Tag: global nomads

A Trip to the Embassy

by Seth Lewis

I was excited. We’d only lived in Ireland a few months—long enough to begin to feel the reality of deep differences, but not nearly long enough to adjust to them. Our second son had just been born, a different experience in a different medical system, and we needed to register his birth at the United States embassy. American soil, in Ireland. It would be nice to get a little taste of all we’d left behind. A few hours on the motorway got us to Dublin, where we found the US embassy—a big round thing looking out of place on its street-corner, like a landed UFO. Like us. 

To get through the outer wall, we had to go through security. I hadn’t anticipated that, but it made sense, and I knew what to do. On the other side of the metal detector, the ground was American. Even the flowers were red, white, and blue. This was going to be fun.

I opened the door to the UFO, and was immediately struck by the lack of country music. Not even rock. Nothing. Just another security guard, another metal detector, and a sign that said “Please take a number”. A number? I’m not a number, I’m an American! This is my embassy! 

I took a number. White walls and tiles. Uncomfortable chairs. Drop ceiling. I knew there was a ballroom in the building, but no one offered to show it to me. Come to think of it, the room did look familiar. I’d seen this set up before, in America, at the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Social Security Office. 

An embassy is a US government office. I should have known it would look like one. That I would hear several people being refused before I got a turn to hand my number through the thick (bullet proof?) glass and hope I had every form and supporting document exactly right. Somehow I had thought they would be as happy as I was to see another American. I had wanted a taste of things we left behind. I got one.

We walked out past the red, white, and blue flowers and through the security gate. On the other side, the Irish ground felt a little more like home. In the car, I played country music.

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Seth Lewis has lived on the south coast of the Republic of Ireland for the last ten years with his wife Jessica; two of their three children were born there. He works with a network of local churches who are committed to church planting and also assists with a local Bible college and youth camp ministry. Before moving overseas, Seth worked with a church in Virginia. His accent doesn’t really fit anywhere anymore, and he’s okay with that. You can find him online at sethlewis.ie.

How We Get Rootedness Wrong

by Beth Watkins

I had this nagging sense I was doing something wrong.

I had decided to be a missionary. And while that in and of itself didn’t seem simple enough, the idea that I would go to one place, learn the language, be a part of a foreign place, integrate with the lives of people in a new place did. I imagined myself, like the single older ladies in the missionary biographies I read about, gray haired, wearing flowy dresses, with kids and neighbors knowing me and the sincerity in my good intentions. I would grow old in a place that was no longer foreign. This was the dream.

And boy, that dream shattered real fast. Two years in I was booted by state security, persona non-grata, told in no uncertain terms I would not be welcomed back.

The rest of the story goes something like this: moved to South Sudan, was there when war broke out, got married, traveled constantly for work and support raising, moved to Egypt, lived with a mystery sickness that kept worsening, acquired green card for the husband, and returned back to living on American soil just over 6 years after I left.

A whirlwind. That wasn’t what I saw coming at all.

And this whole time I had a sense I was doing something wrong.

This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. This isn’t what is supposed to happen in life. God calls us to relationship, rootedness. He cares about community. He calls us to investment in people and places.

In each move I had a sense I was doing it wrong. Starting all over again, all over again, and now all over again. We were suddenly in our new American city, with no time to figure out where we’d like to settle in the city long-term, where we might possibly want to be rooted here.

And with each move, I cried into my pillow and scribbled in my journal. And now that I have a husband around, I sigh loudly and grumble. What about settledness? What about roots? When do we get to stop making brand new groups of friends? When do we get to stop finding our feet and losing them again? When do we get to feel settled? Stop changing churches? Learning new streets and shops? When do I get to have the same life routine for some sustained period of time?

More than anything I want to know it’s coming. I want to know stability is coming. I want to know we’ll get to buy a forever home, I’ll get to plant fruit trees and bushes that I myself will be able to harvest from in 10, 15, 20 years’ time. That I’ll get to stop proving myself anew in a workplace every 2 years. I want to know that, though life ebbs and flows, I won’t need to start all over with no friends in a place again. I want to feel rooted in church, in vocation, in friendships.

There are seasons in life. Some relationships are short and impact us profoundly. Some relationships are long, some life-long, and they teach us hard lessons about patience, grace, and anger over, and over, and over again. But not all relationships can be forever. I don’t think they’re meant to be. Some roots grow deep, strengthen the soil, and ground tall plants to stand up to difficult conditions. Some roots are pulled from the ground, shaken of their dirt, and provide needed nourishment. We don’t get to choose.

I wanted to be in community forever with the street boys in my desert home. I wanted to watch the girls in South Sudan grow up. I wanted to sit and drink tea and laugh with Mama M on the reg. During these years, I also wanted to have coffee with my sisters, wanted to enjoy Christmas with my Mom, didn’t want to miss being there as my nephew was born, wanted a yard with soil I could fortify and plant in year after year.

I wanted it all, all in the same place. And now I just want to stop. I want to stop and not do it anymore and just stay and that’s it.

And maybe rootedness turns into an idol this way.

Maybe I long for something I’m never meant to have. Maybe I’m supposed to get just a taste, so that I can know it in full and in true when the Kingdom of heaven does come in full on earth as it is promised.

