed on almost nothing.

In this episode, Sasha shares what it was like becoming a mother in France, then Singapore, then Germany, and what pushed her to become a sleep and parenting coach: the isolation of getting contradictory advice in two languages, the shame of a crying baby in a quiet Parisian café, and the much harder fight to get a child who didn't fit the local school system the support he needed. She and Arielle also get into how a child's age changes what kind of school will actually work abroad, and why "home," for a family that moves often, ends up being less about the address and more about the traditions a family carries with them.

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CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS

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00:00 – Becoming a Parent in Three Different Countries: One Expat Mom's Story

01:15 – Becoming a First-Time Mom in Paris, Far from Family

05:56 – French Parental Leave for Business Owners: What to Expect

08:15 – Navigating Conflicting Parenting Advice Across Two Cultures

16:03 – Advocating for a Child Who Doesn't Fit the Local School System

19:32 – Why Your Child's Age Changes What School Works Best Abroad

24:41 – Why "Home" Abroad Has Less to Do with Location Than You'd Think

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ABOUT THE GUEST

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Sasha Romary is a parenting and sleep coach who became a first-time mother in Paris and went on to raise her two sons in Singapore and Germany before returning to France. She now supports other expat parents navigating parenthood across cultures.

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ABOUT YOUR HOST

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Arielle Tucker, CFP® & IRS Enrolled Agent, is a cross-border financial planner based in Switzerland helping Americans living abroad navigate U.S. taxes, international investments, and cross-border financial planning.

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LOVE THIS EPISODE?

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Follow the show and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, it's the single biggest thing you can do to help other cross-border families find this show.

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ABOUT PASSPORT TO WEALTH™

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Passport To Wealth™ is the platform for current and aspiring US expats. We connect globally mobile Americans with vetted, licensed cross-border financial advisors, tax professionals, and relocation experts who understand the financial and legal complexities of life abroad.

STAY CONNECTED

Follow Sasha on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sasharomaryparenting/

Book a Free 30-min Parenting Call: https://www.sasharomary.com/parent-coaching

Website: https://www.passporttowealth.com/

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/passport-to-wealth/

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This episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal, or financial advice. Individual circumstances vary. Consult a qualified cross-border financial professional before making any financial or tax decisions.

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Moving abroad changes everything, but nobody warns you about what it feels like to become a parent in a country that was not yours to begin with. No village, no family down the street, a completely different system. My guest today has been there, raised her kids in France far from home, and now helps other expat parents do the same without losing their minds. Today I'm talking with Sasha Romery, a parenting coach.

Who has become a mother in France and then also Singapore, you were saying as well. So you've become a mother in two different countries, two very different systems from the US, and now supports other expat parents around the world. Sasha, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you, I'm so excited to be here.

So we were talking before we hit record a little bit about how you moved to Paris from New York when you were actually a teenager, became a first time mom in France, and then had your second child in Singapore. And so I'm really curious like what was that like? I mean, when you're becoming a first time mom, it's like that's already a whole experience. Doing that away from family and in a in a different language, in a different system.

Like that's really scary. So can you kind of like walk me through what that journey looked for you like for you?

Yeah, absolutely. my when I moved to Paris I was fifteen and I

thought my parents were ruining my life moving me here. and we were only supposed to be here for a year actually. My my dad had a three year contract and we were like, my parents were like, what a great experience to take our teenagers to Paris for a year. and I thought it was really the end of my world. and then a few months in, I was the one that actually requested that we stay. and we never left. And so that was kind of my first

eye-opening experience to life abroad and I I went back to university in in New York but beyond that I have had zero desire to return to the US since. and and then yeah I had my first I had my first son here in Paris. and and that was a whole experience in and of itself because I had been

I had been living here for so long at that point that I I really it felt very Paris felt very much like home. But the transition into motherhood here kind of underlined all the ways that I it like w wasn't actually French. and and it almost reinforced this idea that like you can live here for at that point I had been here for ten

little over ten years. and and I just I highlighted all the ways where culturally I'm not I'm not quite yet French. and then and then we moved to Singapore actually with my son and lived there for briefly but then I and then we moved to Germany and that's where I had my second son.

