Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds (Second Revised Edition)

Notable Quotes from Families in Global Transition

Published on March 12, 2018March 12, 2018 by Marilyn8 Comments

We are just back from an amazing trip to visit our son in Thessaloniki, Greece, followed by a conference called Families in Global Transition that encouraged and inspired us.

My heart and brain are full. Being able to be with our son, see his surroundings, meet his friends and absorb the beauty of Thessaloniki was a gift. At one point we stood in a monastery courtyard on a hilltop overlooking the city. A peacock was in front of us, his feathers fanned in a display of turquoise glory, and I thought “I can’t believe I get to be here!” It was a moment of sheer awe and grateful delight.

We left Greece to attend the conference in The Hague, and our world quickly changed from the sun and beauty of Thessaloniki to the busy conference schedule. But this conference is like none other. It is a group of people from all over the world, their stories as varied as their nationalities and ethnicities. We talked for hours and heard fun stories, frustrating stories, and difficult stories of belonging and living where you don’t feel you belong. The conference ended with a panel discussion from millennial third culture kids, a chance to hear from those emerging voices.

I’ve gathered some quotes for you here to give you a taste of the wisdom and beauty of the conference. Some are verbatim, and some I paraphrased as I was trying to write at the same time as listening as intently as I could. Please know this is a fraction of what transpired at the conference, but it captures at least a bit of the atmosphere.

Notable Quotes:

“Equip them so that rather than blend in, they can, with humility and a touch of class, stand out” – Sean Ghazi, Saturday Keynote Speaker

“If you see your parents deal with their stuff, you’ll have permission to deal with your stuff.” Solid advice for parents from millennial third culture kids.

“Name the emotion. Connect with the emotion (what does it feel like?). Choose what to do with that emotion.” Loubelle Butalid, Millennial forum

“A story is not complete until it is told; until it is heard; and until it is understood. So don’t listen just to respond – listen to understand.” Megan Norton, facilitator at Millennial forum

“We leave deposits of ourselves all over the world, and we pick them up when we return to those countries.” Sean Ghazi, Keynote Speaker

“Buying a piece of air to call my own is a big step. It’s nice actually” Kira Miller Fabregat, Millennial forum

“Everyone is feeling excluded, so our responsibility is to hold a conversation so everyone can have a voice.” Millennial forum

“Don’t leave home without a sense of humor! Culture shock is not fatal!” Robin Pascoe, first day Keynote Speaker

“It helped when my mom told me I was a TCK. I could pull it out when I needed it.” Kira Miller Fabregat, Millennial forum

“Parents of TCKs – It’s so important that you allow your children to dream their own dreams!” – Sean Ghazi, Keynote Speaker

“Our differences do not need to be barriers to connecting.” from Lightning Session

“Reconstruct your narrative – adapt your story in order to relate to your new space.” Michael Pollock, concurrent session

“But what I love most (about FIGT) is the sense of community….we are from so many different places, but we belong together.” Ruth Van Reken, Keynote Speaker

“Figure out who you are and then, go out and change the world!” Robin Pascoe, Keynote Speaker

And the one that hit me the hardest….

“In boarding school I thought I was the only one who cried when the lights went out. Finding out others cried too is life changing” Ruth Van Reken – Keynote Speaker

There are so many more rich, beautiful quotes, but this gives you a taste of the amazing voices at the conference. It also reminds me that we need to share our words, tell our stories, because when we do we find community and connection. Indeed, in our increasingly divided world, we can’t afford not to.

Note-wherever possible I have attributed the quote to the correct person, but there are a few that I jotted down so quickly that I forgot who it was. I apologize for that oversight!

Now Available and on sale today! Worlds Apart: A Third Culture Kid’s Journey “…a must read for those wanting to build bridges.” Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, American University, Washington, D.C.

Portions of this book were previously released under Passages Through Pakistan.

Normalizing Departure

Published on January 10, 2018January 11, 2018 by Marilyn6 Comments

“…but we also knew what it was like to feel temporary, to keep your eye on the clock, to normalise the inevitability of departure so completely that you didn’t think about it, even though you always thought about it.”