Settling in a place forever is not the ideal. It can’t be. I look to the prophets, to the wanderings of Jesus. The disciples travelling. No matter where we look in the Bible there is a theme of uprootedness. Every biblical character in the Old Testament and the New Testament was at some point a refugee, displaced person, was forced out, had to leave, or flee.

Not that I put myself in the category of extraordinary characters in the Bible, but I find comfort there. So many people for so many reasons had to leave their homes, their people, the places they choose and the places picked for them. Many never got to go back; some did and were rejected.

My experience is very less than exceptional, considering especially that though there were challenging circumstances, I had a choice. I had means and freedom and I was able to go. And I’ve been able to return to my home country with my immigrant husband and have been welcomed back warmly and with the help and support of many. My hurts are quite mild compared to many. My complaints more frivolous than not. My losses modest. I know that. But I also know many people get to pick a place and stay, and my restless heart has felt jealousy.

And when I wonder if I will ever find a place to put in roots and then get to stay, it is freeing, comforting somehow to remember this isn’t the biblical example or ideal.

God doesn’t will forced migrations, wars that people must flee from, or people being forced out of housing they can afford in the form of gentrification or otherwise. And when it is a choice, when we move for work, for safety, for family, or because we feel called, the moving itself is not wrong. Of course it is not wrong. We do our best to do the next right thing. It’s all we can do.

And so, when the corners of my heart, well-versed in self-condemnation, tell me I’ve screwed it all up by moving around so much, I have to banish those voices if possible, ignore them at the very least. So, too, with the hidden corner that whispers to me that I deserve to be in one place, to never be uprooted again, to have the life I dream in my head.

I will take the shaky soil of the place I am now, and call it home. I will hold it neither too loosely, nor too tightly, knowing God has given us space in this world as more than just permanent guests. He takes foreigners and makes them citizens, strangers and makes them family, and we would do well to reconcile the wrongs in this world by doing the same, rooting ourselves in love for our neighbors instead of our own comfort or ideals.

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Beth Watkins spent the last 6 years working in North and Sub-Saharan Africa with street children, refugees, and other vulnerable populations. She is currently settling back in the US with her immigrant husband and writes about living toward the kingdom of God and flailing awkwardly into neighbor-love at iambethwatkins.com, where her free e-book “For the Moments I Feel Faint: Reflections on Fear & Showing Up” is also available. She’s also on Facebook and Twitter.

 

The Far Side of Somewhere

I remember my first home service. All those awkward experiences like drinking water from the tap and flushing the toilet with potable water again. Or feeling naked and exposed with no metal security bars on the windows. Or handing payment to cashiers with two hands (like I do in Cambodia) and then being embarrassed, because normal people don’t do that here.

What was up with the laundry smelling nice, all the time? (Come to think of it, what was up with everything smelling nice, all the time?) Could a load of laundry really take a mere two hours to complete, all the way from wash to wear, without having to hang on the line for two or three days in rainy season and still be damp — and smelling of fire and whatever dish the neighbors last cooked over said fire??

I wanted someone to explain to me why Americans felt the need to store hot water in a tank. Seemed like such a waste of energy when you could use a tankless water heater instead, thereby providing a never-ending source of hot water for yourself. (Running out of hot water in the winter is a big problem for me.)

Today I’m facing another home service. I’ll click publish on this blog post and leave my Cambodia home. I’ll board a plane and begin the process of temporarily re-entering my American home. I need to go. It’s time. After a second two-year stint in this country, culture fatigue has hit me hard. I’m worn out from the collective sin patterns of this culture, and I need a break. I love Cambodia, and I sometimes need a break from Cambodia.

Still, there’s nothing like preparing to go on home service for bringing on an identity crisis. Who am I, and where do I belong? I live in this city and traverse its Asian streets, all without quite belonging to them. Yet I don’t quite belong to the immaculately clean American streets I’ll soon be walking, either. Belonging is a slippery feeling for a global nomad. It can be everywhere, and it can be nowhere, all at the same time.

Nevertheless, when I walk in the door of my parents’ house tomorrow, I know I will once more experience the words of Bernard Cook, words that hung on the walls of every one of my childhood homes: “We need to have people who mean something to us; people to whom we can turn, knowing that being with them is coming home.” Growing up in a military family, I always knew Home was with my family. Home is with the people I love.

And as a Christian, I know Home is with God Himself. I love these words from Christine Hoover’s book From Good to Grace: “With Christ as my city, I can traipse all over the globe and never once not be at home. Because I dwell in His grace.” Christine knows a bit about this unmoored feeling of mine. She and her husband didn’t cross country borders when they moved to Virginia to church plant, but in leaving their home state of Texas to follow God’s leading, they certainly crossed the kind of deep cultural divide that make you wonder where in the world you belong.

I want Christ to be my city. I want to dwell in Him. The best part about finding home and belonging in Him is that He goes with me wherever I go. Psalm 139 is a gift to us global nomads in this regard. In verses 7 through 10, the Psalmist asks:

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

When I moved to Cambodia nearly four years ago, I traveled west across the ocean on a morning flight, literally rising on the wings of the dawn. And when I stepped off the plane in Phnom Penh, I found that not only had God flown the skies with me, but that He was already here in this place — for I cannot flee from His presence. Even on the far side of the sea, He holds me fast. And no matter how deep the depths of my life, I know He is with me.

