Third Culture Kids

[ZukiSuzuki]

My sister and i grew up as Third Culture Kids, we lived in The United Kingdom, Argentina, and Singapore aswel as our native country of Japan. Personaly i think it was a great thing, i got to understand an learn about different countries and cultures aswel as learning several languages along the way.

However, when i return to Japan i do not have a feeling of being 'at home' infact i do not have that 'roots' thing going on at all.

I spent more of my school days in other countries other than my own, i hold multiple passports and though i own property in Japan i do not believe i will finish my life living there. My sister has adopted London as her home and i believe she will never leave there.

Now i have children i am seriously thinking about the best options for them, should we ensure they get that feeling of 'being at home' or should we bring them up as Third Culture Kids?

Any others out there who grew up as TCK's or any who have TCK's of there own? What are your opinions on the issues of being brought up this way, possitive and negative?

Thanks.

Zuki.

[GuestHouse]

I was brought up as a TCK, moving around several countries with my father's job until settling in the UK for education. Life repeats itself and that is exactly the experience of my wife and our children.

I and my children have dual nationality and I certainly relate to the feeling of not belonging to any one culture more than another. Years ago I was asked at school do I feel more Nationality A than Nationality B - It was to me a really strange question - I fealt A and B plus more than a little of C and D.

However, I am immensely glad to have had the chance to have lived and been educated in the UK - TV members will understand how defensive of the UK I am (despite not having a drop of British blood in me).

One thing I have noticed is that our daughter, much more so than our son, has had more difficulty settling into life back in the UK. She suffered and amount of alienation from other girl pupils. We had a long discussion with the school over this, the consensus between us and the staff being that our daughter's wider life experience was causing some friction. Right at this time when we and the school where trying to come up with a solution, another expatriate family returning to the UK moved into the area, their two daughters came into the school, one in my daughter's class and all of a sudden she had someone who she can relate to.

I was discussing this at work and a colleague (also who had lived with his children around the world) said his daughter had had similar but in truth worse problems, to the point that they had to move their daughter to a fee paying school where a significant number of children where TCKs.

I think on balance we are very happy that our children have had the experience they have had. We are also very happy that they have now settled in to the UK education system and both doing well.

Something we noted about 'expatriate schools' was the high turnover of children, moving in and out of the school as the children's parents where posted in and out of country.

This is something I recall as a difficulty when I was a child, we recognized this as a difficulty our own children were facing hence to move our family home back to the UK so that they can settle into their schools through their teen and exam years.

Edited October 26, 2007 by GuestHouse

[WAERTH]

Yup same here. I am Dutch of origin but when I was 12 we went to Surinam for my fathers work. When I was 16 we came back to the Netherlands and I never felt at home anymore. It was only a short period, 4 years. But in retrospect 4 very important years. My brother was 8 when we moved and 12 when we got back. He never suffered from this.

Back in the Netherlands I had a lot of friction with others in my class because of my totally different experiences. In Surinam I was in a class with every religion conceivable and many totally different cultural backgrounds and I got along great with everyone. Also going on jungletrips etc had made me grow up differently. In Holland I could never find rest anymore inside myself. When I was 25 in 1998 I discovered Thailand and found it to be much like Surinam (culture wise, foodwise, climatewise, corruptionwise ) and I loved my first holiday here. I came back a few more times in a short timespan and quit my job and came here in 1999.

Even though I like it a lot here I am still suffering from the same thing though a lot less. It is still not home. The last time I was home is I guess when I was 12 before we went to Surinam.

The good thing about this is that I learned to adapt myself to every conceivable situation I can stay anywhere. I can befriend everyone, from every cultural background as I have learned that. The bad thing is I do not have any really lifelong friends, though through the internet I have found some old friends recently from Surinam and before Surinam! And another bad thing is sometimes I just want to be home ... but it is never there anymore ... not even the old home back in the Netherlands.

Waerth