It was six years ago when my mom told me that from age 6 through age 18 I never slept in the same bed more than three months at a time. I don’t even remember what we were talking about, but I do remember the moment she told me. It was like all the fuzzy fog of self accusation that had enveloped me suddenly changed into clear and complete understanding.

It always felt like it was my fault that I didn’t feel like I belonged. If only I tried harder. If only I reached out more. If only I wasn’t so sensitive.

If only….

But with my mom’s revelation, the “if only” suddenly became a “no wonder!” complete with all the emphasis an exclamation mark can give.

No wonder I always felt temporary.

No wonder I got restless every few months, rearranging furniture, changing pictures on the wall, looking for a new job.

No wonder I thought I could feel my inner scream of rebellion when people around me were unwilling to face change.

Our life as third culture kids had rhythms of movement. You never questioned those rhythms, they were like the seasons of the year, and you don’t question seasons of the year. Instead, you meet them and embrace them. Then, just when you’ve grown tired and have had enough of winter, you see the burst of spring through forsythia and daffodils poking through old, grey snow.

Like the seasons, arrivals and departures were normalized. We came, we left, and in between we lived. Our resilience was amazing but along the way we didn’t always face the grief that had collected, didn’t always realize that there were some coping mechanisms that would need to be confronted, things that prevented us from fully engaging in life and people around us.

Deepak Unnikrishnan, an Abu Dhabi based writer, recently wrote an article called “Abu Dhabi: the city where citizenship is not an option.” Other than airport layovers on the way to Pakistan, I’ve never been to Abu Dhabi, yet it’s been a long time since I read an article that so completely described the third culture kid experience; the normalization of movement that others find so difficult to relate to.

Like me, Deepak grew up in a place that was not his ‘passport’ country. There are no long-term options for citizenship in the United Arab Emirates, and so children like Deepak, who then become adults, know that at some point they will leave. They had to have a reason to stay.

“…at 20, with the help of a loan from my parents, I found myself leaving for the US. I don’t recall having a conversation with anyone about how I felt. My parents, like others of their generation, normalised departure. But they didn’t tell us what to do with the memories, or how to archive them.”

Deepak questions the words that are available to those of us who are trained to leave our homes behind. “Expatriate isn’t right. Neither is migrant. And guest worker just feels cold, almost euphemistic” he says.

As I think about this I realize why I continue to hold on to the identity and importance of the term “third culture kid”. Because that is the identity I believe the author is looking for. It is we who are trained to leave our homes behind. It is we who know we won’t stay, we who know we can’t stay. It is we whose memories matter so deeply, whose memories need to be archived so that we can hold on to pieces of place. It is we who continue to embrace this identity, even as we move into more permanent seasons and places in our lives.

As kids we are involuntary transients; as adults sometimes the easiest path to take is to become voluntary transients, procreating involuntary transients along the way. We continue patterns of normalizing arrivals and departures; understanding the sweetness of arrivals and the bitterness of goodbyes. We are expert packers and planners, holding our arrival and departure manifestos in our hearts and heads.

But sometimes, we need to plant our feet solidly into the soil around us and stay a little longer. Sometimes we need to realize it’s okay to write our names in the land of our passport countries, even as we hold on to archived memories to give us strength.

“For most of us, being raised as foreigners meant our stay in [insert country] was free of permanence. For some, a temporary stay meant a year or two; for others, time dragged on indefinitely, but always, always, the time would come to say goodbye. Our parents may have chosen to remain, but we would leave. We were raised to be different, we were raised knowing we wouldn’t stay, knowing that as soon as we finished school we would leave and probably not come back.” Nina Sichel in Unrooted Childhoods

Observations and Thoughts on the Third Culture Kid Perspective

Published on October 19, 2016June 12, 2017 by MarilynLeave a comment

no-single-story-with-tck

I just returned from a two-week trip to Cairo, Egypt where I was invited to speak at five different schools, to five different parent groups, and be a speaker at a youth retreat. I found the research specific literature to be invaluable in assisting me in my talks.