From now on, wherever I go and no matter which side of the sea I settle on, I will always be on the far side of somewhere I love. There is just no getting around that. But how precious of God to include David’s words in His Word. David could not have known about jet propulsion when he penned Psalm 139, but thousands of years later, his words are a balm to the global nomad’s soul. For we rise on the wings of the dawn, and we settle on the far side of the sea, and because God lives in us, we can find Home in every place He has made.

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10 Ways Teachers Can Support Third Culture Kids

I was talking to the principal of an international school recently, and he had never heard the term “Third Culture Kid” (TCK).

This really surprised me. By now, after more than three decades of research dedicated to understanding the impact of growing up globally mobile, I had assumed that those working with TCKs would at least be familiar with the concept.

Since this conversation, I’ve been thinking about what I want my children’s teachers to understand about TCKs. What are the basics they should know? And how this knowledge could prove helpful to them as they guide these children in the classroom and on the playground?

Key Points About TCKs For Teachers

 

The late Dave Pollock provided a good definition of third culture kids:

“A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The TCK frequently builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background”

The childhood lifestyle of TCKs (one high on cross-cultural experiences and mobility) impacts development patterns, fosters certain character traits, and influences the way these children typically interact with others and form relationships. These characteristics often become more pronounced in older TCKs and on into adulthood (a four-year-old TCK, for example, may seem anything but flexible, mature, and socially competent).

3 Typical Areas Of Strength For TCKs

There is now a significant body of research that identifies some of the typical strengths and areas of challenge associated with growing up in more than one culture. Here are some of the strengths/benefits that the third culture kids often develop over time:

  1. Flexibility/Adaptability

Over time, TCKs learn to blend effectively into new places and adapt to new settings and experiences. Many TCKs become so skilled at doing this that they are akin to chameleons—easily adjusting their dress, language, and style of relating to reflect their surroundings.

  1. Maturity/Perspective

TCKs often seem more mature than their peers–particularly in the ways they interact with adults and how they view the world. Their diversity of life experience tends to broaden their perspective and cure them of black and white thinking at an unusually young age. This, combined with the acute observational skills that help them adapt to new settings, tends to make TCKs skilled at picking up on nuance and seeing more than one side to situations.

  1. Advanced cross-cultural communication skills and general social skills

Third culture kids become practiced at communicating with those from other cultures and backgrounds. When it comes to making friends, they tend to have the ability to form unusually intense connections with others fairly quickly. In part, this tendency to form fast and deep relationships comes about because TCKs often jump straight to talking with others about universal life experiences such as passions, hobbies, family and relationships, rather than trying to connect around more culturally-bound topics such as TV shows and sporting teams.

3 Common Areas Of Challenge For TCKs

  1. Unresolved grief and loss

Dave Pollock once claimed that, “Most TCKs go through more grief experiences by the time they are 20 than mono-cultural individuals do in a lifetime.”

When TCKs move they often leave behind pretty much everything and everyone who has shaped their world—their house, school, friends, church community, relatives, and more. These sorts of massive life upheavals can be particularly tough on children. Children lack the life experiences and sense of time that help enable adults to put moving into perspective. And children often lack the self-awareness and emotional vocabulary to communicate about the impact of these drastic changes.

  1. Inner insecurity

Many TCKs become excellent at adapting and “blending in” where they find themselves—they become practiced at taking their cues on dress, speech, food, and do’s and don’ts from their surroundings. However, other TCKs tend to define their identity through difference—they despair of ever really fitting and choose instead to embrace being different and define an identity around that. Whether TCKs generally “adapt” or “define themselves through difference” this process tends to take effort and come at cost.

Some TCKs never feel completely comfortable, relaxed, or at home anywhere—they must always spend some extra energy monitoring their surrounds to feel like they know how they “should” act.

Some TCKs fail to develop an inner sense of stable values, preferences, and sense of right and wrong.

Some TCKs end up feeling a bit like cultural or social frauds. They know that on the surface they appear to fit in, but they don’t feel that their cultural or social knowledge extends “bone deep”—the way it seems to for true locals or some of their peers.

  1. Real or perceived arrogance

Particularly when they move back to their passport country or to the developed world, TCKs can be perceived as arrogant. Their ability to see things from multiple perspectives can make them impatient and judgmental with others who don’t seem to view the world as broadly. Because of their breadth of life experience, TCKs can also come to view themselves as more cosmopolitan, smarter, and globally aware than others.

However there is also another, more complicated, dimension to this issue of arrogance. Marilyn Gardner puts it like this: “Arrogance is often insecurity by another name. When the third culture kid feels ‘other’ they resort to coping mechanisms. This can come off as profound arrogance and result in exactly the opposite of what they really want – cause further alienation and feelings of being ‘other’ when what is longed for is connection and understanding. This can turn into a vicious cycle for the TCK and needs to be addressed for what it is – a deep insecurity with who they are within the context of their passport culture.”

10 Ways Teachers Can Support Third

10 Ways Teachers Can Support TCKs

 

We’ve just covered three typical strengths and three common areas of challenge for TCKs. There are many others, but since this is a blog post and not a book (for a good book on TCKs click here) let’s move forward and look at things teachers can do to support their TCK students.