I'm sorry, yes, Singapore and then Germany. Okay.

But but definitely parented in all three locations. and then and then yeah, and then we moved back. and and even the the like reentry into France was out of all those moves the most challenging, when we really thought it was gonna be the easiest. and so so yeah, it's very that kind of entering into motherhood,

was really interesting because it was like y I felt so between two cultures, like every all the information that I was reading about childbirth, about

parenting newborns and babies and all the information that I was getting and reading was all in English geared towards either a US or British audience for the most part. But then what I was living was information from my mother-in-law, from the pediatrician, and all of that I was just I was completely overwhelmed with so many contradicting ways of doing things that I kind of felt very in between two cultures as opposed to being immersed in one or the other.

Mm-hmm. And were you at that point when you were were you working? Were you self-employed? Were you w what was your where were you kind of in your career while you were preparing for your first child?

I owned my own business. so I had a concierge service. A whole other thing. It's having a business in another country. but but yeah, I had my own business and by that time I had kind of scaled it so I had I had a team that could kind of continue running the business while I figured out how on earth I was gonna have a baby. and and then I ended up before we moved to Singapore, I actually ended up selling the company.

Which is a whole nother thing of having a child.

So that I could kind of focus on him and live the expat life because I knew I wasn't gonna be able to work in Singapore at that time. and because of who I am, I then naturally took that time to get all of my coaching certifications and start another business. So but yeah, I had I was able to kind of delegate and find that balance. And I do think that that is something that is

that I really culturally appreciate about Europe in general, but France specifically, is that how much

how much value is placed on time off and that you work to to live, not live to work. And and I really felt that just in how the system was set up for a business owner to like properly take time off and be able to have that be flexible, that was really that was really amazing.

Okay, because that was gonna be my follow-up question was as was your business structured in a way where you could get you know, we always hear how amazing all the French benefits are. Like roughly what were these amazing French benefits? and and and and you were and just confirming like as a business owner, is it the way your business was structured that you were eligible to take a take advantage of them? Or yeah, talk us through that a little bit.

Regardless, it is and now even since then it's actually changed more. and so now I for better. France notoriously has the one of the the least generous parental leave options in Europe. and and even then, so this was ten years ago now, I

had three four months four months of fully paid leave. and that would have been true across the board for any w I mean, like there's a threshold of essentially what you were earning before, but at that time

I was able essentially to take full paid full paid leave for four months. and and I think my husband had something like two weeks and now he has a month if he were to if we were to have another baby. then he would have a full month. and and I would have I mean now it would be my third so I would have six months. but but you have with three three or more kids you b it bumps up.

Wait, you get more the more children you have?

That's nice because

but now there's a new system that actually just launched, I think in January, I think, where where you even for your first two you have an option of like a slightly lower percentage of your salary for a full six months. and then you can even take unpaid leave. So if I were on a if I had an like a normal job with a company a normal working contract, then I could take up to three years and still have my job waiting for me when I was ready to return.

But not all that

I mean that all sounds that all sounds so wonderful. So where was the culture clash coming from? Was it from the medical advice? Was it from the parenting advice? Like talk us through some of the differences that you experienced that kind of felt stressful for you.

I think the biggest challenge, and this is very much why I do what I do now, is was about sleep and how I had my first son was a baby who would only sleep on me upright, and only after hours of crying.

previously. And so in my like first few months postpartum, I was really feeling that. And I felt, and there were structures in place that could support me, but I didn't kind of I felt like I really needed English support in that sense. Like I couldn't feel I didn't feel like I could feel vulnerable in French, I think. because my in laws were literally two blocks.

You know what, I wanna stop and say just acknowledge that. I didn't wanna feel vulnerable in French. I feel that all the time. Like when I go to a doctor's appointment, I'm like, can we please do this in English? I don't wanna have to try to explain this in German.