Here are some of my observations from the talks and what I heard from parents and kids:

Differences between parent and kid experience: We know that kids and parents experience the world through different eyes. Tanya Crossman’s recent research that has now been published in a book called Misunderstood is a wonderful resource in talking about these differences. Her points of difference are mainly around identity, connection, and choice. In identity, Tanya writes that children are shaped, and adults are influenced. If you think about a potter creating something, as she is shaping the clay she can turn it into whatever she wants. It can be a bowl, a vase, a container. Once it is shaped, it can’t be changed. It can however be put different places and look different according to where it has been placed. That to me is an excellent visual picture of Tanya’s point. In connection Tanya points out that the kid sees themself primarily as a resident while the parent sees themselves as a visitor. The adult comes in with a “comprehensive connection” to place. Those are two totally different connections and to expect a child to have the same connection and allegiance to their passport country as the parent is not realistic or wise. Lastly, a kid does not have power to choose – nor should they. But that should be taken into account when we think about the difference in experience. Also, parents should not be surprised by their children’s future life choices based on their own choice to raise their kids overseas. For a parent who has raised their kids overseas to make the statement: “I wish you would settle down!” is uniquely unfair. I will be writing more about this as I process it myself.

Recording vs. interpreting an event. Children are excellent recorders of events but not necessarily good interpreters. They will remember what happened really well, but they won’t know why it happened. The strongest example I have heard on this comes from counseling of children after 9/11 in the United States. A child who lost his father would be counseled. The conversation might go like this:

Adult: Can you tell me what happened that day? The day your dad died?

Child: Well, we were late because I didn’t tie my shoes.

Adult: Can you tell me more about that?

Child: Well, Daddy asked me to tie my shoes, but I didn’t obey him. And so then we were late and then Daddy died.

So the child remember that morning as vividly as the day it happened, but they have an interpretation that holds a huge burden. Imagine being 6 years old and thinking that because you didn’t tie your shoes, the twin towers fell and your dad died? So many children can remember things about their families, about conversations, about the what – but they don’t know the why. So it is with third culture kids. They remember that they weren’t doing well in school and that then the family had to leave Dubai. They correlate the two incorrectly, bearing the burden for a family having to leave a country that the whole family loved. This is a critically important concept to understand in any kind of parenting, but add a whole other dimension when location and moving are involved.

Middle schoolers and life story. Dr. Rachel Cason has developed an excellent tool for this age group called Life Story using the image of a boat. The idea is to look at what people see (the sail); what anchors us (the anchor); and what needs to be strengthened because it takes the most beating (the hull). It is an excellent image and I found that it worked well as a concrete visual picture. You can reach out to Rachel here for more information on this tool.

Children are our achilles heel. To hurt a parent, hurt their children. They are the gap in our well-oiled and cared for armor of self-protection. We would far rather go through pain, illness, rejection, goodbyes, cross continent and ocean moves, and more than watch our children go through them. Yet it is so important that we grow in ways that we don’t try to protect them with soft padding, but instead offer them a good foundation and a strong sense of place even when geographic location moves. Guilt does not help, but comfort before consolation does help. Trying to force connections on our kids that they can’t possibly understand is not helpful, but bringing in traditions and stories from our own lives connects them to a bigger story that anchors them.

Different ages = Different stages. At times during this trip I wished I was only speaking to high school seniors or students in their first year of university. Different ages respond completely differently to the term third culture kid and to the researched profile of the TCK. Middle schoolers responded well to the Life Story exercise that Rachel Cason developed, but other things like grief do not necessarily have the same relevance. They need talks and exercises that are concrete and relatable. Seniors in high school on the other hand are beginning to realize that their world will indeed turn upside down – and with that turn, they are beginning to grasp for resources and are thinking about their future destinations.

Some stories are more complicated than others. I love how Tanya Crossman frames the third culture kid research she has done as a perspective rather than a person. There were stories I heard in Cairo that were really complicated. Kids with five different passports and seven different moves by the time they were 14 years old. This differs significantly from my own experience which was really just two countries – the United States and Pakistan – and one passport. These complicated stories don’t have easy answers and the story these kids are experiencing is not the same as mine. It is important to keep in mind the danger of a single story. At every session with parents I spoke about the danger of a single story and used the wonderful quote from Chimamanda Adiche “The problem with stereotypes is not that they are incorrect, but that they are incomplete. No one is a single story.” This quote set the stage for all of my talks. There is no single story in the TCK narrative. Rather, there is a perspective that can strengthen and connect the individual to a bigger story, one person at at time.