I offer these suggestions with great humility. I am a psychologist who specializes in stress, trauma, and resilience. I grew up as a third culture kid. I am the mother of two young third culture kids. However, I am not a teacher. In fact, I often look at the teachers in my son’s preschool classroom with something akin to awe. I’m not quite sure how they manage to stay consistently positive, energetic, and calm in the midst of that chaos, much less implement a strategic teaching program.

Also, all TCKs are different. I don’t pretend that all TCKs would benefit from all of these suggestions. However, I do think that the cyclical uprooting and replanting experiences that shape TCKs (and the resulting personality and social characteristics you see in many TCKs as they mature) suggest that certain types of guidance in the classroom may be particularly helpful for many TCKs.

So, disclaimers aside, here are some specific ways that I think that teachers could help support the TCKs in their care.

  1. When a TCK first arrives in your classroom, pay particular attention to asking them about themselves

Where has the TCK come from? Where have they lived before? What are some things they miss about their old school or home? What are some things they are coming to like about their new school or home?

In the aftermath of an abrupt transition, a TCK can feel that they have lost a large chunk of their identity. Their old life feels like a dream, and their new life can feel exhausting and overwhelming. Some kids go on and on about where they’ve come from (and often alienate other children with these tales). However, particularly for the TCKs who have gone silent about their past, take some time to ask them some questions.

Just by asking and listening you are already supporting your student. Your TCK will feel better understood and cared for because of this interest. However, you can also go a step further and build on your TCKs experiences.

Consider involving your TCK student in teaching others about their passport country or places they’ve previously lived. Design some classroom activities around the customs, geography, or culture of the countries that your TCKs are familiar with and give them a chance to shine (or at least feel some ownership) in front of their peers.

  1. Give them extra time, attention, and help during the first couple of weeks.

New students have to learn the rules of a new school as well as a posse of new teachers and peers. That’s already a daunting task. Your new TCK is also trying to learn a new culture, a new city, and a new house. So pay extra attention to your new TCKs and try to ease the burden of all that extra processing where you can.

Make things explicit. Tell them about the classroom rules and routines. Talk to them about things that you do regularly that they may never have done before (for example, do you say a pledge at the start of the day? Do you sing hymns? Does your child have to join in with these activities or can they pass? What are the procedures about completing and turning in homework, and around discipline?). When you see TCK students looking lost or uncertain, help them understand what’s going on around them.

  1. Try to help them make friends

Having some friends is foundational to most children’s happiness and emotional health, so do what you can to facilitate those social connections for your students. This is particularly essential if your TCKs have come in mid-term or mid-year, after children in your class have already made friends with their peers. Many TCKs may be quite practiced at making friends by the time they are in late high school, but making friends may not come naturally at all for some TCKs, particularly the younger ones. These “socially struggling” TCKs may not join group activities, may prefer to play by themselves, and may come across as withdrawn, uncooperative, depressed, angry, or disruptive.

Help create opportunities for your TCKs to have fun, connect with, and learn about their peers in small-group or one-on-one settings. For older students you could use group or partner work, or get-to-know-you exercises or games to facilitate this. With younger students, consider taking a more active role in how you encourage them to connect with fellow students (and how you encourage fellow students to connect with your new TCK and “share” “co-operate” “practice kindness” and “play well together”).

  1. If your TCK can’t speak the language, do your best to have a translator available

If your TCK student can’t speak the language you teach in, do your best to have a translator close by to help during their early days. Things will be hard enough for your young TCK as they work to learn a new language. They should at least have someone they can ask where the toilets are.

  1. Teach about “identity” “differences” and the “TCK experience”

TCKs can really struggle to form a clear sense of identity. Some TCKs won’t even know which country they’re from or where they were born, much less have internalized these concepts. As an example, my three-year-old has already lived in five houses on three different continents. I’m still trying to persuade him to accept that he has a last name (he often insists that he is “just Dominic”). I have yet to get him to consistently and correctly tell me which country he currently lives in. We haven’t tried to explain the concept of Australian and American passports yet.

You can support your TCKs (particularly your young ones) by designing activities that explore identity—family tree, country and culture of origin, personal likes and dislikes, etc.

Also, if you teach a lot of TCKs then you have a group of students who have come from very diverse backgrounds. The way they see the world (even down to what’s right and wrong, how you handle conflict and anger, what’s honorable and what is shameful) will be different. Explore, acknowledge and celebrate social and cultural and other differences in your teaching. Also, teaching about the term “TCK” the common experiences of TCKs can help TCKs realize that they are not alone. That realization can be very powerful and healing.

  1. Help TCKs understand their host culture

Help orient your TCK by teaching about local traditions, foods, customs and other things related to the country you are in.

  1. Realize that the word “home” may be loaded and confusing

The concept of home is confusing for many TCKs well into adulthood. I spent three years writing my memoir, Love At The Speed Of Email, primarily to untangle that particular word. I know I’m not alone in my deeply felt struggles on this front. Many TCKs are deeply confused about where home is (and what “normal” is) and deeply unsettled by that confusion.

