@thejamiegruber: You may wonder how my kids came up with these comments - imagine slide tackling and heading the ball in soccer on your club team in DR, but when you visit your cousins and play in the U.S., you can’t .. which spot would an 11 year old feel more “free”? - when I was in school, the news would talk about Russia and Mexico in ways that would make me think I was in the best place ever in the U.S. .. so when kids at school share news of school shootings or attempted / successful assassinations … what else is a 7 year old to think of the place his mom is visiting? - my kids conscious memory is mostly in DR and their closest friends are Dominicans … so when 10-12 year old Canadians and Americans move here but need parents permission to take a bike ride or move around, that seems immature to an 11 year old - our kids go to their tias in Higüey city, the campo, different cities and towns around the country. Bars on windows in a barrio are not uncommon. But even then; day to day they go about life and feel they’re safe at home. So imagine the mind melt for a kid to hear that his environment is somehow unsafe - play dates are a bit of a foreign concept now for us. Unless a play date is “babe our kids friends are all over the back yard but our kids aren’t here” 🤷‍♂️. When we visited our old home in Michigan scheduling time to be kids together was a strange reality Our kids didn’t warm up to life here for the first year plus. It took time. But today, this is their perspective. We love both countries that our family has lived in. DR is not a perfect place. But as I’ve said before, and my kids would echo .. it’s perfect for us !!

Jamie Gruber

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Region: DO

Friday 11 September 2026 22:11:39 GMT