All the time, right?

to you it feels too sensitive and too vulnerable and that applies not just to parenting but like s any touchy financial topics, tax topics, medical therapy. Like that is a theme that you will probably feel as an expat. So thank you. I love the way you phrase that. Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah. Therapy. Yeah.

I think I I don't think I've ever even said that before, but I think that was that was very much my blocker was that and I had because I had I'd made a friend while I was pregnant who was British and our babies were born two days apart and I met her and immediately became so close to her.

having just met her. And then meanwhile, I had my in-laws who I met my husband in high school, so I had known them for a decade now. And they were two blocks away from me and I didn't reach out to them and have a great relationship with them, which I know isn't always the case with in-laws, but like they were there. And and then there are these government kind of structures that are set up for new parents that have lactation support, that have nurse like neonatal nurses available.

And like midwives, and you could just walk in and I would go to those, but I always felt like I had to kind of, there was this like performance. And and when it came to sleep, that was where I really it's what really isolated me because I was convinced that I was doing something wrong. All these French parents, I would, I remember walking.

with my son in the in his in like the carrier and I would see all these French moms with their little like babies and yo-yo strollers at the coffee shops and like the cafes sitting there like with their sleeping babies calmly having a coffee with friends and I would just remember looking at them being like that is so if I stop walking like we cry. Like that I don't this is not a world that I live in. And and I remember talking to my pediatrician about it and

Every cause everything I was getting from like my mother in law was like the phrase that came out of her mouth was babies cry, it helps develop their lungs. And I was like, how wildly unhelpful is that phrase when I'm like living in a world where this baby is just crying at me and not sleeping. And yeah.

Well and you're doing it in Paris in a condensed city environment and when your own when I I remember that anxiety feeling, like when your baby cries, it is like the loudest

Everyone hears.

Everyone hears, everyone's judging you, you're the expat, you're talking it to them in English maybe, or you know, maybe you're speaking French. But like there's this this level of shame that c comes with like your child not behaving perfectly when you are the expat, the immigrant, and everyone else's child is doing that. So

Yeah.

Yeah.

And there's also the layer of the of the like the American layer where like we're always seen as being kind of loud and obnoxious. And I was very aware of that. And and I was like, you know, and now I have this loud and obnoxious baby that's like bothering everyone. And meanwhile all these other French babies are like perfectly sleeping in their strollers at the cafe and like and I just so deeply felt that. and and I

Luckily had an amazing pediatrician because everyone was saying like just you just eventu and my husband was even like, apparently you just have to let him cry. And I was like, No. And and then the other o like what I was reading of the other option was just like co sleep. And I was like, Ha there has to be a middle ground. Yeah.

Which you would never do in the US without being judged, right? Like

And I was like, there has to be some because then I was getting all this stuff from the US that was like telling me about SIDS and how you shouldn't do that. And like I was totally overwhelmed by these like two extremes, which is why I became a sleep consultant, because I was like, there has to there are the vast majority of people don't sit in these two extremes. And there has to be a sleep sleep support that fits that need. but I like lived

in between these two extremes, for the my son's kind of entire newborn and early childhood. And and that that I think was really where I felt the cultural difference, where like

Everyone in France was just like, no, but my baby sleeps, or I just let them cry and it was fine. And I was like, how was that fine? And then and then on the other hand, I have all these friends in the US that had babies around the same time. And the other extreme was that they were just kind of over responding to a point where like

They then had toddlers who were not sleeping through the night. And I was like, none of this seems sustainable to me. And like, I don't, I don't feel like I have a path forward. and so instead I just isolated myself and struggled through it until I decided to get myself certified and figure out how to support other parents doing this.

Sasha, I am your story is resonating so much with me, and I know it resonates with so many other parents, expat parents, who are navigating this. And it's not just the sleep like the sleeping. Like that's one, that's for sure one thing. But for and I'll just be a little vulnerable here and share that I have a spicy, neurotypical child. And he does not fit in the traditional Swiss box.