  1. Connect a TCK that is having difficulties with a qualified school counselor and/or extra academic support

Sometimes your struggling TCKs will be obvious—they are the kids who are “acting out”. Their frustration, insecurity, and anger can be very evident. Sometimes, however, a struggling TCK will stay silent, put their heads down, and do their best to disappear. Look out for your TCKs (and other students) who appear isolated from their peers or whose academic work is not on par with their apparent abilities.

Support your TCKs who are struggling academically by connecting them with tutoring resources that can help fill in any gaps in their education (this is often a particular problem in math and science subjects). If your TCK is also struggling emotionally and socially, seeing a school counselor (if there is one) for a season may really help a TCK student in their transition.

  1. Mark the end of the school year and the coming transition—into summer and into the next year.

TCKs go through many transitions, often without much time to process them. You can help your students by recognizing that goodbyes are particularly complicated for most TCKs. Help them with the transition to a new class and teacher at the end of the year by acknowledging this transition as the year concludes. Talk about goodbyes. Share with your students what you have really cherished about the year, allow kids to share what they have enjoyed (or not), and how they feel when they have to say goodbye and move on. Explain what they can expect next year.

  1. Do not waste time arguing with a three year old when they insist they’re in an entirely different country

This may only be applicable to anyone who teaches my eldest TCK, but … don’t waste time arguing with a child who insists they’re in Thailand when they’re actually in Vanuatu.

If such a child refuses to change their mind after two or three exchanges on this topic then they either (a) just need to be right, or (b) they really need to believe they actually are in Thailand during that moment. Either way, speaking from experience, it’s a battle not worth fighting. There will be others that are worth fighting. Trust me.

There is a lot more I could say on this topic, but I want to turn the floor over to you.

What tips do you have for your children’s teachers?

What do you want your kids teachers to know about TCKs?

What have you seen work well to support TCKs in the classroom?

The Tree That Tells Our Story

CTF

My parents came to Cambodia to celebrate the American version of Thanksgiving with us, and they stayed for the traditional setting up of the Christmas tree. After we finished stringing the lights and hanging the ornaments, and the youngest child had placed the heirloom angel from my husband’s childhood on top, we all sat down to admire the tree.

Then all of us, from the sixty-year old Grandpa, right on down to the four-year old baby of the family, shared what we love about Christmas. When we got to my mom, she said, “I love putting the ornaments on the tree because they tell the story of our family.”

It’s true. As a military wife, she can remember both the year she added each ornament, and the place we lived at that time. The ornaments on her tree tell the story of my family of origin, from a newly wedded couple in El Paso, Texas, to brand new parents in Fort Knox, Kentucky, to a growing family in West Germany, and later a university campus in South Dakota and the Kansas Army post at Fort Riley.

The Christmas tree tells the story of my own growing family as well. I remember which Christmas we bought this Santa, or that snowman, or this lighthouse. My kids love to hear the story of each ornament my husband and I bought together, and also the stories behind the ornaments from both my husband’s and my childhoods. Then they beg us to let them put the ornaments on the tree.

And we let them. Their participation sometimes leads to ornaments being bunched on one side, leaving the other side barren. Other ornaments are nearly falling off the branches. But I believe letting our children place those precious ornaments on our tree allows them to claim ownership of their own family history. Our tree is a Memory-Keeper: it holds our memories and reflects our family culture. Like my mom’s before me, our tree is full of life and love. And personality.

So you won’t find a perfectly trimmed tree around our house. The ornaments are mismatched, and sometimes even broken. Their placement is uneven. But to us, it’s beyond beautiful — our Christmas tree is a mosaic of our lives. And that mosaic, orchestrated by God and experienced by us, is beautiful.

Why do I sing the praises of our Christmas tree? Well, we here at A Life Overseas are the global nomads. We are the ones who support global nomads, the ones who dream of being global nomads in the future, the ones whose bodies used to roam the globe and whose hearts still do. And really, it doesn’t matter if you’re not any of those things. In an increasingly mobile world, we all need to ground our stories in something. For me and my family, one of those somethings is our Christmas tree.

Our story is embedded in our Christmas tree. The ornaments tell the story of my family. My question for you, then, is how do you tell the story of your family? Single people, married couples without children, parents, retirees — all of us — need ways to tell our stories.

How do you tell yours?

 

Living Between Worlds – A Post on TCKs

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For as long as I can remember I have lived between worlds.

My first memories of life are from a rooftop in the southern area of Pakistan. The high, flat roof surrounded by walls was a perfect place to keep cool when the hot months came in early May. We slept on rope beds covered in mosquito netting able to feel an almost cool breeze after sundown.

Mosques surrounded our house on all four sides, their minarets stately and tall against the desert sky. While on the inside prayer times and Bibles sustained us, on the outside we were minorities in a Muslim world where the call to prayer echoed out over the city five times a day and ordered the lives of all those around us.

When you grow up between worlds the research on identity formation does not apply in quite the same way. Instead, you move back and forth as one whose identity is being forged and shaped between two, often conflicting, cultures. “A British child taking toddling steps on foreign soil or speaking his or her first words in Chinese with an amah (nanny) has no idea of what it means to be human yet, let alone “British.” He or she simply responds to what is happening in the moment” (Pollock and Van Reken, 2001).

