Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds

by David C. Pollock

  Community’s Response

  Of course, we must not forget that this entry stage is a bit uncomfortable for members of our new community as well, although they may have been eagerly anticipating our arrival. Before we came, everyone’s roles were clear. Relationships—whether positive or negative—were established. Life functioned without explanation. We show up, and life changes for them too. Now everything seems to need an explanation. They also have to adjust their social order at least slightly to help us find our way in. In the end, however, people in the community begin to remember our names, include us in the events going on, realize we are here to stay rather than simply visit, and start to make room for us in their world.

  REINVOLVEMENT STAGE

  Our Response

  And then the day finally comes. The light at the end of the proverbial tunnel is that in any transition, cross-cultural or not, a final, recognized stage of reinvolvement is possible. Although there have been Moments of wondering if it will ever happen, given enough time and a genuine willingness to adapt, we will once again become part of the permanent community. We accept our new place, role, and community. We may not be native to that community, but we can ultimately belong. We have a sense of intimacy, a feeling that our presence matters to this group. We feel secure. Time again feels present and permanent as we focus on the here and now rather than hoping for the future or constantly reminiscing about the past.

  Community Response

  Others in the community again see us as part of the group. Once more, people hear our name and instantly picture our face and form. They know our reputation, history, talents, tastes, interests, and where we fit in the political and social network. They let us in on the news of the day, ask our opinion, and count on us for community events. Yes, it’s a great place to be!

  This is the normal process of transition. Knowing about the various stages doesn’t keep them from happening, but it does help us to not be surprised by what happens at each stage, to recognize we are normal, and to be in a position to make the choices that allow us to gain from the new experiences we encounter while dealing productively with the inevitable losses of any transition experience.

  Why the TCK Experience Increases Intensity of Normal Transition

  Just as TCKs learn culture in the same ways others do, they are also as capable as anyone else of navigating their way through these stages of transition and being enriched by them. Some seem to almost soar through these cycles, no matter how frequently they occur. Other TCKs and ATCKs appear to lose their bearings in the midst of so much mobility. So what makes this such a varying experience for TCKs? We believe there are several factors that intensify the various normal dynamics of the transition experience when they occur in the context of the third culture lifestyle.

  Psychologist Frances White says, “Because of the nature of their work, [third culture families] are particularly vulnerable to separations. They experience not only the . . . Usual share of situational separations faced by the world at large but also a number of partings idiosyncratic to their profession.”4 In other words, because of the very nature of international living, TCKs undergo chronic cycles of mobility far more often than the population at large. That means they also go through the transition cycle with greater frequency. Some globally nomadic families make international moves every two years or less, and their TCKs may chronically move from entry to leaving stages without knowing the physical or emotional comfort and stability of involvement, let alone reinvolvement.

  The reality is that with every transition, there is loss even when there is ultimate gain. No matter how much we anticipate the future as good, we almost always leave something of value behind as well. In loss, there is grief. An important thing to remember is that grief during transition is not a negation of the past. It is actually an affirmation of where we have been, geographically or relationally, because we do not grieve for things or people we don’t love. The more we have loved, the deeper the sense of loss. Grief doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t move ahead to the new or that the next stage won’t be great. It simply means that leaving things we have enjoyed—the people and places we have loved, the stages of life that have been good—is hard.

  Any grief, both big and small, begins a well-defined process described by the late Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. She explained how we express grief through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.5 In a way, it’s a transition process within the overall transition experience. The intensity of this process is, of course, related to the intensity of the loss. What it also means for TCKs and their families is that there are multiple and repetitive cycles of loss and grief.

  Notice that we don’t always go through these stages in a linear fashion. Pam Davis, a counselor who works extensively with third culture families, developed the model shown in Figure 5-1 to demonstrate the often circular patterns of the grief cycle. The grieving process doesn’t follow a clean path from one stage to the next. That’s one reason transition can become quite complicated for families. Not only is everyone in the family going through the overall transition process at different rates, but each person may also be at a different stage of this grief cycle within that larger journey on any given day. One day it seems everyone is finally “well-adjusted,” while the next day anger erupts at the slightest provocation. This uneven process can leave us wondering if we will ever make it through or what is wrong with us or those around us.

  Second, TCKs not only go through the transition process more often than most people, but usually their moves mean changing cultures as well as places. This increases the degree of impact from that experience as the issues related to what is commonly referred to as culture shock or culture stress are piled on top of the normal stress of any transition.