Yeah.

And one thing that you don't realize when you are moving abroad is in Europe there's a lot of boxes. And when you are an expat, you're an immigrant, and you're suddenly now new into that culture, you start to realize like, wow, there are a lot of boxes here, and my kid is not fitting into the box. And that does cause a level of stress and anxiety on mom, the family, the the the whole social dynamics that I don't think a lot of parents think about when they're

Yeah.

making the move for a job or an opportunity or they just whatever. They're they're looking for something else. They're not thinking about that. I will say one thing about the US everyone gets to be special. Everyone gets to find their space and that is r a really nice system that I really I feel like kind of uniquely exists in the US for good or for bad. It doesn't exist in

Completely. Mm-hmm.

A lot of European countries.

I I validate that very deeply. my oldest is also the type of kid that doesn't fit into that box. And and that's another kind of cultural clash that we've had too, is that I have friends in the US who do have fabulously neurospicy children, and the amount of support and

The way that they normalize that track for that child is just not what we are seeing here. The amount of fight that I have had to push for, in order to get my son in a situation where he can thrive in school has been it it still is. We're still in this process. but it will like forever be an issue. And

Mm.

And it is very much that box. And we've had to kind of justify this with a lot of a lot of our friends and even family, although now family is very much like on they've seen it, you know, they get it. But the fact that we have two kids in elementary school that are in a private school, because the public system was just not the right fit for my oldest child.

And now for middle school we're talking about all of the options and public school is absolutely on the table 'cause he's grown and developed his own ability to do things. But

But the way that we say that we're in private school is for the the bilingual side. But actually it has nothing to do with that. The fact that it's a bilingual school was just a nice plus. But but it was more this a school that could support him in that way. and but nobody understands why on earth we have a 40-minute commute to take our kids to school every morning when they're like, but don't they there's a school like a 10-minute walk away where they could go by themselves. Like, why on earth? Like, isn't that hard on them? And I'm like, well, no.

It's it's beautiful moment in the train where we can talk and you know talk about our days and I have the best conversations with my kids and it's carved out time where I get like one-on-one attention with them. but but yeah that making those choices of schools and that box, like those boxes are really are really there and they are square, and if you have a round kid, they don't fit.

Yeah.

And you know, for parents who are in the US and already aware that they have a child who's not gonna fit into the box for a number of reasons, they need to proactively really think through what that's gonna look like and really understand what that local school system is going to do. Because yes, they may be legally required to take your child. It doesn't mean it's gonna be a good fit for anyone. And even in our situation, we've been told, well, just go and pay for private school.

Mm.

Like just you should put your child in private school. And sometimes that's possible, and sometimes it's 60,000 francs a year. So you just have to, you just have to like understand also what if we try out local and it doesn't work, can we afford the private option? Or is our child just going to basically suffer through?

Yeah, exactly.

Mm-hmm.

This system, I think that's a really important consideration that families have to th proactively think about because again, the European systems generally, all the all these countries are different, but generally not as many kids go into the university track, right? And so they're actually going at 16 maybe to prepare for a job. And if you're moving them later in life, like I know you moved when you're 15, that language hurdle can be really hard. So if they're also trying to get like prepare for a job at that same time, that's gonna cause a lot of stress and anxiety.

on the child and the family. So conversations just be aware of. And then you and I, we both basically had our children and have had had them grow up in Europe and still are struggling to fight and advocate for our children because it just doesn't work the same way it that it that it would kind of in the US.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of it I mean I have a lot of thoughts on that 'cause I think a lot of it depends on your unique child. And I think a lot of parents when they think about moving abroad, they focus so much on the child and yes, if you have a child that has different sensitivities or different needs then then you should be, right? Because that is I think what you're saying is incredibly important and valid that

if you have a kid that has certain needs or that thrives in certain environments, then finding those opportunities for them to thrive will make or break a move. but