The third culture kid is alive and well and we continue to need more research and more stories. I am more convinced than ever before of the need for more stories, more research, and more voices in this conversation. In 2013, the Guardian wrote an article stating that there are over 230 million expatriates all over the world. That number is only growing. Over 3 million people recently viewed a “Where are you from?” meme that I put on the ALOS (A Life Overseas) Facebook page. There are over 8 thousand comments and 14 thousand shares. This is proof of both the complexity and the scope of the third culture kid and global nomad conversation.

It was a gift to be a part of the conversations I had this past week and I will be processing for some time. In the meantime, I am so grateful for the Ruth Van Reken, Tanya Crossman, Rachel Cason, Lois Bushong and so many others whose work I rely on heavily as I continue to learn.

I salute them and so many more of you who continue to make this conversation a priority.

It’s Complicated!

Published on October 11, 2016October 18, 2016 by Marilyn1 Comment

where-are-you-from

For the past week I’ve had the privilege of spending time with third culture kids and their parents. It has been an amazing gift and I have learned so much from the people I’ve met.

Over the weekend, I met a teenager who will be moving on to university next year. As I asked her what she might study, she said she wasn’t sure, but that she loved languages. “That’s great!” I said enthusiastically. “What a gift!” To which she replied “But I only know four languages.”

Wow! I come from a country where most kids don’t begin to learn a second language until well into their teens and move proudly into the world being able to say “Si!” and “Bueno.”

This is only one small example of the rich, diverse life of the global, third culture kid. I am more convinced than ever that this third culture kid world is real, evolving, and complicated. I am also more convinced than ever before of the need to continue expanding the conversation and speaking up for this community.

The picture I’ve included leaves out the most important words to describe all of this: “It’s complicated!”

It’s wonderful and it’s rich and it’s life giving and it’s hard and it’s complicated. I’ll be writing more reflections later, but for now I’ll leave it to the picture.

New Series on Djibouti Jones

Published on May 28, 2013May 28, 2013 by MarilynLeave a comment

Today I’m sending you over to Djibouti Jones where Rachel Pieh Jones launches a series on Third Culture Kids. The most popular posts on Communicating Across Boundaries are overwhelmingly those that process the TCK experience. As an adult third culture kid who raised third culture kids for 11 years, I am deeply connected to the topic. With that in mind I knew many of you would be interested in following this series.

Rachel begins the series with an essay by Ruth E. Van Reken, co-author with David Pollock of Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds. I have included a short excerpt and you can follow the rest at Djibouti Jones. Please weigh in through the comment section of that post!

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Who are third culture kids?

In the late 1950s, Ruth Hill Useem, originator of the third culture kid term, simply called them “children who accompany parents into another culture.” While she did not specifically say so, all those she originally studied were in another culture due to a parent’s career choice, not as immigrants or refugees. Dave Pollock later defined TCKs as those who have “spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture(s).” He then went on to describe them by adding “Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.”

This descriptive phrase seems to be part of where some confusion rests. It is absolutely true that any given TCK or by now adult TCK (ATCK) often personally incorporates various aspects of his or her life experiences into a personal world view, food preferences, or cultural expectations. That’s why many TCKs and ATCKs relate to the metaphor of “being green” that Whitni Thomas describes in her lovely poem “Colors.” There she writes how she feels both yellow and blue in her different worlds but wishes there was a place to “just be green.” Ironically, many TCKs do feel “green” when with others of like experience, as Pollock describes. This is where they don’t have to explain this desire to be both/and rather than being forced to choose an either/or identity. Other TCKs easily understand because many feel the same way, no matter which country their passport says is “home” or which countries they have lived in. But putting various pieces of different cultures together is not the third culture itself, although it is a very common (and wrong) way many describe it. Read more here.