  When we consider these two factors alone, it’s not hard to see why repeated cycles of mobility can lead to repetitive losses and the normal, ensuing grief those losses generate. It’s not hard to imagine that changing cultures and cultural rules can make it more difficult or take longer to go through the transition phase to the true entry and reinvolvement stages. But why is unresolved grief such a major challenge for so many TCKS and ATCKs we have met?

  Figure 5-1 The Grief Wheel

  (© 2003 Pamela Davis. Used by permission.)

  Ironically, while there is no single reason unresolved grief is a major—and often unrecognized—factor for countless TCKs and ATCKs, many of them experience this grief because of the very richness of their lives. As we said earlier, we only grieve when we lose people or things we love or that matter greatly to us, and most TCKs have a great deal they love about their experience of growing up among worlds. They have not only seen so many places, but often they have made countless friends in each of these places who come from a wide variety of backgrounds and are living the life common to them all. For all the cultural complexity many have experienced, this very way of being part of the “many” is a fact they love.

  Reasons for Unresolved Grief

  FEAR OF DENYING THE GOOD

  It seems that some TCKs believe that acknowledging any pain in their past will negate the many joys they have known. To admit how sad it was to leave Grandma in the home country feels like a denial of how glad they were to return to their friends in the host country. To say it was hard to leave the village where they grew up might mean they don’t appreciate all the effort relatives in the passport country have gone to in preparing for their return. Learning to live with the great mystery of paradox—that life is not always an either/or scenario—is an imperative lesson for TCKs and all in their families and communities. Until any of us learns that seemingly opposite realities can be mutually embraced, we are left with no choice but to deny either the joy or the pain. If we deny the joy, we are left with the pain only—and that’s not a good place to be. If we deny the pain, it may seem for a while it is only joy, but, in time, refusing to deal with the pain of loss will come out in other ways. It’s not easy to live in this paradox while it is happ
ening, but it is vitally important for TCKs and those with whom they are close to remember that mourning a loss doesn’t mean the mourner isn’t recognizing the good in the present and future.

  HIDDEN LOSSES

  Everyone’s life is filled with the tangible and intangible. What is it that makes a house a home? Surely it is more than the furniture or the color of the rug. Yet the tangibles are part of the intangible. The old fading recliner reminds us of Grandma and when we sat on her lap listening to her read us stories. We see the chair and feel a twinge of nostalgia for days that are no more, but we are comforted by the smells of her cooking and the sound of her bright laughter. In that Moment, the tangible and intangible mix and we know we are home.

  Though third culture kids have a wealth of tangible and intangible realities that give their lives meaning, many of the worlds they have known are far away. Therefore, what they loved and lost in each transition remains invisible to others and often unnamed by themselves. Such losses create a special challenge. Hidden or unnamed losses most often are unrecognized, and therefore the TCK’s grief for them is also unrecognized—and unresolved. It’s hard to mourn appropriately without defining the loss.

  These hidden losses also are recurring ones. The exact loss may not repeat itself, but the same types of loss happen again and again, and the unresolved grief accumulates. These hidden losses vary from large to small.

  Loss of their world. With one plane ride the whole world as TCKs have known it can die. Every important place they’ve been, every tree climbed, pet owned, and virtually every close friend they’ve made are gone with the closing of the airplane door. The sights and smells of the market, waves of people walking, darting between honking cars as they cross the streets, store signs written in the local language—everything that feels so familiar and “home” are also gone. TCKs don’t lose one thing at a time; they lose everything at once. And there’s no funeral. In fact, there’s no time or space to grieve, because tomorrow they’ll be sightseeing in Bangkok as well as four other exciting places before arriving at Grandma’s house to see relatives who are eagerly awaiting their return. Or, if they’re sad to leave friends and family in their passport country, they’ll soon be caught up in the busyness of adjusting to a new land and finding new friends. How can they be sad? Remember, as they move from one world to another, this type of loss occurs over and over.

  Loss of status. With that plane ride also comes a loss of status. Whether in their passport or host country, many TCKs have settled in enough to establish a place of significance for themselves. They know where they belong in the current scene and are recognized for who they are and what they can contribute. Then suddenly not only their world but also their place in it is gone. As they travel back and forth between home and host country, this loss is repeated.

  Loss of lifestyle. Whether it’s biking down rutty paths to the open-air market, taking a ferry to school, buying favorite goodies at the commissary or PX, or having dependable access to electricity and water—all familiar habits can change overnight. Suddenly, traffic is too heavy for bike riding and stuffy buses carry everyone to school. Local stores don’t have the items you want, while your electricity and water can go off for three days at a time. All the comfortable patterns of daily living are gone, and with it the sense of security and competency that are so vital to us all. These are major losses, and they happen more than once. Definitely, a sense of cultural balance is lost.