For the vast majority of kids, I think parents spend a lot of time worrying about their them adapting to a new situation and the reality is that kids are s super adaptable. And my second, for example, we could stick him anywhere and he'd thrive. And and if we if it kind of weren't for my first, he would still be in the public system and he'd be doing great. And and he but

To be fair, his English probably wouldn't be as great. and and so I think there is if you're depending on what that move looks like, like I think when I moved here in high school, we were only supposed to be here for a year and I was fifteen. So my parents weren't gonna put me in a public school because I needed to then reintegrate back into the US system and I didn't speak any French. Like there was no way that I would.

do well in my tenth grade yeah. and and so I went into an international school and then I, you know, had two years left. So I did the IB and stayed here and it was wonderful and amazing. But like you said, like the that level of budget is not something that now that most pa families can afford, especially when they have multiple children. And and there are beautiful pros

especially into the in like the French education system. There are a lot of cons too, and I have kind of a love-hate relationship with a lot of it. But but it really depends on your kid. And a lot of families I think if they're moving kids in middle school or high school then a system where they can more easily integrate at those kind of more academically focused and more

kind of socially stressful ages, I want to say. like I think that is an absolute consideration and you want to put your kids in an environment where they can thrive at that age. But for families who are moving, who are moving with, you know, three, four, five year olds, by all means put them in the public system. Like they will, it'll probably be a first

three, four months that are challenging and then you'll be shocked at how quickly all of a sudden your kids speak fluent French and fluent German. And like when we lived in Munich, my my my boys primary language, their language of choice was German. And we didn't speak it. And so they would speak to each other in German, they'd turn around and they'd speak to me in English. They speak to my husband in French. And and it was because and they went to a bilingual school because

Wow, okay.

mostly for us, because I needed the ability to speak to their teachers. And but they were fine. But the language of play was German and so that was their primary language. and then when we moved back to France that quickly shifted to French.

Yeah, kids are so resilient, especially those younger kids. Throw them in, they will likely do fine, and you will be just like, wow, I wish I had eight hours a day to go and study this foreign language to pick it up like that, you know? So w on our last question, I just want to ask, like, kind of what is your best advice for building family life abroad so that it can really start to feel like home?

Yeah.

So that it can start to feel like home. I think the question and

The question is more about what home actually means because once you start living an expat life, there's your home is wherever wherever you are. And for a lot of families, there's there they're the families that like move once and then stay, or move once for a few years and then move back. And then there are the families that move

Well, every three years. And in high school I went to a a lot of I went to school with lot of like embassy kids where they moved every three years. And home was just where their parents were, whether or not they had ever lived there. and and so when we talk about home, to me and what the way that like I've integrated this into our home life is is more about traditions and deciding for our family unit what traditions have

Been are really important for us. And some of them come from US, some of them come from German culture, some of them come from French culture. and and it and it is that level of like, this is what we do, whether it's like a taco Tuesday night, or whether it is you know, in in Germany we started this and we've kind of still done this is that Saturday, Saturday mornings we are out of the house at a playground, or now it's at sporting events, and we just like have our to go.

Coffee cups, which make us very American, and and we're always like out, and like our kids are playing with friends, whether they're like local, but we go to the same place, and that level of tradition, we can do anywhere. We can find an outdoor space, whether we're in Munich or Singapore or Paris, and like that will remain our feeling of home. And so when my kids grow up and go to college, when they come home, regardless of where we are, they know.

that feeling of home because of the traditions that we've put in place. And I think that that to me is like less tied to the location and more tied to like how how you define home by the traditions that you implement.

Sasha, that is so beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that. I love this idea of really defining your family's traditions as you move around, have a partner from a different country and a background. I mean, that is just so important, even married to another American. We think a lot about traditions in our family. You are a true parenting coach and expert with all your certifications, maternity, postpartum, doula, everything going on. We will link your information so people can find you directly. Thank you so much for joining us today on Passport to Wealth. I really appreciate your

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Thank you so much, Arielle.