 There is now documented research that identifies some of the strengths and weaknesses that are part of growing up between worlds.

Here are some of the strengths that the third culture kid develops through living between worlds:

Cross-cultural skills

From their early years, third culture kids interact and enjoy ‘difference.’  They often take on various characteristics from the cultures where they have lived. They don’t see difference as good or bad – just different. This gives them a huge advantage in our global world. To be able to interact across cultural values and differences is a gift that is inherent to who they are.

Adaptability

Third culture kids show amazing ability to adapt across cultures. They are as comfortable in a crowded bazaar in a large city in Asia as they are in a pub in England. They blend with seeming ease into whatever setting they are thrown into – as long as it is outside their passport country!

Maturity

Often third culture kids are seen as more mature than their counterparts in their passport countries. They easily interact with adults two and three times their age and can see things from a more mature perspective.

Global view of the world

The worldview of the third culture kid is broad and wide. They often look around a room and think – “am I the only one who sees things this way?” People, governments, cultures, and countries all over the world have shaped them and it is impossible for them to have a one-dimensional worldview.

 Flexibility

The third culture kid has learned how to be flexible and adjust their behavior to fit the situation. This flexibility can be a tremendous gift, particularly in rapidly changing situations.

Bridge-builders

Third culture kids are natural bridge builders. They are often able to see both sides of a situation and help to negotiate a successful outcome or interaction. This is an invaluable skill set and they often look for jobs that will allow them to function in this role.

With every strength comes a weakness and the successful third culture kid learns to recognize their weaknesses.

Some of those include: 

Insecurity

There can be profound feelings of insecurity related to one’s passport culture. The sense of not belonging can come in unexpected places and spaces and result in precarious footing – like you’re on a cliff and one step in the wrong direction could send you hurtling into a place where you will get badly injured. Food, dress, cultural do’s and don’ts can all feel foreign, and with that cause a distrust of one’s ability to navigate

Unresolved grief and loss           

Dave Pollock articulated the profound grief and loss piece of a third culture upbringing in this statement: “Most TCKs go through more grief experiences by the time they are 20 than monocultural individuals do in a lifetime.”There is so much more to say about this, but just know that this grief is real, the losses are real, and with real grief and loss comes the need for real healing.

Arrogance

Arrogance is often insecurity by another name. When the third culture kid feels ‘other’ they resort to coping mechanisms. This can come off as profound arrogance and result in exactly the opposite of what they really want – cause further alienation and feelings of being ‘other’ when what is longed for is connection and understanding.This can turn into a vicious cycle for the TCK and needs to be addressed for what it is – a deep insecurity with who they are within the context of their passport culture.

Difficulty planting roots

When your roots are everywhere, they can feel like they are nowhere. When the third culture kid tries to transition from a global background to a life of less movement it can be unsettling. As much as they may say they want roots, the tug of the airport, the feel of the airplane, the sense of hopeful expectation that comes from travel has been a part of their lives for as long as they can remember. Releasing this and exchanging it for roots is a huge step, and not one that is made easily.

While this is in no way an exhaustive list, it is a good start to recognizing strengths and weaknesses. When we name something, we have more power over it. When I name insecurity, I can address it for what it is. When I admit to grief and loss, I can begin to heal.

So how can you help your third culture kid as they live between worlds? The one you love more than life itself, the one who you’ve heard crying into the night, even as you face your own losses? Much has been written on this and there are some excellent resources available. But here are a couple of thoughts that have recently come up in conversation with other third culture kids. 

Here is what helped us – perhaps it will help the kids you know who are living between worlds. 

Name the losses

Naming the losses, identifying those things they long and grieve for legitimizes their grief. They no longer have to keep these feelings bottled up, dismissing them as unimportant. Naming their losses helps them face and deal with those losses. Naming them begins the important process of healing. Naming the losses can feel disloyal for a third culture kid, particularly if they have a good relationship with their parents. They don’t want to appear ungrateful or hurt their mom and dad. Because of this, it is often best done with a neutral person, one who will not feel hurt by this process.

Express feelings of restlessness

The third culture kid needs to be able to express their restlessness without parents or other loved ones becoming defensive and telling them how lucky they are to be where they are, to have the background they have had. The TCK experience is best captured by the word “Saudade”, a Portuguese word that has no English equivalent. It is an indolent wistfulness for what no longer exists.  “Killing the Saudade” (Another Portuguese phrase) happens when they can get together with like-minded friends and express their restlessness, talk about home or the last place they lived, eat familiar foods, and reconnect with those from their past. Killing the saudade really works. It is an effective tool to address the restlessness and move forward in the places where we are planted.

Journal life events

Some of the fears of the third culture kid is that they will forget; that these places that hold such a big part of their heart and soul will be relegated to distant memories, and soon be gone. Journaling these events, even if they happened long ago, helps to remind the TCK of the gift of a global upbringing. Journaling can help the TCK process thoughts and memories.

Tell their story

As parents, it is easy for us to want to tell the story – but our kids have a story as well, and it is vital that they learn to tell it, that they own their story. If we are the ones hijacking the story, they never learn to take hold of it as their own. Part of their story is connecting their multicultural past to a meaningful present. We can’t do it for them, but we can encourage them along the way, encourage them to develop their own voices, separate from those of parents and siblings, remind them of who they are through their story. When they learn to tell their stories, they are better able to hear the stories of others, to recognize that everyone has a story. 

