Always Home: Studies Show That Expat Kids Are Among The Most Adaptable In The World
NEWSWEEK
by Barbie Nadeau
Updated: 2:21 PM ET Oct 29, 2007
When he was 4, Michael Portegies-Zwart asked his mother, Carolyn, the question that all parents dread: “Where do I come from?” But instead of reaching for the anatomy books, she pulled out the atlas. “[I’m] from the United States, your father is from Holland and you were born in Vienna,” she explained. The young boy looked at her quizzically. “Yeah, but where am I from?” he pressed. She shrugged, not quite knowing how to respond. Three years later, the family moved to Rome for his father’s job with the United Nations. After living there for nine years and attending international schools, Michael, now 19, finally figured out the answer: “I’m from the world,” he says.
Portegies-Zwart is part of a burgeoning community of nomadic kids who are growing up globally. Called third-culture kids–or TCKs–these children of diplomats, aid workers, missionaries, military personnel, journalists, academics and business executives are being raised in a culture that lies somewhere between their parents’ native one (the first culture) and that of the country where they are based (the second culture). Unlike immigrant children, they have no intention of staying long in the host country; expat families are transferred as often as every two years. And many TCKs live in privileged situations, with subsidized housing and private schooling, creating a distance between them and neighborhood youth. As a result, TCKs tend to integrate well, but never fully penetrate the local culture.
Increasingly, they are finding comfort in numbers. Global changes–an increase in humanitarian-aid programs, the expansion of multinational corporations, larger embassy staffs and ongoing military activity–are steadily increasing the number of expatriate families. American passports issued in foreign countries have nearly doubled in the last decade, from 3.6 million to more than 7 million. The number of British citizens who live abroad has also risen, from 8.6 million to more than 14 million since 1992. A host of new books and Web sites have popped up recently to serve this growing population and their children, beginning in 2000 with David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken’s popular guide “Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds.” A recent book by Germans Hilly van Swol-Ulbrich and Bettina Kaltenhuser called “When Abroad–Do as the Local Children Do” targets 8- to 12-year-olds and covers everything from re-patriation to saying goodbye to old friends. The Web site Expat-Moms.com deals with specific issues like how to tell the kids you’re moving again, and ExpatExpert.com talks about integration and socialization as well as culture shock, grieving and being unable to see grandparents.
All the attention is prompting a dramatic shift in how third-culture kids are perceived. Once thought of as oddball nomads or spoiled dilettantes, children of expats are now more widely viewed as savvy and accomplished sophisticates who are comfortable anywhere. They may grow up playing in the Amazonian jungle or commuting to school on Tokyo’s crowded subways. In Rome, which hosts two sets of international embassies (to Italy and to the Vatican) and three U.N. organizations, thousands of third-culture kids zip around on mopeds and play soccer in the piazzas alongside the locals. Most TCKs have firsthand knowledge of everything from world geography and cuisine to high culture and international politics. They learn local languages quickly, are precociously comfortable with adults and mix effortlessly with people of all ethnic backgrounds, says Pollock. All in all they possess an adaptability and a broad-mindedness that is valued more than ever in today’s borderless world. “They have much more than a textbook understanding of global culture,” says Brigida Randa, a family therapist and guidance counselor at St. Stephens School in Rome, where the majority of the students are TCKs. “What they know best is how to adapt to transition and change.”
That knowledge is increasingly translating into successful careers. A recent study showed that 70 percent of Americans who grew up overseas reached higher levels of education and were employed in higher-ranking professions than their peers at home. Two thirds chose to travel or live overseas. Nearly 90 percent of all third-culture kids earn at least a bachelor’s degree, and their international upbringings make them among the most highly skilled students on campus. No wonder top universities are actively recruiting TCKs; an informal survey of all the international schools in Rome shows that now every graduating class sends kids to universities like Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford and Stanford. Ten years ago that was an anomaly, says Michael Brouse, director of external affairs at St. Stephens School.
