Howdy

MilliVanilli

Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2022
Messages
62
My family of 3 are relocating from America to Indonesia for my husband's job, so I figured I would come get a lay of the land! Hello!

I'm an artist and audio editor, my husband is a researching scholar. We have a 1.5 year old.
 
Welcome to the forum! I'm sure people here will be glad to help with any questions you have.

A lot of the members here are people who permanently relocated to Indonesia, typically because their spouse is Indonesian. But my own experience was probably more like yours - a completely expat family. My husband's job took us to Jakarta and our son was mostly raised there (I lived in Jakarta from 1993-1997, again from 1999-2002, and finally from 2007 to 2018.)

Will you be located in Jakarta? It's a crazy city with both plusses and minuses, but never boring.
 
Welcome to the forum! I'm sure people here will be glad to help with any questions you have.

A lot of the members here are people who permanently relocated to Indonesia, typically because their spouse is Indonesian. But my own experience was probably more like yours - a completely expat family. My husband's job took us to Jakarta and our son was mostly raised there (I lived in Jakarta from 1993-1997, again from 1999-2002, and finally from 2007 to 2018.)

Will you be located in Jakarta? It's a crazy city with both plusses and minuses, but never boring.
Thank you for the warm welcome! We will be relocating to Jakarta Pusat. Currently we're looking for a "quiet" apartment in our price range that's transit distance from CSIS near the national monument.

How was raising a child as a non Indonesian?! How old was your son at the time?
 
Raising a child in Indonesia was fantastic. My son was born in 1998, so he lived in Indonesia from about 1.5 yrs old to 4, and then again from age 8 until he left for college.

At the time he was born, his father and I were both reasonably competent Indonesian speakers so we made sure he was fully bilingual (we did not speak Indonesian with him, but we made sure that he spent a lot of time with Indonesians, who were instructed never to use English with him even if they spoke it). Indonesians were so enchanted to hear native-level Indonesian coming out of the mouth of this little blonde kid! He was adored by all the adults around him; I think he had the best childhood on record in the entire universe.

You may not have the opportunity or desire to raise your child bilingual.* (Also, I should note that he lost all his Indonesian when we moved to Egypt, and even when we moved back he never regained it, sadly but predictably.) But bilingual aspirations or not, Indonesia is a fabulous place to have a little kid. You will almost certainly be able to afford a competent, loving nanny, which makes parenting much less stressful.

*I do recommend it though. It's good for executive function. Even though my son didn't retain his bilingualism, I'm quite certain it gave a real boost to his early childhood development.
 
Raising a child in Indonesia was fantastic. My son was born in 1998, so he lived in Indonesia from about 1.5 yrs old to 4, and then again from age 8 until he left for college.

At the time he was born, his father and I were both reasonably competent Indonesian speakers so we made sure he was fully bilingual (we did not speak Indonesian with him, but we made sure that he spent a lot of time with Indonesians, who were instructed never to use English with him even if they spoke it). Indonesians were so enchanted to hear native-level Indonesian coming out of the mouth of this little blonde kid! He was adored by all the adults around him; I think he had the best childhood on record in the entire universe.

You may not have the opportunity or desire to raise your child bilingual.* (Also, I should note that he lost all his Indonesian when we moved to Egypt, and even when we moved back he never regained it, sadly but predictably.) But bilingual aspirations or not, Indonesia is a fabulous place to have a little kid. You will almost certainly be able to afford a competent, loving nanny, which makes parenting much less stressful.

*I do recommend it though. It's good for executive function. Even though my son didn't retain his bilingualism, I'm quite certain it gave a real boost to his early childhood development.
That is so good to hear. It honestly seems like such an incredibly child friendly place. I don't speak Indonesian, but I am learning, and my husband is fluent and definitely wants our child to speak it. He was sort of flirting with the idea of sending her to a preschool where they mostly speak Indonesian there. We really want to be a part of Indonesia and not just there, immersing ourselves in only expat activities. My husband is studying Indonesian history from the Indonesian prospective, so he is very respectful of their culture and very interested in all things Indonesia.
 
Welcome.

I’m living and working in Bandung. Not that far from Jakarta, about 3 hours in a car.
 

Users who viewed this discussion (Total:0)

Follow Us

Latest Expat Indo Articles

Latest Tweets by Expat Indo

Latest Activity

New posts Latest threads

Online Now

Newest Members

Forum Statistics

Threads
6,283
Messages
104,827
Members
3,551
Latest member
Healthysuppreviews_
Back
Top Bottom