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The Tenacity of a TCK mother….
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A little sweet story about my mother: I am currently in Itlay and have rediscovered language barriers. Now that I am much older,19 vs 6, than when I began my TCK journey, the learning of languages seems a bit more foreboding. I emailed my mutti about how inhibited I am not knowing very much Italian and how brave she was to follow my papa around places, not knowing the languages etc. I mean I have lived in several places and am already Bilingual, but she was already 35 when she began going along with my dads moving frenzi and had grown up in the same state her whole life. Moving as an adult seems much more difficult. This response she wrote to me gave me goose pimples. Not only is it sweet but It showed a side of her I had never seen. It is not very eloquantly phrased but still very touching (for me at least, maybe just because she is my mum)
Dear Lauren,
I was thinking about when we first moved to Poing and how intimidating it all was to me. I guess I just forged through and tried my best. There were many many times I cried and was so lonesome for home but God always placed a person in my path that would help me to adjust just a bit more each day. My favorite was when you had just started school before the Christmas break and Alex and I ran into an older woman at the grocery store I think. She asked me if I was American and then she started talking to me in English. She must have been in her late 60’s or early 70’s. She took me home in her car and then got my phone number. She had me over to her apartment one day for coffee and cake and then took me around to show me where things were in Poing. She was a widow and lived in old Poing. I always called her my Poing Angel…I never saw her again. I looked for her but never found her. I learned a lot there. Of course you will too. One of the things I reminded myself of was that the women in Germany weren’t much different that mothers in America. when I saw them doing laundry or shopping or playing with their kids, I always remember that I thought how much alike we all were; just with different languages. I miss those days….I miss having to walk you both to school and kindergarten and I miss learning all the new words and culture.
(Love Mom)
This just made me open my eyes a bit more to see that moving was hard for my brother and I, but also so much for my mom, especially because my father was at work all the time.
Does any one else have any stories to share like this?
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June 13th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Sorry about the poor spacing…I couldn’t figure it out. :-/
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June 14th, 2008 at 1:40 am
I think the problems expatriates have with their mental health is something that has also been ignored by the world. As kids I’m sure you will remember some crazy mum who wasn’t being herself (although we didn’t know it at the time that it was because of her own culture shock and adjustment problems perhaps)…or some crazy dad though we saw less of those. Not crazy as in full-deck crazy but now with hindsight you could see that they were normally healthy people who had some mental problems due to culture shock at the time. I still remember many very racist and narrow minded comments made by moms in the neighborhood that were really not very acceptable in an international community and in extreme cases the Director General himself had to step in and put a stop to it.
Mothers who made such comments probably needed to go see a therapist, but of course such issues weren’t addressed as ‘keeping up appearances’ is so very important in the adult world, as you all know.
This topic just came up in InterNations and was brought up by a German doctor living in Switzerland. He seems to be a well-adjusted individual himself but I’ve seen people getting defensive in his thread saying things like, i.e. it’s only the housewives who have this problem the working males don’t yadayada. Typical. Bury all the problems and maybe they’ll go away.
This however is contrary to what I’ve seen in my working life. I think the ‘working males’ also tend to have mental health problems too from the way they behave at work, but it’s just not as pronounced as the housewife who has been yanked from her home town, had to leave her job behind and planted in some foreign country where she neither speaks the language nor understands the culture…and has kids who tend to drive their parents insane from time to time anyway! :p
I feel that having a mother who is not in top form herself sometimes is the cause of TCK angst.
I think we all have agreed that if the parents support you in a normal way we are able to overcome a lot of things, but where parental support fails totally (often due to mental health problems they themselves were having perhaps), it exacerbates the problems of the TCK.
So perhaps the world opening its eyes up to the mental health problems of expatriates in general would be one step toward making life easier for the next generation of TCKs.
What do you think?
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June 14th, 2008 at 7:06 am
Lauren,
It seems that your mom is a very important person to you and I cherish your thoughtfulness towards your mom. I appreciate sharing the letter with us because when so many times TCKs can see their own problems, they are blind to seeing parents’ struggles. Like Ayako said, parents who have mental health problems would exacerbate the problems of the TCK but at the same time there are also parents who support their children in a normal way. It’s just that the transition into a new place puts them under pressure and challenges and when the struggling TCKs rebel, complain, and drive them insane, it makes their world much harder.
I am really glad you started this thread Lauren because now I wish there were a forum participated by TCKs’ mothers who can discuss their own challenges of moving and expatriating, not to mention family issues.
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June 15th, 2008 at 2:46 am
Oh, moms. I love my mom so much and she means the world to me. She has been my rock in so many situations, though we went through a bit of a rough patch when I was in high school. When I went to college, my mom was all I had since my dad is working abroad. I’ve learned so much more about her, and growing up she wasn’t always “together” like Ayako mentioned. She wasn’t always there for me, and she wasn’t always supportive of me. However, when I went to Finland for a year, my mom gave me a hug good-bye that I’ll never forget. She’d never hugged me so tightly before, and though she would never say it, it told me that she loved me a lot, and was going to miss me.
Ever since I came back, she started to mention little things… Like liking my art, or my music (I played violin). And now that I’ve *for the most part* moved away from home, I called her every day! Well, not now, because I’m in China now, and it’s really expensive to call between the US and here.
*sigh* Thanks for posting this Lauren! It really reminds me how much my mom means to me, and how much she’s been there for me of the past years.
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August 21st, 2008 at 9:27 am
Mum’s are the best.
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