Still, many TCKs never stop feeling like vagabonds. When they return to their “home” or passport country, a place where they generally spend summer holidays, they often feel out of sync. According to Pollock’s guide, third-culture kids may be well versed in foreign affairs, but they tend not to have a very patriotic view of home. In a recent survey by the University of Michigan, 90 percent of international TCKs say they can’t relate to their home-country peers. Having missed out on pop-culture trends, and even the latest hit television shows, they are lacking a vital social link. For Adrian Weisell, 21, who grew up in Rome, the toughest part of attending college in Ohio was adapting to sophomoric American attitudes. While 18-year-olds in Italy are treated as adults and have been drinking wine for years, he says, his Midwestern peers were heavily focused on circumventing the legal drinking age. When Michael Portegies-Zwart’s younger sister, Nicole, chose to attend university back in the United States, she found the differences jarring. “I’ve adopted the Italian culture; I don’t really feel American,” she says, in perfect American English. “I’m used to kissing people on both cheeks when I see them. In the States everyone just hugs.”
Forging an identity becomes more complicated. “When you ask these kids where they are from, they always respond with a question,” says counselor Randa, who grew up in America with a Sicilian father. “They ask: ‘Do you mean where I was born or where I live now? Do you mean where my passport is from?’ ” She believes TCKs are among the most adaptable, empathetic group of people around, but that parents are critical to helping them feel grounded. “Family time is much more important to these kids than to those living in their own country,” she says. “The physical home must often represent the entire home country and culture.”
More and more employers are recognizing the importance of keeping their expats’ children happy, too. Author van Swol-Ulbrich runs CONSULTus, a German firm specializing in expatriate integration. She says that if kids don’t adapt to the host culture, it can make life miserable for the whole family–as well as the employer. In one case, she says, the son of a star overseas employee is having such a hard time with the local German culture that the mother wants to take him back home to the United States. But that is the exception rather than the rule. “I feel very lucky,” says Nicole Portegies-Zwart. “Sure, it’s a weird life sometimes, but that’s just the way we are. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.” In today’s global marketplace, growing up in a third culture means always feeling at home.
Source: URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/62886
August 20th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Nice find, Jan. I’m glad Newsweek is covering this.
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August 20th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Thanks for posting this, Jan.
“They have much more than a textbook understanding of global culture,” says Brigida Randa < —This for example is something people really fail to understand. They also don’t understand that some of the TCKs understanding of his passport country is likely to be something close to ‘textbook understanding’ or understanding from an archaeological perspective rather than the understanding of a native.
I could never participate in a Focus Group (if I were being honest) where they’re trying to find insights about Japanese consumers. However, I’m sure I could provide a better analysis of this than most other researchers.
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August 20th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
hahaha totally not surprising.
this is why no matter how difficult being a TCK gets, I still wouldn’t give it up for anything in the world.
but um…quoting this part in the article…
“but that parents are critical to helping them feel grounded. “Family time is much more important to these kids than to those living in their own country,” she says. “The physical home must often represent the entire home country and culture.”
ummm…i reli reli dunt think this is true cuz like, why do we need more family time? just so we can feel rooted? I hate it when others think TCKs need to feel rooted and their family need to ground them or reinforce home culture on them. I hate to say but if that’s what family time is for then I DON’T WANT ANY!
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August 21st, 2008 at 1:32 am
mmmmmm: I think you do have a point there. I think many parents misinterpret ‘family time’ and think it’s just a means of ‘correcting’/'brainwashing’ the kid to conform to the behavior of their passport country or using it to ‘keep an eye’ on their kid.
No kid will appreciate being ‘commanded’ to sit in the living room with their parents for a fixed amount of time when they’re not even talking to each other or the child is just being lectured to about how wrong minded he/she is.
It’s not the quantity but the quality of time one spends with the family. I personally think the child would benefit much more from understanding and reasonable parents who can accept the differences in their children with an open mind, while being there help the child perhaps slightly modify his/her behavior slightly if needed.
The reality is that later on in life when you’re trying to grapple with highly structured things like job hunting - that’s when you will need words of advice from your parents. They need to be there to answer your questions when you need them to - not to tell you to change things that don’t necessarily need to be changed.