Three Kids out of Five by the pyramids – Cairo was home for 7 years

Popular on Communicating Across Boundaries
Where Is Home for a Third-Culture Kid? (rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com)
Who is it that can tell me who I am? Third Culture Kid drama! (thedisplacednation.com)

Exploring TCK Bigotry

Published on May 21, 2013March 19, 2015 by Marilyn58 Comments

With thanks to Stan Brown for the topic and the wisdom of his response to yesterday’s post….

This one may hurt; may pack a punch and result in a bruise. But bruises heal and scars show that our hearts are alive to pain and growth.

My post yesterday hit several of my nerves – I regretted posting it as soon as I hit publish. But as is often the case when we are honest, others come forward with the same struggles and share wisdom.

It was my brother Stan’s comment that challenged me to look further at prejudice and bigotry in the third culture kid: “There’s a series topic here for you Marilyn: Exploring TCK bigotry……”

Full disclaimer: In this area, among sinners I am chief.

To the non third culture kid – let me explain: Our life circumstances have gifted us with many things — a love of travel, flexibility, a strong identification with others who have lived abroad for extended periods of time, and a world view that extends miles, nations, and borders past our passport countries.

But along with that we struggle with being invisible immigrants – people who look like those who surround them but think so differently that they feel like chickens in the midst of humans, or aliens in the midst of natives. We are those who feel ‘other’. We don’t know the rules and make massive mistakes in our passport countries. We can be arrogant about what we know and insecure about what we don’t know. We are the only ones without a license, without a sense of fashion, without the common language of idioms and pop culture.

And though it’s difficult to voice, we are prone to prejudice and bigotry in our passport countries. This is ironic. That which makes its mark on us with indelible ink and shouts flexibility, adaptability, maturity and fun is suddenly hidden under disdain and inability to relate to those around us. Mark Twain wrote these words years ago – and those of us who are third culture kids love these words:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

Yet what happens when that quote we love turns on us? Like pointing the finger at someone, and suddenly realizing the other fingers point back in our faces? What happens when we take all that life experience — travel, cultural humility established through many years of negotiating cross-cultural interactions, our ability to understand dual causality and be capable of complexity — and turn it into weapons against those who have not traveled?

We become that which we dislike. We become narrow-minded in a reverse way. We become the dictionary definition of a bigot “a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices”.

My faith tradition comes down hard on prejudice and arrogance. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,”*

“That’s simplistic” I want to cry out “It doesn’t take into consideration that this is hard for me, that I struggle with feeling ‘other’ and so out of step with those around me, that this is all I have.” The words above from the Holy Scriptures dance in my head but they need to be imprinted on my heart.

Stan’s comment from above didn’t end there. It goes on and challenges me further:

“So my problem is this and more – I find myself alternating among prejudices depending on where I am geographically. Sometimes I find myself feeling prejudice against my passport countrymen; then against my birth nation; then against my fellow TCK generation and, not surprisingly, mostly then against myself for feeling this way. Thankfully the opposite happens more and more where I find myself rejoicing in the diversity of cultures, appreciation for my passport country, and, again not surprisingly, at peace with myself.”

And hear this for it is critically important to the discussion:

“The degree of my prejudice seems directly related to the amount of direct and personal interaction I have with people of a variety of cultures (listening, learning) or, on the other hand, how much time I spend avoiding such interaction, leading to introspection and bigotry.”

When you sit down and learn about someone, see them as a person and get to know them, it changes the dynamic. I learn that the person who has lived in the same town since childhood went to a Catholic school in a poor area of Boston and tells amazing and humorous stories about the priests and nuns. I learn that a friend with an Irish background grew up in an all Italian neighborhood and learned early on, as she went from house to house eating pasta before finally heading home to her mom’s boiled cabbage dinners, that she liked Italian food better. I learn that someone who has lived in the same town her whole life is a voracious reader and can talk about all kinds of places where I’ve never been with a knowledge far beyond mine.

And I begin to remember – it’s all about relationship. It was the key to loving my adopted countries, it continues to be the key to living in my passport country. As an Adult Third Culture Kid, I’ve had to re-learn the value of relationships, of give and take, of knowing and being known as a fundamental antidote to my TCK bigotry.

