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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

My relationship with my parents, well I think its fine. I don't know much about my dad, he's always working. Our relationship is more superficial-mostly about me and my career. As for my mom, well we are very close, I tell her (almost) everything.

However, when I was younger this was another story, I never liked my mom and my dad well, he has always been working but I liked him. My mom told me that I used to blame her for taking me away from my grandparents. When I was really little I used to spend a lot of time with my grandparents.

I cannot really complain about the way things are because at least I know that my parents support me. Basically, my family is like all I really have the only people I haven't lost.

Wow. I've been very lucky because I have a very close relationship with my parents. But when I was in my 20s, especially late 20s, I went through a time when it was a bit too close...clingy. I found it really hard to become independent and be my own person. After I read the TCK book I realized I was going through a period of late adolescence.

I was emotionally totally dependent on my mom (and dad), and to a degree, she also couldn't let go of me (I could be wrong, but that's how it felt at the time). I think it was a combination of the TCK factor and personality. For a long time mom was a foreigner in dad's country (and dad didn't understand that this could be hard), so mom's only joy was her kids (unnecessary extra emotional bond there). Then the family moved around and so the family was the only constant support that I had (my clingyness developing here). Plus, the personality of my mom and I.

But things have changed. I dealt with the emotional issues I had. Got healed of fear of abandonment, etc. Now we have a healthy relationship. So it might have just been a problem on my part, or maybe sometimes it only takes one party in the relationship to get healed in order for the whole relationship to be healed.

To Peter - I don't know how you're feeling now, but you got me a bit worried there. I know exactly how alone it can feel. I struggled a lot with loneliness and feeling like I couldn't integrate up until August when I had a pretty awesome healing session (I suppose you could call it grieving session if that makes more sense to you). I had an extremely hard time making friends. And I was at the end of my tether. But I then I read the article that Brice sent me with that first email we get. And something hit me. And I just cried and cried as the grief of...exclusion(?) or losing friends(?) left me. And it completely changed my heart and it's changed my relationship with people around me. (I'll try to write more some time later, but for now, I just want you to know that you're not alone on this.)

My relationship with my parents is strange. We've been through a lot together, alone.

I feel perpetually indebted to them.

My parents were amazingly immature when they got married. Traveling as much as they did made it hard for age-old knowledge and wisdom of the various societies we came into contact with to really influence them at all... all the wisdom our family had growing up was what we gleaned from our parents who were pretty much abandoned by their parents... So a lot of problems we had to deal with were solely due to my parents not knowing any better and fearing outside involvement...

Oh I don't know, I'm talking too much. I need a cigarette.

Dijana,

Were our parents cut from the same mold??!

I struggle with the double feeling all the time!

I love my parents because they are my parents but I also hate them for not thinking about what I need as a child not as merely one of their appendages.

For years I carried an immense amount of anger toward them and I felt guilty because they were my parents and I was SUPPOSED to love them unconditionally. Eventually I turned the anger in on myself and have struggled with depression all through high school and college.

Strangely, I did reach out to my mom for help with my depression and she completely ignored me and instead got angry and said that I was being selfish because what did I have to be depressed about sine I had a life of privilege with private schools, music lessons, frequent vacations, etc. It made me feel even worse.

I remember bawling my eyes out about how alone I felt and how I was really hurting because I wasn't close to anyone and felt that I didn't have anywhere to belong and my mom just couldn't understand.

I have no relationship just like others have said. My mom occasionally pays for plane tickets and/or sends me money, but that's it. And now that I'm getting older and I'm starting to have a job I need her less and less. Everyone just thinks I'm a horrible person, and that I'm selfish for not staying with her now that she has somewhat settled down. They just don't understand any of this.

I have absolutely no relationship with my parents, just with their bank accounts (like aradhana).
And I have had people mad at me saying "how can you not love your parents? they are your parent! you HAVE to love them!"

Well I just cant. I dont hate them, but i will never be able to love them.