  Loss of possessions. This loss doesn’t refer to possessions of monetary value, but to the loss of things that connect TCKs to their past and, again, their security. Because of weight limits on airplanes, favorite toys are sold. Tree houses remain nested in the foliage waiting for the next attaché’s family. Evacuations during political crises mean all possessions are left behind. And so it goes.

  At one conference, TCKs were asked to name some of their hidden losses. All sorts of answers popped up.

  “My country” (meaning the host country).

  “Separation from my siblings because of boarding school.”

  “My dog.”

  “My history.”

  “My tree.”

  “My place in the community.”

  “Our dishes.”

  Dishes? Why that?

  “We’d lived in Venezuela the whole 18 years since I’d been born. I felt so sad as I watched my parents sell our furniture. But when we got back to England and my Mom unpacked, I suddenly realized she hadn’t even brought our dishes. I said, ‘Mum, how could you do that? Why didn’t you bring them?’ she replied, ‘They were cracked, and it’s easier to buy new ones here.’ she didn’t understand those were the dishes we’d used whenever my friends came over, for our family meals, for everything. They were not replaceable because they held our family history.”

  The lack of opportunity to take most personal possessions from one place to another is one of the differences in international mobility compared with mobility inside a particular country. If someone moves from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, usually a mover comes, loads up the furniture and dishes along with everything else, and drives the truck to the new home. Although the house and city are different, at least familiar pictures can be hung on the wall, the favorite recliner can be placed in the living room, and some sense of connectedness to the past remains.

  In international and intercontinental moves, however, shipping the entire household is often impossible. Shipping costs much more than the furniture is worth. Instructions come from the organization (or parents) to keep only those possessions that can fit into a suitcase. Many things are too big or bulky to pack. It becomes simpler and more efficient and economical to start over again with new things at the next place.

  Loss of relationships. Not only do many people constantly come and go in the TCKs’ world, but among these chronically disrupted relationships are those that are core relationships in life—the ones between parent and child as well as with siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Dad or Mom may go to sea for six months. Grandparents and other extended family members aren’t merely a town or state away—they’re an ocean away. Education choices such as boarding school or staying in the home country for high school can create major patterns of separation for families when the children are still young. Many TCKs who returned to their home countries for secondary school grew up as strangers to their brothers and sisters who remained with their parents in the host country during those same years.

  Until Ruth Van Reken was thirty-nine and started writing the journal that turned into Letters Never Sent (the story of her own TCK journey), she had no idea that the day her parents and siblings returned to Nigeria for four years and left her in the United States was the day her family—as she had always known it—died. Never again did all six children live with two parents as a family unit for any extended period of time. As she wrote, Ruth allowed herself to experience for the first time the grief of that Moment twenty-six years before—a grief almost as deep as she would have experienced had she gotten a phone call that her family had been killed in a car wreck.

  Loss of role models. In the same way we “catch” culture almost instinctively from those around us, we also learn what to expect at upcoming stages of life by observing and interacting with people already in those stages.

  In a gathering of older ATCKs, we again asked the question, “What are your hidden losses?” One gentleman answered, “Role models.” He had only recently realized that during his 12 years in a boarding school from ages 6 to 18, he had not had a model for a father who was involved in his family’s life. Although he was a successful businessman, he had been married and divorced four times and was estranged from his adult children.

  From our role models, we decide what and who we want to be like when we become adults. Additionally, peer role models may not be present in the lives of TCKs. The delayed adolescent response often noted in TCKs may be the result of that fact. While living overseas as teenagers they aren’t around peers and slightly older adoles
cents, such as college or the career-beginning age group, from their passport culture, so they are deprived of role models for young adulthood.

  Loss of system identity. As mentioned before, many TCKs grow up within the friendly (or unfriendly as a few might say) confines of a strong sponsoring organizational structure, which becomes part of their identity. They have instant recognition as a member of this group. Then at age 21 the commissary card is cut up, the support for education stops, invitations to organizational functions cease, and they are on their own as “adults.” TCKs understand this change and probably maintain personal friends within the original system, but their sense of loss of no longer being part of that system is real. In fact, some TCKs have told us that this “graduation to adulthood” felt like their own families disowned them.

  Loss of the past that wasn’t. Some TCKs feel deep grief over what they see as the irretrievable losses of their childhood. ATCKs from the pre-jet set days remember the graduation ceremony parents couldn’t attend because they were a continent away. Other TCKs wish they could have gone to school in their native language. Some regret that they had to return to their passport country with their parents; they wanted to stay in the host country.