The antidote can be summed up like this: When I learn the story of another, when I’m willing to be in relationship, it’s hard to remain a bigot.

What about you? No matter who you are or where you live, prejudice and bigotry can be subtle. Do you struggle with prejudice and if so, what is your antidote?

Take a look at this piece, published in Between Worlds – Essays on Culture and Belonging called “Saudade” – a Word for the Third Culture Kid

*Philippians 2:3

“Saudade” – A Word for the Third Culture Kid

Published on February 7, 2012January 22, 2018 by Marilyn281 Comments

It’s described as a unique word with no equivalent in English. Its origin is Portuguese and it was first used in the 13th Century. It is a longing, a melancholy, a desire for what was. It is “Saudade.”

Many immigrants and refugees search for words that adequately describe the peculiar longing for what they left behind. Not the war and evil that is a relief to escape, but the land, the people, the food – all that encompasses that which is home. Doctors and nurses working with large populations of immigrants and refugees often simply put it down as “depression.”

A health center I know desperately tried to find out through a survey what percentage of their immigrant and refugee patients had depression. The survey was unsuccessful. It did not reflect the narrative that these health care providers were hearing from patients.

One day a woman from Haiti said to them, “Have you ever thought about asking patients if they are homesick?” They looked at her in surprise. No, they had not. With a simple change of a word, they felt they were better able to get to the heart of the feeling. But is it depression? Depression is defined as a “severe despondency and dejection, accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy.” That is not what immigrants are describing.

What they describe are feelings so deep that you can scarcely give words to them. Your throat catches. You experience an intense, but wordless, longing and desire. How do I know this? Because I have experienced it, first hand. What we long to describe is Saudade.

The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness. A. F. G. Bell In Portugal of 1912

Many know that they will never go back to the place where they feel most at home. They realistically accept this, but not without saudade. A Portuguese friend of mine recently told me about her father. He is in his nineties and came to the United States with a large family over fifty years ago. A year ago, he went back to Portugal for what everyone thought would be a short trip. Now over a year later, he is still there. All the years he was in the United States, he experienced saudade. He has returned so he no longer has to experience this intense longing; he is back in a place where he is viscerally at home, in a land that he loves.

Third culture kids often struggle to give voice to their longing. Well aware that they are not from the country or countries where they were raised, they still have all the connections and feelings that represent home. When trying to voice these, others look on with glazed eyes. Just recently, someone said to me, “But you’re not an immigrant! You’re American!” The tone was accusing. It was meant to be. What was unsaid was, “Give it a rest! We know you grew up overseas. Big deal. You’re American and you’re living in America.”

Ah, yes… but I have saudade. I have that longing for something that “does not and cannot exist.” I know that it cannot be. And on my good days, it is well hidden under the culture and costume of which I am now living. But on my more difficult days, it struggles to find voice only to find that explaining is too difficult. Finding the word gives voice to these longings.

I have often been looked at with impatience. “Third culture kids are not that different!” says the skeptic. “We all have times of longing,” but I would argue, gently, that our experience is different. We are neither of one world nor the other, but between. Our earliest memories are shaped by sights, sounds, and smells that we now experience only in brief travels or through movies and television. All of those physical elements that shaped our early forays into this world are of another world. And so we experience saudade. And the simple discovery of a word gives meaning to those feelings, and can validate and heal.

Blogger’s Note: A great way to kill the saudade is to go to the FIGT Conference in Amsterdam in March! Click here for more details!

This essay is published in Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging © Doorlight Publications, July 2014. All rights reserved. No part of this essay may be reproduced without express permission from the author and publisher.

To read more essays like this on third culture kids and living between worlds, go to Amazon.com and purchase the book Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging. Kindle edition is only $3.99!

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It’s funny how the simple act of discovering a word that gives meaning to those feelings can validate and heal. That is what I believe “Saudade” can do for the third culture kid.

For more reading on Third Culture Kids make sure to purchase the book Between Worlds – Essays on Culture and Belonging available July 1, 2014 from Amazon.