They forced me to hide my feelings(the negative ones anyways).And got angry at me if i wasnt happy with whatever they decided to do.
When they dragged me to china from europe it was a HUGE change for me, i just got used to living in Hungary and BAM, i get a phonecall one day from my mom saying "pack your bags we're moving to china."

i had a miserable time, no friends, i cried every night,. and once i told my parents how hard this is for me and they wudnt listen. my mom slapped me! She said
"how can you not appretiate the sacrifeses we make for you! you HAVE to love it! you are going to be happy!"

i do appretiate the education they are giving me what i hated was the fact that they had no idea they were giving it to me, they sacrificed ME to get the life THEY wanted...they get to say that they are doing something for me without even knowing what it is...Me and my parents are living two completely different lives.we are experiencing completely different things.

by the way i do feel much better after five years of living here, and i always appretiated the cultures and everything, but i completely cut my parents our of my heart and mind, they are just here to give me money. I dont talk to them, i dont tell them how i feel, there is just numbness...I can forgive them for the hitting, and yelling, i can forgive them for aking my life inn hungary away...but i will never forgive them for not treating me as a real person with real feelings, i will never forgive them for not being there for me or even TRYING to listen,
It doesnt make me sad anymore...or even angry..i got used to it, i dont care anymore. I think if i cared, the pain could killl me. But like I said..only numbness now...

I am creating my own family, and will continue to do so thruout life. I have met other tck's who i can talk with. and my teachers at my international lschool are like parents to me. whenever i do good on a test, i go and brag to them and they are proud of me. my parents dont give a crap if i get 100% or fail...
The best feeling in the world to me is when my teachers or some adult i know tells me that they are proud of me.it really is.it makes me all teary...my parents have NEVER said such a thing to me.eever.

Kristina, I can relate to you!
Until some years ago I was also always trying to live up to what I thought were my mom's expectations.
After I found out about TCK, I've been more capable of "dropping" this weight, because I'm learning that I have to live MY life the way *I* want. Or else I'll never be happy.

I also started sharing and opening up more to my mom. The funny thing is that it started when I was far from her, traveling in Canada. I wrote her emails talking about my feelings, venting. And then when I came back she said she loved my emails and so I kept on talking to her about my feelings.
I think she doesn't understand (and sometimes even agree with) half of what I say. But when I ask about it she says "I just love to listen to whatever you have to say, tell me everything you want". (she's always very desperate for love and attention)

Well, just wanted to say that I know how you guys feel. I hope you can solve whatever is in your way (like I did) so that you can get closer to them (if that's what you want).

I have almost no relationship with my parents. To a certain degree they are very much strangers to me.


My parents are divorced and while I was following my mom I rarely saw my dad. It's even strange calling him "dad". I just call him by his last name like everyone esle does.

My mom an I have a " business" relationship. Whenever I go to my mom, her immediate response is "how can we fix this and move on". Our relationship is very "solution" oriented rather an emotionally bonded one.

Having gone off to boarding school really didn't do much to help the relationship. My mom and I became even more distant. We missed out on the "normal" mother daughter relationship fighting about cerfews, having "the talk" about boys, and so on.

I think I had a much closer relationship with their bank accounts. I had learned that they were emotionally unreliable but they could be counted on to write a check for something.

Yeah I kinda have an estranged relationship with my parents as well. They can't seem to understand what kind of pain, the moving around life caused me, that I have basically no friends and a lot of my dreams and talents went to waste. At school I did know a lot of people (but couldn't always connect), however now that I finished school, I am living all alone and basically know no one. It's pretty sad that wherever I go, even if I lived in the place before, I don't know anyone...

I find I almost try to live up to expectations (real or imagined) from my childhood, even though I am a 37 year old woman. Things like highlighting going to church (my parents are now-retired missionaries), keeping to safe topics (like avoiding talking about my rebellious teen years...and really solving what caused them, even after all these years) and generally wanting to be this wonderful family.

Don't get me wrong, I do have a caring family, but I'm wondering (like you) if its like I don't want to share too much of my life b/c of the whole abandonment issue "thing". And my husband and I were also "there" for them when they retired and that was rough, b/c I also felt there was a sorta "you weren't there for me,(in college, when I had nowhere to go during holidays...I felt like such a "clinger")but now you want me to be there for you?".

Great topic, btw, relationships with parents are usually difficult anyway, but when you throw in all the cross-cultural moves and changing relationships, it really messes with the mind! :)