Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds

by David C. Pollock

  Effects of Cycles of Multiple losses on Relationships

  While many TCKs jump into relationships with both feet, others approach any new relationship with caution. In a 1986 survey of 300 ATCKs, 40 percent of the respondents said they struggled with a fear of intimacy because of the fear of loss.5 Too many close friends have moved away. Frequent, painful good-byes make some TCKs unwilling to risk emotional involvement again.

  Often these TCKs are labeled as quiet or shy. They never take available opportunities to be deeply engaged in their schools or communities. Even TCKs who are regarded as gregarious, open, and friendly because of their skill at jumping into the second and third levels of communication often refuse to move on to the fourth and fifth levels of true intimacy. They manage to erect walls, usually without realizing it, to keep out anyone trying to come closer.

  When Fiona became engaged to Jack, she couldn’t believe that someone would actually be with her for the rest of her life, so she prepared for what seemed the inevitable loss by presuming Jack would have a fatal car wreck before their marriage. When that didn’t happen, she feared it would happen on their honeymoon. After safely returning from their honeymoon, Fiona worried whenever Jack was a few minutes late coming home from work. On their first anniversary, he was over two hours late due to an electrical failure in the mass transportation system. By the time he got home, she had started crying with an “I knew it would happen” despair, had begun to plan his funeral, and wondered how long you had to be married before you didn’t need to return the wedding gifts.

  Although Jack is living to this day, for a long time after the wedding Fiona couldn’t understand why she always seemed to fuss over insignificant details—like whose turn it was to take out the garbage—just when she and Jack felt especially close. She finally realized that deep inside such closeness terrified her because she still feared losing it. Fussing was her way to keep up a wall of safety. Fiona had been losing people she loved dearly since first separating from her parents at age six when she left for boarding school, and it took a long time for her to let her guard down and dare to believe Jack would be staying.

  As we saw in our discussion on the stages of transition, people try to protect themselves from the pain of losing a precious, or at least valued, relationship in various ways. TCKs are no different. Here are three common ways it happens.

  1. Refusing to care.. Some try to limit their vulnerability to impending grief by refusing to acknowledge they care for anyone or anything. In the end, however, they know a pain of loneliness far greater than the one from which they are running. The independence they have been so proud of turns into a profound isolation that keeps them prisoner until the day they become willing to once more feel the pain of loss in order to know the joy of closeness.

  2. Quick release. A second common response for people trying to avoid the pain of losing a relationship is called the “quick release.” This is a form of the “leaning away” we discussed in chapter 5 as part of the leaving stage of transition. When friends are about to leave, or when TCKs think they themselves might be leaving, their response is frequently to let go too soon. Friends stop calling each other and don’t visit, play together, or go out for lunch. Each wonders what he or she did to upset the other one. A “quick release” also happens at points when some kind of temporary separation is about to occur. Many ATCKs talk of how easily they have an argument with a spouse the night before one of them is leaving for a short business trip the next day—an unconscious attempt to protect against loss based on past patterns rather than the reality of the Moment.

  Some ATCKs who themselves have commonly used anger as part of their quick release (or had it used by those they were separating from) may see any type of anger as a precursor to separation and emotionally detach at the first sign of it.

  Garth and his new bride had their first argument. He told us later, “I knew right then she was going to leave me.” inside, he went stone cold toward her. Let her leave. I don’t care. I don’t know why I married her anyway, he thought. When he finally realized his wife had no intention of leaving, he began to think through his reaction and what had happened. He remembered frequent arguments with his parents just before he left for boarding school, probably each of them unconsciously trying to make the leaving easier. Garth began to realize that because of that previous pattern, he made automatic assumptions that any conflict meant the impending loss of a relationship.

  3. Emotional flattening.. Refusing to feel the pain is another common response of TCKs to the multiple losses due to the high mobility of their lives. Even when TCKs feel intensely about leaving a friend or relative, some refuse to acknowledge the hurt to others or themselves. It’s almost as if they will themselves to be emotionally flat—feeling neither great joy nor great pain. They say they don’t like messy good-byes and, in fact, refuse to say them. Becky and Mary Ann were two ATCKs caught in this pattern.

  Becky and Mary Ann met at a Global Nomads International Conference. For both of them, this was the first time they had consciously reflected on how their pasts as TCKs had affected them. Each had basked in the joy of discovering another person who understood her deep, inner, secret places. They had laughed together, cried together, and talked incessantly. Suddenly the conference was over, and that inevitable Moment of saying good-bye had come.

  Becky and Mary Ann stood by the elevator as Mary Ann prepared to leave for the airport. Chances were great they would never see each other again; they lived an ocean apart. As they looked at one another, each knew she had let the other into a space usually kept off limits. What did they do now?

