Being a TCK is having a restless monster inside of you
Where to begin? Being a TCK is having a restless monster inside of you, waiting to leap out and devour your happiness whenever it pleases. It’s unpredictable, and completely crushing, every time. The number of times I’ve settled into a new environment, a new culture, a new lifestyle; felt confident and happy. Yet there’s always that day or two where nothing can prepare you for the lonely and painful truth: you belong to absolutely nowhere. Your culture is a non-existent one; a jumble of different ideologies and traditions. My dad’s from Zimbabwe and my mum from Belgium. I’m 18 and I’ve moved seven times between the US, Europe and China. I was always put in a French International school.
Yet the French International Schools differed. In London, the school was filled with international French students who had never moved during their adolescence, and if they had, it was from France to the French neighborhoods in London. Not that big a transition. And they were all extremely happy to have had the experience; they were naturally inquisitive and more open to different cultures. Clearly, the move helped them grow.
What shocked me most was when I lived in Hong Kong when I was 14 years old. Most of the people in my year had travelled as much as I had, and I remember going to a party one day where we had a competition on “who has the most scars on their bodies”. One girl even tried to commit suicide that year. They would then proceed in taking ample amounts of drugs and alcohol. Many of my schoolmates suffered from memory loss because of it, and their parents never noticed, because they were too busy devoting themselves to their bank instead of their family. Although I am very close to my family, it wasn’t always that way. When we moved to Hong Kong, my siblings and I waged war against our parents, as we were tired of leaving our friends. But what could they do? Moving around was part of their career. So when that didn’t work, we turned against each other. My sister almost died of anorexia that year, but after a year in the hospital, she recovered. My brother didn’t spend a day without drinking.
Forcing teenagers to move excessively can be exceedingly dangerous. Children can handle it, I think, but teenagers after the second, third, forth or fifth move, can feel extreme anxiety. Although we are all now accomplished, tolerant and educated, I can’t help but ask myself: at what cost?
November 19th, 2007 at 12:29 am
Hey over there, I’m really schocked to see the impact the extensive moving can have on children. Still I believe as parent you have an tremendous influence on the well being of your kids. We as woman experience the same and so we should be able to support our kids in their grief saying good bye to their friends. It can be tiresome but it’s also a challenge.
We only moved our kids from Germany (as infants)to Hongkong and in the age of 8 and 10 we moved to Thailand. The only thing our older daughter faces now is the culture shock back in Europe. I never expected that this can be that big issue.
sabelzim
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November 19th, 2007 at 4:09 am
I’m really sorry for what you’ve experienced and gone through. It must’ve been extremely shocking to have been in that group in Hong Kong….
“Your culture is a non-existent one; a jumble of different ideologies and traditions. ”
I think scattered experiences can lead to confusion, and often to depression. Making sense of our experiences, and uniting all the pieces as a whole, instead of dividing them, can bring a lot of comfort. It’s (almost) like being bilingual, and juggling with different cultures and languages.
I remember reading a rather startling study on BBC that showed that “diversity makes people unhappy”. The study found that people who lived in multi-culturally diverse neighborhood were more unhappy than those who lived in racially or cultural ’sameness’. But how do you define ’sameness’? The argument was that ‘cultural differences’ are misunderstood, and that can bring suspicion, isolation, and even hatred towards others. Instead of celebrating differences, we should celebrate unity (despite our differences). They’ve given the sports example, where different cultures play together in a team. In our case, as TCKs, the problem is when we’re isolated and unable to make sense of those ‘differences’ and scattered experiences. The truth is we aren’t alone, and it is possible to connect those disconnected experiences.
I do agree that parents have a big influence on the effects of transition, and can either make things better or worse…
I think one of the biggest things we must do as an adult TCKs is to deal with the grief. We all travel with things we lost, familiar faces, cultures and languages. Not coming to terms with the losses can often bring resentment for this experience, which is usually directed at our parents. That’s a lot of emotional baggage. We need to let go of that, and make peace with our parents.
Personally, I do feel like I belong somewhere. Sure, I may not belong to any particular cultural group, but once you stay in one place and with a group of people long enough, you do end up belonging there. And for me, that’s with friends and family. I create your own little culture among them.
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November 19th, 2007 at 4:21 am
I totally agree 100% that its sometimes very hard for 3rd culture kids with all the moving and many kids are messed up…. oh yea don’t get me started on boarding schools.. another time
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November 19th, 2007 at 5:43 am
this is an interesting topic…. and it’s an issue all TCKs must face at some point. But I don’t think it’s the norm. I hope that won’t stop sabelzem or other people reading this to raise kids overseas, I’m a TCK and I have no regrets.
