ATCK’s: What kind of a relationship do you have with your parents?
I would be curious to hear how other ATCK’s relate to their parents? I almost feel uncomfortable talking about personal stuff with my mother, which makes our relationship sort of shallow. And I am wondering if the reason is my experiences as a child and the constant feeling of abandonment. I feel very uncomfortable when I am being hugged by my mom and I almost feel like saying “you didn’t care for me back then, why should I care for you now” or “you just keep contact with me because you like to be able to come stay with me in other countries”. I couldn’t say that my relationship with her is a bad one, it’s just, I am excluding her from my life. What kind of relationship do you have with your parents?
October 28th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I totally empathize. I also sometimes wonder what planet my parents come from, and experience a similar emotional distance from them, since they never seemed to understand what I was going through growing up — assuring me that “I certainly did just fit in” with all my mono (American) cousins and classmates, when I did not — assuring me that all my transition grief was just me exaggerating and being overly emotional about nothing — etc. (According to them, all my “real friends and family” and all the people who “really understood” me were to be found in the United States, which to me was just something stamped on my passport.) Even after I was repatriated, and got my mom to read a bunch of the TCK literature, her response was, “Oh, now I understand. You’re a TCK. But you’re really an American, right?”
Just have to keep in mind that for many of us, our parents are just another couple of monoculturals, who cannot see from our point of view.
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October 29th, 2008 at 8:55 am
I am convinced my parents were the poster children of how to raise TCK’s. As a result I have always been very close to them, but also very independant. However, this did not protect me from many of the pitfalls of being a TCK, and like many, wish tckid.com exsisted when I was in my 20’s. Even though I and all of my siblings are well into adulthood, upon learning about TCK’s and the resulting problems we may have, my parents immediately bought Ruth’s book.
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October 29th, 2008 at 8:56 am
The worst one possible… living in their basement.
All TCKs have issues with their parents, not because they are TCKS. Human nature…
I do have to admit that parents end up with the better end of the schtick, simply because they were the ones who benefited from dragging their children around like luggage and nt having to worry about being a TCK.
Do expect some sort of blowout with parents. The TCK part of you probably doesn’t even care. It’s the child inside of you who is concerned at this point.
Good luck.
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November 27th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Wow…such sad stories. Things haven’t been perfect for me either. Sometimes I don’t understand myself at all. I grew up in the US most of my life…but I love to travel and have lived overseas in several countries.
I’m back in the US now…but I don’t feel like I belong here. I want to go and live and work overseas again…but I don’t want to make a wrong decision…I mean when I was overseas, I didn’t really feel like I necessarily “belonged there” either. So moving overseas may not be the right choice either! I just don’t know where my home is…I feel like I don’t really fit in anywhere.
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November 27th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Well I guess I’m better off than some but not as well off as others.
We don’t talk often, and when we do it’s often about money. Though at least the money is usually flowing in the other direction than seems typical. If loans within the family could affect your credit records… The family as a whole seems to have enough money for whatever we want to do, it’s just never distributed in the right ways and we’re always looking for funding for that next little adventure.
Other than that, we see each other at major holidays or the yearly reunion. I have a real conversation with my parents maybe once a week or two, my brothers once a month or so. Good relations, we’d all drop everything and go if one of us needed support, but we hardly know each other as people everything is based around the abstract (to us) concept that family is important.
Just today for instance, Thanksgiving for those who celebrate, I realized I hadn’t seen my brother Ted in a while and went looking for him. The phone number was disconnected and there was someone else living in his apartment. I had to go ask complete strangers at his favorite bar how to find him. And he only lived forty five minutes down the road. Fortunately I found him eventually, but if you’ll excuse me he’s raiding the liquor cabinet and I need to protect the scotch.
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