About

From Lost in Translation to Finding My Voice:

An Expat Working Mom’s Journey

Hey there, fellow moms!🧍‍♀️❤ I’m Josie, and boy, do I have a story for you. Grab a cup of coffee.☕ (or tea 🍵, or wine 🍷 – no judgment here!), and let’s chat about this wild ride we call life.

Picture this: Girl meets boy. But not just any boy – a Danish guy on assignment in my home country. We fall in love❤, get married🤵👰, and before I know it, I’m packing my bags for Denmark. Sounds like a fairytale, right? Well, let me tell you, the “happily ever after” part comes with a few plot twists!

There I was, fresh off the plane ✈ in Denmark , armed with nothing but a suitcase 💼 full of dreams and precisely zero Danish language skills. Talk about a fish out of water! No job, no friends, and a whole lot of question marks ❓ about my future. Those first few years? They were tough, I’m not going to sugarcoat it.

But here’s the thing about us expat moms – we’re made of strong stuff. So, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. 💪I juggled learning Danish (seriously, have you tried pronouncing “rødgrød med fløde“⁉🙄😆) with pursuing my second master’s degree. Oh, and did I mention I was pregnant 🤰? Because apparently, I didn’t think I had enough on my plate!😜

Fast forward four years, and there I was, landing what I thought was my dream job at a big Danish bank. I had done it! The perfect job, a beautiful family – I was living the dream… or so I thought.

Plot twist: Sometimes, the dream job isn’t so dreamy after all. 😢Despite the fancy title and the stable paycheck, something felt off. I found myself drowning in a sea of 8-to-4 monotony, office politics, and a constant struggle to prove my worth as a foreign woman in a competitive workplace.

I started to question everything. Was this really what I had worked so hard for? Was I really happy? The answer, if I’m being honest, was a resounding “no.”

That’s when it hit me – maybe the problem wasn’t me. Maybe I wasn’t failing at fitting into this corporate mold. Maybe I was trying to force myself into a life that just wasn’t meant for me.

And you know what? That realization was liberating. It was the push I needed to start MumLifeHacks – this little corner of the internet where we can all come together, share our stories, and figure out this expat working mom life together.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to balancing career, family, and personal growth, especially when you’re doing it in a foreign country.

But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It just means we need to get creative, support each other, and sometimes, laugh at the absurdity of it all.

So whether you’re struggling with self-love (because let’s face it, some days it’s hard to feel like a superhero when you’ve got spit-up on your shirt), looking for clever parenting hacks (anyone else tried to explain tooth fairies in a second language?), trying to organize your life and budget in a new country, or just trying to get quick meals on the table without losing your mind – you’re in the right place.

MumLifeHacks is more than just a blog. It’s a community. It’s a place where we can share our wins, commiserate over our losses, and figure out how to thrive – not just survive – in this beautiful chaos we call expat motherhood.

So, welcome! Pull up a chair, make yourself comfortable, and let’s navigate this journey together. Because remember, mama, you’ve got this 👍💕– and more importantly, you’ve got us.