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November 19th, 2007 at 6:35 am
sabelzim, I think what’s important to note is that they moved when they were relatively little. The teenagers in HK were just that, teenagers. When your identity is already being questioned at that age, moving excessively between 12 and 18 years old can be very, very hard.
HK was filled with TCKs, whereas there are other international schools that have a majority of international students, without really being TCKs (i.e., have only moved two or three times during their childhood). I don’t know where you went, Jeff, but I think in TCK schools it is the norm, only because I’ve come across a few other TCKs who went to similar environments and who had similar experiences.
Parents have some say, I’m sure, in how their children will develop, but if it’s a poisonous academic environment, I don’t see how they could protect them entirely.
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November 19th, 2007 at 9:08 am
I think a lot of things go together to make it easier or harder for the TCK to cope. My hard time didn’t come until I moved to the States as a young adult. I am not at all shocked by your story, though. The teen years are hard for most people, and when you add the TCK lack of belonging in a particular culture, that just makes everything harder.
By the time I was 19, I had changed countries six times, and although it had only been among three different countries, it was not always to the same kind of place within each country — there is a big difference between rural and urban, for example. So even when I returned to a country where I’d lived before, it was to a different culture than I remembered. I have also been to public schools in two different countries, private schools in two different countries, and homeschool. (The best was homeschool because then I didn’t have to deal with an entirely new school system each time we moved.)
After a few difficult and confused years in the States, I finally figured out where I belong. It is in my family — wherever they might be. No matter if my parents, my brother and I might be each on a different continent — we still have a sense of belonging together and understand each other. We’ve been through the same experiences and we share the same culture, which is our own. No matter where I go and what I do, my brother will have the same shared knowledge, outlook and customs that go together to make a culture. Once I figured out my place within something like a cultural framework, I felt free to be my own crazy self.
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November 19th, 2007 at 9:13 am
I think that moving around has its rewards and drawbacks,as we will all agree. How else would we have so many experiences with new cultures? the schools where I went were international and military,so I had a views of how each behaved. the kids in my dorm in Ankara came from all over the mideast,Africa,Pakistan and other countries. Some of them didn’t see their parents except at holidays. We were a pretty good cross section of teens,some good,some bad. In the 60’s though,none of us were old enough to drink,and would have been shipped stateside if we did!And we had no access to drugs at all. When I moved ot Bangkok,the scene was quite different. Drugs were readily available everywhere,and the kids were a little freer and more sophisticated than in other places I had been.They had access to cars. A lot of them were their because their fathers were in Viet Nam,and saw them every three months. That was our situation. Without dad there to enforce discipline,some of the kids ran wild. I used ot go out to nightclubs,at 18,and order booze. I didn’t,but the opportunity was certainly there. There were stories of wild parties and police being called in. It was far different from living in Turkey. Several kids were arrested for drug possession and sent home,along with their parents. Moving as much as I did made me insecure and prone to panic attacks.I was always the new kid in school,and it was hard to adjust. Some people could deal with the moving,others couldn’t. Looking back,it was a great way to grow up and also a hard way. Thanks to the Internet,I have found groups like this one to talk about the experience and found people who understand.
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November 19th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Note to Sabelzim:
I don’t think parents can control their children’s outlook as much as they would like to think. Hilary Clinton said, “It takes a village to raise a child,” and she was right. It’s hard for the child when that village keeps changing, and each new village has different values and customs. It is a really huge issue.
However, don’t let that discourage you. While growing up this way has its definite disadvantages, it also has several advantages. Personally, I think it’s well worth it. I’d like to raise my own kids in the same way.
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November 19th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
i think it is important to listen to your kids, not just what they say, but observing how they are. not to say every parent will know, but i think it is important parents don’t just think the kids can handle all the change, because some kids can’t.
i was lucky, i didn’t really move during my teen years. i moved between boarding school and home every year, but i only lived between the two. my parents did not move country during that time, so i was able to have my “village” as it were.
boarding school helped me A LOT! most of the students there were tck and it was extremely interational, more so than most international schools. what that did was allow me to live in an environment during those important years where being tck was considered normal. that helped a great deal. i had friends whose parents continued to move while they were at school but let their kids finish in the same school, i found this helped a lot them, because even though technically they were moving, they didn’t have to change schools, make new friends etc.
so, like everything else in life, i reckon it is a delicate balance that differs from family to family. it sucks that someone had to have such a negative experience, and this is when i get kind of annoyed that the whole tck phenomenon is not as well known because i think part of the difficulty of it all is having these completely valid feelings but not knowing how to deal with them, not having a name for them.
but like other tcks, mine was majority positive and will always be happier for it.
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November 19th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Warona, I agree with you that the whole TCK thing should be better known, and people who are tcks should be told that they are and that their experience i.e. their feelings and so forth are healthy and normal. What a difference it can make to know that you are normal!
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