Amanda van Mulligen is a British expat who made the Netherlands her home in 2000. She has three Dutch sons, who she is doing her best to tinge with a little Britishness, and a pure-bred Dutch husband.
In a previous life she worked in the world of Human Resources (HR), helping new expats get settled in the Netherlands or helping employees and their families get ready to embark on a life in a far-flung remote location. It was in this role she learnt that not all expats are equal; some expats are more expat than others. Hence Amanda realised she lives her life in a little piece of no man’s land situated between being a British expat and a local Dutch woman. To complicate her sense of identity further she now also has Dutch citizenship.
Amanda left HR to dabble in writing and is now a published author, freelance writer, translator and blogger. She has contributed to expat anthologies Dutched Up! Rocking the Clogs Expat Style, Once Upon An Expat and the upcoming Knocked Up Abroad Again. She has also translated the children’s book Langmuts is een Held from Dutch into English, one in a series of books written with highly sensitive children in mind.
You can find her scribbling her thoughts and experiences about her expat way of loving, living and parenting at Turning Dutch. She also writes about raising highly sensitive children on the Happy Sensitive Kids blog and you’ll find her all over social media like a rash: Facebook, Twitter and Pi