It is these things that have led me to tell my own story, to write, to reflect, to describe – “my memory may be biased, or relayed in a way that my mom would say ‘that’s not quite the way it happened,’ but it is inalienably mine.”*

This past year I took one more step forward in my journey toward living whole and healthy, one more step in remembering my story. I released a book called Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging. The book is a set of essays on living between and is divided into 7 sections: Home, Identity, Belonging, Airports, Grief & Loss, Culture Clash, and Goodbyes set the stage for individual essays within each section.

My deepest prayer is that somehow, by the grace of God, the book will resonate with others who are living a life between worlds,  so that others can remember their story and know it was worth it.

*From Kebabs in Jalalabad in Between Worlds – Essays on Culture and Belonging

How do you help your children live between worlds? What have you found to help them in this process? How do you help them learn to tell their story? Join us through the comments and the suggestions will be compiled into a future post! 

*************

Between Worlds on Amazon“In Exodus God repeatedly tells the people of Israel to remember their story, to remember their beginning, to remember who they are. Later, exiled in Babylon, unable to return home, they were to remember their stories – stories of wonder and deliverance, of the power of God and His provision. They were to remember their beginnings.” from Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging, July 1st, 2014 Doorlight Publications.

 

 

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Searching for home after a global upbringing

It’s book month on A Life Overseas!! I love books and I’m especially excited to be able to share a little about my latest book, Love At The Speed Of Email, with you today. I’ve got three electronic copies to give away (PDF, MOBI, or EPUB versions available). Find out how to enter below.

Love At The Speed Of Email is a memoir – the story of how I met my husband while he was in Papua New Guinea working for a humanitarian organization and I was in Los Angeles working as a stress management trainer. It’s more than a love story, though, it’s a recounting of my struggle to find an answer to the question “where’s home” after being raised five different countries and then embracing a career that kept me perpetually on the move. I suspect that this struggle to define home is one that those of you who were raised as third culture kids (or who are raising global nomads yourselves) will be all too familiar with.

The section that I’ve chosen to share with you comes from a chapter called Airports and Bookstores. I was twenty-six years old, in Hawaii, and having the time of my life at the first creative writing workshop I’d ever attended when I realized for the first time that I might have a real problem when it came to this concept of home …

***

Borrowing inspiration from the tale of the prodigal son in the Bible, our instructors had told us to write a “coming home” story. We should, we were told, write the prodigal who was us as an adult, coming home to ourselves as a child.

“Pick the clearest recollection you have of home and use that,” they said.

Everyone else reached for a pen or a laptop. I just sat there.

I was still sitting there ten minutes later.

Eventually I went up to the front of the room, to the giant leather-bound book of synonyms that was sitting on a podium, looked up home and wrote down these words: Birthplace. Stability. Dwelling. Hearth. Hearthstone. Refuge. Shelter. Haven. Sanctum.

I went back to my seat and stared past the book of synonyms, past the palm trees standing still under a blanket of midday heat, and out into the hazy blue of an ocean that promised a horizon it never quite delivered.

The list didn’t seem to help much.

Birthplace conjured Vancouver, a city I’d visited only twice, briefly, since we’d left when I was one.

Stability then. Unlike my parents’, not a word that could be applied to my childhood. In stark contrast with their agrarian upbringing, I’d spent an awful lot of my time in airports.

Maybe that was it, I thought, wondering whether the sudden spark I felt at the word airport was a glimmer of inspiration or merely desperation.

There was no denying that as a child I’d thought there was a lot of fun to be had in and around airports. More than one home movie shows me and my sister, Michelle, arranging our stuffed animals and secondhand Barbies in symmetrical rows and lecturing them severely about seat belts and tray tables before offering to serve them drinks. When we were actually in airports, we spent many happy hours collecting luggage carts and returning them to the distribution stands in order to pocket the deposit. We were always very disappointed to find ourselves in those boring socialist airports with free trolleys.

In Hawaii, I was tempted to start writing my story about home but didn’t.

“Your clearest memories of home as a child cannot possibly be in an airport,” I scolded myself, still staring past my laptop and out to the white-laced toss and chop of cerulean. “Home is not a topic that deserves flippancy. Work harder. … What about dwellings and hearths?”

That year my parents were living in the Philippines. My brother was in Sydney. My sister was in Washington, D.C. The bed I could legitimately call mine resided in Indiana. I had lived none of these places except D.C. as a child, and they were such awkward, lonely years that the thought of going back, even in a story, made me squirm. We lived in Washington, D.C., for three and a half years before moving to Zimbabwe, and what I remember most clearly about that time is that I spent much of it reading.

I’ve been in love with reading since before I can remember. Our family photo albums are peppered with photos of me curled up with books – in huts in Bangladesh, on trains in Europe, in the backseat of our car in Zimbabwe.

I can’t remember my parents reading to us before bed, although they swear they often did – sweet tales about poky puppies and confused baby birds looking for their mothers.

“You were insatiable,” Mum said when I asked her about this once. “No matter how many times I read you a book, you always wanted more.”