  After a brief, uncomfortable stare, both broke into wry smiles of understanding.

  “So what do we say?” Becky asked first.

  “I guess there’s not much to say but the usual,” and Mary Ann paused, bent her right arm up so the palm of her hand faced Becky. Like a windshield wiper making one sweep across the windscreen, Mary Ann moved her forearm from left to right while saying “Byyee.”

  “I guess you’re right, Mary Ann. So Byyee,” and Becky mirrored the perfunctory farewell wave Mary Ann had just made.

  Then they laughed. For some, this might have seemed an incredibly cold way to say good-bye after they had shared their lives so intensely. For them, however, it was a Moment of recognition, of understanding how each had learned to avoid painful farewells. They simply didn’t acknowledge them! but, in another way, it also represented the sum of all they had shared that needed no verbal explanation.

  Unfortunately, however, not all who exercise the protective mechanism of emotional flattening realize it as poignantly as Mary Ann and Becky did at their Moment of parting. Even more unfortunately, this flat emotional response can be transferred from avoiding the pain of farewells to all areas of life. Sometimes what is praised as confidence and independence among TCKs may actually be a form of detachment. In his book Your Inner Child of the Past, psychiatrist Hugh Missildine cites the work of John Bowlby and says that whenever there is a prolonged loss of relationship between parent and child, for whatever reason, children go through grief, despair, and, finally, detachment as they try to cope with that loss.6 Historically, many TCKs have known profound separation from their parents at an early age when they went to boarding schools around the age of six. While this practice has changed markedly and relatively few TCKs leave home this early anymore, attachment can still be a huge issue for the ATCKs who did leave home at a young age. In addition to going away for schooling, however, the chronicity of separating so repeatedly from friends and other relatives can lead to a habit of detachment for many TCKs, whether they went to boarding school or not. They simply refuse to let themselves care about or need anyone again. The sad thing is, when pain is shut down, so is the capacity to feel or express joy.

  This detachment response can be devastating in a marriage. The ATCK’s partner feels rejected because there are too few external demonstrations of love from the ATCK. Conversely, no matter how many romantic
gestures are offered to the ATCK, nothing seems to spark a warm response.

  It can be equally painful for the child of such an ATCK. Some ATCK parents seem genuinely unable to delight openly in the pure joy of having a child, of watching that child grow, of playing games together, or of reading stories at bedtime. Not only do the children miss the warmth and approval they long for, but the ATCK parent also loses out on one of the richest relationships possible in life.

  On the other hand, however, we have seen how TCKs who learn to deal in healthy ways with the cycle of relationships they face become richer for it. They do, in fact, have a wealth of experiences to share and rich diversity among those they have met, and they have every possibility for making truly deep friendships that last across the years and miles. As TCKs become skilled at going through the process of transition in the healthy ways we discuss in later chapters, they can learn to enjoy each relationship they have, whether it be a long- or short-term friendship. Because all people lose relationships at one time or another, they can share the transitional skills they’ve learned for themselves to help others cope during their life transitions as well.

  Lessons from the TCK Petri Dish

  Again, many of these patterns appear in the TCK experience not primarily because they are TCKs, but because they are human beings who are all in the process of negotiating relationships and connections with others—and trying to protect themselves from being hurt. For other CCKs and people of all backgrounds, taking a look inside this petri dish will hopefully open the discussion for how the multiple layering of cross-cultural relationships and the growing complexity of our world in general affect our relationships in these and other ways.

  CHAPTER 11

  Developmental Issues

  Sometimes I think the cement of my being was taken from one cultural mould before it was cured and forced into other moulds one after the other, retaining bits of the form of each but producing a finished sculpture that fit into none. At other times I think of myself like the fish we caught [while we were] snorkelling off Wewak. My basic shape camouflages itself in the colours of whatever surroundings I find myself in. I am adept at playing the appropriate roles. But do I have a colour of my own apart from those I appropriate? if I cease to play any role would I be transparent? to mix metaphors, if I peeled away the layers of the roles I adopt would I find nothing at the centre? Am I after all an onion—nothing but the sum of my layers?1

  —Sophia Morton

  IN HER POWERFUL ESSAY “LET US POSSESS ONE WORLD,” Sophia reflects on the basic questions that TCKs (and all others) must ultimately answer: Who am I? What does it mean to be human, and what does it mean to be this particular human—me?

  Developing Personal Identity

  In 1984, Sharon Willmer, an ATCK and therapist for TCKs, spoke at a conference about TCK issues and said that one of the greatest challenges she found among her TCK clients was that few of them had any idea what it meant to be a person. During her talk, Sharon explained how every person—regardless of race, nationality, background, economic status, educational experience or lack thereof—is a relational, emotional, intellectual, creative, physical, volitional, and spiritual being. At birth, before a Moment of cultural influence, these are the baselines of what it means to be human. Figure 11-1 illustrates this concept using the iceberg analogy introduced earlier.