Expats parents also need to stay in touch with their home culture and KEEP CURRENT. It does no good to their children to keep them grounded in 80s American culture for example when it’s already 2008!
Things change….even ‘back home’.
Examples of helpful parental behavior:
A parent who helps their child do the necessary research when applying to universities and helping the child fill out his/her applications.
A parent who helps their child make a list of pros and cons of the career/university the child has chosen (at the time) and is willing to discuss it instead of dictating what the child should do instead.
A parent who the child feels he/she can talk to or go to in times of trouble. Is it really a good idea for the child to think he/she needs to hide real problems from his/her parent so that they are the last to know? I can see this only making a small problem bigger.
In the end, doesn’t this kind of a scenario allow the parents to achieve what they want more too?
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August 21st, 2008 at 6:34 am
I have a question- the article says that TCKs are different from immigrants in that they don’t intend to live permanently in their host country. In my case, when we moved to Europe, we did so permanently because of political turmoil in my home country. However, I can’t relate to the typical immigrant here in Spain because I was 16 when I came here and had already lived in 2 other countries, my parents are highly educated, we live comfortably, and I don’t feel at all pressured to imitate Spaniards (like I’ve seen a lot of immigrants do) because there’s no feeling of inferiority: in fact, I’ve had a more priviledged upbringing than the great majority of Spanish people. So I don’t think that being an immigrant and being a TCK are mutually exclusive- it just depends on each person’s particular situation.
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August 21st, 2008 at 7:24 am
Anoutsider: If I’m not mistaken many TCKs do adapt to their host culture and run into culture shock when they repatriate. Repatriation is often a dreadful thing for many TCKs.
Hence, not feeling pressurized to imitate Spaniards is not necessarily a TCK attribute.
So the dilemma is more about being something different from what they are officially in terms of passport and genetics and not being able to provide the excuse that they are immigrants or foreigners because their ‘hardware’ is right and their ’software’ is all wrong.
“Your father and mother are [insert nationality]. Of course you are [insert nationality]. There is no reason why you can’t perfectly behave like everyone else!”
I don’t think mono-cultural people are this unreasonable with foreigners. Foreigners and immigrants are given a little more slack.
That said, depending on the immigrant and TCK, I am sure some share very similar experiences and attributes.
For example some of my childhood friends DID immigrate, rather than repatriate. So they are immigrants who are living in the US. They fit the TCK description in some senses but they are immigrants nonetheless and hence were spared the sordid saga of repatriation.
I have to say they are much happier than the ones who repatriated and in general have more successful careers than the ones who did repatriate because they didn’t have this problem with culture or language standing in the way of their career plans.
My childhood friends who immigrated surely cannot relate to the average immigrant either, because like you they come from a different socioeconomic class than the vast majority of immigrants.
These childhood friends of mine also cannot relate to the ones who repatriated. We share common memories as children but our adult lives diverged into two paths and beyond high school graduation we have little in common.
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August 21st, 2008 at 8:00 am
Repatriation is often where problems lie, its an assimilation thing. Most people feel like they can’t assimilate to their own culture because it is supposed to just BE their culture.
The thing with immigrating to the United States is that if you have the TCK experience, it is perheps easier to be professionally successful in the United States than in any other country. The United States has many large multinational companies in which it is easier to rise in the ranks if you are a TCK because
1. You probably know a language that not many American’s know or to a proficiency that not many American’s have acheived
2. You know how to adapt to different cultures and interact respectfully with people from different cultures
3. You know how to “think outside the box”
4. You don’t have as many roots and are willing to travel outside of the country for work.
etc.
In the US more than in most other cultures, this translates to prestige, power, big bucks, and lots of travel to wherever your work takes you. Sounds fantastic to me! Keep the TCK dream alive!
I know I could not be nearly as professionally successful in my birth country (England) as I can in the US.
