My family moved to Switzerland 8 years ago. We couldn’t find the type of life we wanted in the US.

• My family lived in New York, California, and Connecticut before moving abroad.
• In school, my kids have kids from 40 different countries.
• My kids are treated like responsible people and I’m not expected to manage their lives.

My husband and I have three kids and four pets, and we’ve moved a lot in search of the American dream.

We started in New York, but after our first baby’s open heart surgery, we returned to the Bay Area, where I’d met my husband Lynn. We missed our laid-back, California progressive-style life, and we wanted our kids to grow up outdoors, around creative thinkers.

We hoped for a lifestyle in which they’d see their dad most nights before bedtime, and I’d one day return to my career as a designer and art director.

Nowhere we went in the US made sense for our lifestyle

Once in the Bay Area, though, we struggled to find a home, landing in a distant suburb where Lynn’s commute from Marin County turned traffic-ridden and long. Trails surrounded us, but the lack of sidewalks made travel out of the car unsafe for kids. I had little time for my career or to leave the house after we decided to homeschool our oldest due to an exclusionary kindergarten environment and parent community that outside specialists said was harming him.

After eight years in California, Lynn got a job in Connecticut. We moved again, hoping Fairfield County’s expansive lawns, award-winning schools, Rockwellian homes, and Lynn’s new 10-minute commute would inch us closer to our dream. But in Connecticut, we again found no sidewalks to neighbors. Parents were commuting hours to work. Families living adjacent to us, many of whom had lived there for years, were strangers to one another. Safe ways into nature, bike lanes, and bus stops were nonexistent.

We decided to move beyond the US to Switzerland in search of our American dream. We’ve been here for eight years now and have found some differences with the US.

My kids can move around independently

In Switzerland, most of our kids’ new friends wandered out independently, walking, cycling, and using public transportation. Public paths, called “Wanderwegs,” are everywhere, not merely in cities but in suburbs, around lakes, and over mountains.

Walkways provide safe, clean access to bus stops, trams, and trains, which was freeing for our kids.

There are a lot of rules to follow, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I soon saw how crosswalk laws, speed limits, waste laws, and noise ordinances provided a network of boundaries our family needed.

If my kids ventured out independently, they’d better have clear limits and a society willing to enforce and respect those limits.

My family was welcomed

International families in Switzerland welcomed my family into a school community with people from over 40 countries with varied learning styles.

Though the Swiss initially seemed protective of their pristine mountains, lakes, and public spaces — the international community in Switzerland welcomed us into a massive multicultural melting pot. Despite vast differences, families invited us over, offered support, and expressed an inclusivity resembling our American dream.

While I witnessed various parenting styles in the Swiss international community, parents who overmanaged kids’ friendships, teacher relationships, and academic performance weren’t tolerated in Switzerland.

Teachers, coaches, therapists, doctors, and strangers treated kids as responsible citizens. This attitude altered the distorted idea US schools had impressed upon me — that parents were responsible for everything happening in their children’s lives. Kids owned their behavior and actions early, freeing them to build resilience and independence.

The importance of rest at first surprised us

We were stunned when we first found out how Swiss stores and shops closed on Sundays and often at lunchtime on weekdays. Unfamiliar with a lifestyle that included rest and long vacations, we soon learned the equilibrium downtime provided. Long periods of life together, having plain old fun, provided space for reflection and relationship building, something we’d missed in the US.

Today, my kids discuss their futures in global terms, so it’s difficult to predict where they’ll settle. They don’t point to one culture, language, perspective, skin color, religion, gender, lifestyle, or background. Rather, they refer to a world teaming with nature, culture, and opportunities to innovate. Their dreams go well beyond the US, evolving from challenges, change, and the beauty that emerges when dreamers stay open to the possibilities of a changing world.