UK Mom, Son Escape Leicestershire to Florida: Loneliness Included Free!

Meet Clare Brown, the 47-year-old exile from Leicestershire who, in December 2018, jumped ship with her engineer husband and nine-year-old Freddie for West Palm Beach, Florida—a gated sun-soaked paradise perfect for homeschooling, pool marathons, and wildly optimistic moves. Freddie, ever the adventurer, tried American school fall 2019 but bailed back to homeschooling by March 2020 thanks to a worldwide pandemic, because nothing screams ‘better education’ like putting your kid back in, then out, then in the classroom again. Family help? Forget it. Christmas now has a severe case of 'ocean distance' loneliness, and visiting aged parents feels like playing a ticking-time bomb relay. Last stop: Huntsville, Alabama, where Freddie wrestles with prom hopes and Mom decays quietly on the sidelines–clutching weekly family calls like a lifeline. The only sibling group therapy known as 'the three Brown musketeers.'

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Moving from cozy Leicestershire to Florida sounded like a dream until sunshine, gated pools, and homeschool days morphed into a cocktail of lonely childhoods and nostalgic Skype marathons with the family lost across the Atlantic. America: here comes the loneliness!

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Why fly thousands of miles when emotional isolation upgrades in every time zone? Clare’s moving story is a masterclass in turning family closeness into international game of hide and seek.

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Clare’s homeschooling adventure turned into a pandemic-powered rollercoaster: send kid to school, pull kid back, buy house, remortgage feelings, repeat. All for that sweet, sweet Florida sun loneliness.

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