Citizenship

One of the best things about being in America this summer is that we get to watch most of the Olympics in the morning, leaving the afternoons and evenings free for visits and walks. It also means that we're not caught up in any of the traffic or the mild hysteria that seems to have taken over most of the UK population in some way shape or form. I wouldn't consider myself a British patriot by any stretch of the imagination and it's interesting to see my friends showing British pride and excitement over the comparative success of Team GB. Being in America right now does put things in perspective as barely an hour goes by without another American medal and it makes for a very different sporting experience when you're watching with people who expect continual success in just about every sport.

The whole Olympic experience has made me think about Jake's citizenship and what it actually means. At the moment, he holds a British passport but will also be able to claim American citizenship through Kelsey. It is our intention when we get back to England to make an appointment at the American embassy to register his birth (though part of me doesn't understand why we can't do it whilst we're here) and thus allow him to carry both passports.

However, our current game plan is to get my teaching qualification and move to the US at some point during 2014, meaning that Jake will have only spent 2 years in the UK and will spend his formative years over here. This will probably mean that my son will sound more like his mother than me and will grow up learning about the world from the American perspective. Will that make him truly American or will the fact that he has a British father and a whole half (ish) of his extended family lives in England give him a British aspect to his personality.

For me, Jake brings into question what we mean by being a citizen of somewhere. In one part, it's the real sense of passports, voting, paying taxes and where you live. In another part, it's about the values you hold, your cultural references and your view of the world. For example, whilst Kelsey has lived in the UK for most of her 20s and has the right to live there permanently, she is still American to the core, regardless of how much her friends and family tease her about her faux English accent.

What being American or being British means is hard to pin down as it varies from person to person and region to region. I think what we want for Jake is for him to be raised with the values and world view of his parents, extended family and friends as they are the ones that we feel will help him best in this world. Some of these will be British, some of these will be American, but all of them will be Jake.