Europe’s new borders:
My parents still haven’t
met my daughter

In 2007, I stood on a train platform with my girlfriend. She was leaving after only a few short months of her Erasmus university exchange and we really didn’t know how to bridge the distance between Germany and the UK. A long-distance relationship seemed improbable. And although we were certain we loved each other, we knew that wasn’t a guarantee of success. 

As the train headed towards the platform, I took the plunge. “I’m coming to Germany in the Summer,” I blurted out. She instantly brightened – the distance suddenly seemed bridgeable. We could do this, we said to each other. She smiled, I laughed and then we kissed. I didn’t know it then, but distance would become one of the major constants in our lives.   

When I packed up everything I owned and moved to Germany, I didn’t really think about the ramifications. I just did it because it felt right. A decade on and we’re now building our own Anglo-German family. Our first child, a daughter, was born in March. A nurse mentioned that we were lucky the baby arrived so early in the pandemic. We could be together for the birth, a luxury not afforded to other parents in the area. 

But once home from the hospital, we were faced with navigating the new lockdown rules. My wife, daughter and I could be together, but our British and German families weren’t allowed to see us. Previously, travelling to Germany was just a question of time and money for my family back home. Now we had to contend with the real ramifications of various European borders. They were no longer the invisible lines of Europe that we easily hopped across. They were very real barriers preventing parents and siblings from being together. 

On top of this, there weren’t just national borders preventing my family from meeting my daughter, but hyper-regional ones that also stopped our German relatives seeing her. A border had suddenly been created right outside our home, which only my wife and I could cross. For the first time, our German family were experiencing the same sense of distance as our British family. 

My wife’s parents and siblings are all very close and keeping them at a distance was painful. There were many difficult discussions, and just as many suggestions of how a safe visit could be organised. Neither my wife or I were willing to take risks, and more than once we had to be tough on family members who suggested bending the rules. Eventually lockdown was relaxed and, as fantastic as it was to finally be able to have our German family together, there is still the 1438.75km distance that my British family needs to think about.

None of my relatives back home have met our daughter yet and it doesn’t look like they will before the end of the year. Flying is too risky, and now that the UK has added the Netherlands to its quarantine list, taking a ferry is also out of the question. Until things change, we’re stuck in limbo. 

There are worse places to be stuck than Germany, but I’m very aware of what my daughter is missing out on. Even before she was born I was already concerned that she wouldn’t know her British side – she would maybe have the accent or the slang, but not much else. 

I’ve become slightly obsessed with finding ways to introduce British culture to this tiny child. I’m always singing traditional English songs and nursery rhymes to her. She’ll always be her own person of course, but I hope that British culture won’t just be the weird things her dad talks about or the fact we eat baked beans with our weekend breakfasts. I really want her to feel like it’s part of who she is. I’m also worried that she won’t interact with my British family in the same way as she does with her German relatives. The idea that my family will become simply distant relatives may seem irrational, but it terrifies me. 

We’ve been told more than once that we were fortunate to avoid having to entertain family, friends and well-wishers in the first few weeks after her birth. And I do think we appreciated the calm at first. But five months on, we wish my British family could be here. Virtual meet-ups have been great, but they just aren’t the same. As any parent will tell you, newborns change almost daily, and my family are missing these formative moments. My daughter is missing out too. She’s not able to interact with half her family, half her culture. It often feels like that the distance my wife and I overcame has been inherited by our daughter. Perhaps it will be even wider.

Britain has already changed so much since I left. With Brexit, there are no certainties the country I remember will even be recognisable by the time my daughter has a chance to experience it. There has always been an anaemic understanding of Germany in Britain and I hate the idea that my daughter’s German background may become another uncrossable border. This distance has grown once again for all of us, perhaps this time to unbridgeable levels.