“Awwww,” I said, envisioning long rainy afternoons curled up with my mother while she read to me. “You must have spent hours reading to me.”

“I did,” my mother said in a tone that let me know she fully expects me to return the favor one day. “But it was never enough. So I taped myself.”

“What?” I asked.

“I got a tape recorder,” she said. “I recorded myself reading a story – I even put these cute little chimes in there so you’d know when to turn the page. Then, sometimes, I sat you down with the tapes.”

“Nice,” I said in a way that let her know that I didn’t think this practice would get her nominated for the motherly hall of fame.

“You loved it,” she said, completely uncowed. “Plus, I needed a break every now and then. You were exhausting. You never stopped asking questions. You asked thirty-seven questions once during a half-hour episode of Lassie. I counted.”

I can’t remember any of this. My earliest memories of reading are solitary, sweaty ones. They are of lying on the cool marble floor of our house in Bangladesh, book in hand, an overhead fan gently stirring the dense heat while I chipped away at frozen applesauce in a small plastic container. But it’s when we moved from Bangladesh to the states when I was nine that my memories of books, just like childhood itself, become clearer.

Of all the moves I’ve made in my life, this was one of the most traumatic. Abruptly encountering the world of the very wealthy after two years of living cheek by jowl with the world of the very poor, I discovered that I didn’t fit readily into either world. My fourth grade classmates in Washington D.C. had no framework for understanding where I had been for the last two years – what it was like to ride to church in a rickshaw pulled by a skinny man on a bicycle, to make a game out of pulling three-inch-long cockroaches out of the sink drain while brushing your teeth at night, or to gaze from the windows of your school bus at other children picking through the corner garbage dumps.

I, in turn, lacked the inclination to rapidly absorb and adopt the rules of this new world, a world where your grasp on preteen fashion, pop culture, and boys all mattered terribly. Possibly I could have compensated for my almost total lack of knowledge in these key areas with lashings of gregarious charm, but at nine I lacked that, too. I was not what you would call a sunny child.

So I read instead. I read desperately.

I read pretty much anything I could get my hands on. One of the few good things I could see about living in the states was the ready availability of books. Some weekends Mum and Dad would take us to the local library’s used-book sale. Books were a quarter each. I had a cardboard box and carte blanche. On those Saturday mornings I was in heaven.

Like many kids, I suspect, I was drawn to stories of outsiders or children persevering against all odds in the face of hardship. I devoured all of C.S. Lewis’ stories of Narnia and adored the novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett, especially the ones featuring little girls who were raised in India before being exiled to face great hardship in Britain. But I also strayed into more adult territory. I trolled our bookshelves and the bookshelves of family friends, and those bookshelves were gold mines for stories about everything from religious persecution to murder, rape, civil war, child brides, and honor killing.

In retrospect, even at eleven I wasn’t reading largely for pleasant diversion, for fun, for the literary equivalent of eating ice cream in the middle of the day. I was extreme-reading – pushing boundaries – looking to be shocked, scared, thrilled, and taught. I was reading to try to figure out how to make sense of pain.

It is entirely possible that had we remained in Australia throughout my childhood, I would still have spent the majority of these preteen years feeling isolated and misunderstood. After all, in the midst of our mobility I never doubted my parents’ love for me or for each other, but this did not forestall an essential loneliness that was very deeply felt. I suspect that I would still have grown into someone who feels compelled to explore the juxtaposition of shadow and light, someone who is drawn to discover what lies in the dark of life and of ourselves. But I also suspect that the shocking extremes presented by life in Bangladesh and America propelled me down this path earlier, and farther, than I may naturally have ventured.

It was largely books that were my early companions on this journey. They were stories of poverty and struggle, injustice and abuse, violence and debauchery, yes. But they were also threaded through with honor and courage, sacrifice and discipline, character and hope.

Many people seem to view “real life” as the gold standard by which to interpret stories, but I don’t think that does novels justice. For me, at least, the relationship between the real and fictional worlds was reciprocal. These books named emotions, pointed to virtue and vice, and led me into a deeper understanding of things I had already witnessed and experienced myself. They also let me try on, like a child playing dress-up, experiences and notions new to me. They acted as maps, mirrors, and magnifying glasses.

In those lonely childhood years, books also provided refuge. They were havens and sanctums.

Did that make them home?

When the writing exercise ended after half an hour and we were invited to share, I’d come up with only two ideas.

Set the scene in a bookstore. Or set it in an airport.

I hadn’t written a single word.

***

Thanks for reading! You can enter to win a copy of Love At The Speed Of Email by leaving a comment below and addressing at least one of the following questions.

  • Where’s home for you?
  • What comes to mind when you hear the word home?
  • If you’re raising third culture kids, how are you addressing this issue with them?
  • Any favorite Bible verses, quotes, or stories to share on this topic?

I’ll pick three winners randomly from the comment list on Saturday the 9th of March and send out an email to the winners. If you don’t win an e-copy and you’d like to read more, or you prefer a paperback copy, Love At The Speed Of Email is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and elsewhere.

Lisa McKay – author, psychologist, sojourner in Laos

Blog: www.lisamckaywriting.com      Books: Love At The Speed Of Email and My Hands Came Away Red