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August 21st, 2008 at 8:12 am
Hi Ayako,
Interesting point. But I do think that, in general, TCKs and expats feel less pressured to fit in than poorer immigrants. You live in Spain, right? If a poor worker from Romania were to speak no Spanish after 5 years of residency in Spain, I’m sure that people would hold it against him for not wanting to integrate. However, there are plenty of retired Brits or American expats that can’t say a sentence right after the same amount of time and no one thinks anything of it…They are perceived as being of “higher status” and thus spared.
When I lived in the US, I went to a so-called “global school” where about 30% of the student population were sons and daughters of foreign scholars researching or studying at the local university. In this opportunity, most foreign kids would quickly pick up the language and the American way of life. But then again, most of the kids at the school were Americans.
At my international school in Spain, things were very different. Our school was only 1/3 Spaniards and most of them hung around together and didn’t bother much with the international part of the school. Most of the foreign kids in my school, especially the Americans (not trying to offend anyone- just a reality I observed), spoke very little Spanish (even the bright ones and after years of residing in Spain), lived exclusively in the areas surrounding the school, and knew practically nothing about what went on in Spain outside of the expat community. Even so, and this is the funny thing, a lot of my American friends who bitched about being here all the time and could not speak a sentence Spanish for the life of them felt totally out of place when they moved back to the US for college.
So, you are right, a lot of TCKs DO adopt the home country’s way of life—I did, when I lived in the US, because the culture was much more attractive to me than Spanish culture and also because I was younger and more receptive. But not all do, especially when it comes to American business and military people. In some cities with American schools and large numbers of expats, it is very easy to live in a bubble. However, not assimilating the host country’s culture doesn’t mean that repatriation is easy—the shock can be even greater if you were expecting to finally be at home and you find out that you no longer belong.
I haven’t repatriated, but I still experience something similar to reverse culture shock every day of my life. I think that if I don´t want to assimilate Spanish culture, it is because it reminds me a lot of my native culture (Latin American) as opposed to the culture in which I was immersed as a child and did assimilate (Anglo-Saxon). However, I still don’t completely fit in with American kids…It’s complicated, I guess.
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August 21st, 2008 at 11:07 am
Anoutsider: It depends on the age of the TCK. I moved to an American community (international but American nonetheless) when I was two years old. My sister was born in that community. I think your example refers to much older children who already have a sense of national identity.
As an adult living in Spain my status is an expatriate. If I had moved to Spain at the age of 40 I would not have been a TCK or even a CCK. My being a TCK has nothing to do with my current residence.
By the way people do hold not speaking Spanish very well against me. They have this very nice mentality here that although Japanese is a barbaric language that no Spaniard could possibly ever learn, everyone should speak Spanish - the only really civilized language in the world. And by the way the Chinese and Japanese even speak the same language according to them. They are shocked when I tell them I speak Spanish to Chinese people in Spain…and however badly we speak it it’s much better than trying to communicate via Chinese or Japanese.
I’m getting a bit tired of repeating this over and over again sometimes to the same people who forget or don’t want to believe it and ask again…
The problem with repatriation is that you find you are bound to a country - the only country where you can work and live without having to get some impossible work permit - and well, you don’t even speak the language in some cases or understand the culture.
In a way, the ‘repatriated’ Japanese or Korean etc. is in a similar situation to an immigrant who has been uprooted from country X and planted in country Y. I guess that’s why they are also called ‘hidden immigrants’.
They are legally bound to a country where they are not very well-versed in either the culture or language in some cases.
What would be different is that the Japanese or Korean would be treated as part of the mainstream race and treated as a cultural outcast or some ‘betrayer of the country’, whereas the immigrant would not be treated as part of the mainstream race and treated as an outsider culturally and racially.
Now that I’m in Spain my current status is quite different from an immigrant. They can work - I can’t! I can leave, they can’t
I’m merely a ‘guest’ in Spain. I don’t have to learn the language and why should I try too hard, if I can’t ever work here?
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August 21st, 2008 at 11:09 am
Addendum: Oh, yes and when you’re a hidden immigrant your parents somehow forget that you are a hidden immigrant and therefore have no clue you are having similar problems to REAL immigrants.
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