  Because of this, every person has specific, legitimate needs.2 These include the need for strong relationships: a sense of belonging, of being nurtured and cared for, of internal unity, of significance, of being able to make meaningful choices, and a feeling of knowing ourselves and being known by others. Every human also has the need to express in some way these emotional, creative, intellectual, volitional, and spiritual aspects of his or her being. These needs are what define us as human, and to deny any of them is to deny something precious and important about ourselves. Part of cultural training is teaching us socially acceptable ways to have these needs met. Furthermore, it is the specific mix and manner in which we meet or express these universal needs that lead to our sense of unique, personal identity.

  So why is finding that sense of identity such a particular problem for TCKs? Obviously, this is an important issue for non-TCKs as well. At first glance, it may seem that finding a sense of identity is difficult for TCKs simply because of all the cultural or national confusion we’ve talked about: “Am I an Austrian or a Brazilian?” “Do I fit better in a village setting or a mansion?” But having a strong sense of who we are is more than just knowing our nationality or culture, though that is part of it. It’s a matter of answering these questions: Who am I as this person? What are my gifts? Strengths? Weaknesses? Where do I fit or belong? We seek answers to these questions in any culture.

  Figure 11-1 The Expanded Iceberg

  (© 2006 Ruth E. Van Reken)

  But challenges to personal identity also come from another unlikely source for TCKs. As we said in chapter 6, in matters related to a global awareness or interacting with adults, TCKs often seem far older than their years. In relationships with peers in their passport cultures, they often seem quite immature. People often tell them, “I can’t believe you’re only 14 [or whatever age]. You seem much older.” Equally often (and probably behind their backs), these same people marvel at the TCKs’ lack of sophistication or social skills. TCKs feel this discrepancy too and soon begin to wonder which person they really are: the competent, capable, mature self or the bungling, insecure, immature self? That’s part of the problem in trying to figure out who they are; in many ways they’re both. We call this uneven maturity. Why is this such a common issue for many TCKs?

  Uneven Maturity

  Before we can understand why TCKs seem to face such an uneven task to moving into true maturity, let’s stop and remind ourselves of some fundamental developmental tasks we all face on our path from infancy to adulthood. Figure 11-2 gives us some clue of how and why it develops.

  Figure 11-2 Uneven Maturity for TCKs

  (© 2008 Barbara H. Knuckles)

  When we look at this model, we see five emotional and psychological developmental tasks every child must go through to move in a relatively smooth manner from dependent infant to a mature, responsible adult. As we can also see from this grid, there are some aspects of the TCK lifestyle that may accelerate the normal process and other places where the same experience can slow it down a bit. We’ll look at the normal stages first and then at some of the factors for the early maturity, as well as the delayed adolescence that is often characteristic of many TCKs.

  Developmental Tasks

  From birth, children of every race, color, creed, or background begin to perform various developmental tasks. They move from rolling over to sitting, crawling, standing, walking, and, finally, running. Each task is sequential. If a broken leg keeps a child from learning to stand, he or she must still learn that task when the leg heals before walking, let alone running. Although we all use and build on these foundational accomplishments throughout life, when they happen as expected, we take them for granted. This is what life “should” be. However, if a child isn’t walking by two, something is out of sync. Pediatricians call it delayed development and begin to investigate the reasons for this delay. But how does this relate to the TCK experience?

  While learning to run and talk are two early physical developmental tasks, there are other important steps in every child’s growth from infancy to becoming a mature adult. The following are some of these critical emotional and psychological developmental tasks we all face.

  1. Establishing a personal sense of identity.1. This begins early on as children begin to differentiate their sense of self from their parents (think “terrible twos”!). It’s also a process of discovery: Who am I? What makes me me? Where do I fit in my family and group?

  2. Establishing and maintaining strong relationships.Young children initially bond to their immediate families, but the teenage years are when relationships with the larger world of peers become critical if we a
re to move on into adulthood.

  3. Developing competence in decision making.Competent decision making is based on the assumption that the world is predictable and that we have some measure of control. In ideal situations, children and adolescents learn to make decisions under the protection of the family and then move on to making their own choices.

  4. Achieving independence.When we have the stability of knowing what the rules of the family and culture are and have learned to make competent decisions, we can begin moving toward the independence of adulthood.

  5. Adulthood. With the first four stages complete, we are ready to move on into adulthood. We have established a sense of “otherness” from our parents and families of origin. We are confident, ready and able to take responsibility for our decisions and actions.