Rarely have I known someone with his capacity to listen patiently while someone explained an idea, then bounce it back and forth and synthesize it into a form that had shape and could be crystallized into usable form as The Big Idea (e.g., the Pol/Van Cultural Identity Box). It was through countless conversations such as this with TCKs and their families around the world; with people like Ruth Hill Useem, originator of the TCK term; her co-researcher, Ann Baker Cottrell; Norma McCaig, founder of Global Nomads; and others in the field that he formed his TCK Profile and The Transition Experience models. Now, with Dr. Useem having died a few months before and Norma passing away in 2008, I wondered: With these leaders gone, what would happen to this topic they pioneered with such passion?
And then I had a mental image of Dave at the top of a long, vertically ascending, single-file line of people rising toward the sky—almost as if those in this line were climbing an invisibly suspended stairway to the stars, each person tucked in behind the one ahead. The line wiggled and wove its way up, until it abruptly collapsed because the leader who held us together—Dave—was gone. For a Moment, it seemed all was lost. But suddenly I saw something else. In that collapse, everyone in the line was flung far and wide. And then this verse (John 12:24) came to mind: “Except a seed of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it dies, it springs forth and brings forth much fruit.” In that Moment, I realized that the seeds Dave had gathered from others and replanted in so many lives had and would continue to take root in countless places around the globe. Instead of dying, new life and growth would spring up everywhere. Updating Third Culture Kids at this time, with the hope of sharing more of Dave’s growing vision as well as my own, is my way of distributing those seeds.
I hope that, whether you are reading this book for the first time or the tenth, you will find seeds of potential here to take and replant where you live. And together we will see what is yet to be. Yes, we’ve only just begun.
APPENDIX A
Adult Third Culture Kids Survey Results
A Historical Overview of Mobility Patterns for TCKs
and Their Long-Term Impact on ATCKs
People often ask, “Is it fair to look at adult TCKs and project their experience onto current TCKs when conditions for third culture living are so different (and presumably better) than they were during the first half of the twentieth century?”
That’s a valid question, and in our early days of working with TCKs we wanted to find an answer. Were the long-term effects of both benefits and challenges of the third culture experience valid for current and future TCKs or simply fading products of an earlier day and way of life?
In 1986, the few surveys that had already been done among TCKs mostly reflected the benefits of the experience but seemed to miss any major discussion of the challenges. We soon realized that because boarding schools and universities were the easiest place to access this population, every survey that had been conducted among TCKs picked up mostly missionary kids, and all were teenagers or in their early twenties. That raised the next question: Did the “positive only” nature reflect that the younger TCKs didn’t face the issues of former generations, or did it reflect another possibility—that young people often don’t have a full perspective on their life experiences and perhaps haven’t yet started to deal with some of the long-term ramifications of their experiences? Certainly we had found a pattern among the many ATCKs we had talked to. Most had not begun to deal consciously with issues relating to their TCK experience until their mid-to-late twenties—or even into their thirties. Armed with this information, we decided to do a simple survey ourselves.
In 1986 we gathered 800 names of ATCKs from a variety of sources—personal contacts, referrals by friends, and alumni lists of various TCK boarding schools. Most of these prospects were adult missionary kids, so our sample pool in parental occupational orientation closely reflected that of the initial surveys we had seen. All were postuniversity ATCKs, and the 282 who responded ranged from twenty-two to seventy-five years of age.
The questionnaire focused on two major issues:
1. What were the patterns of separation from family, home, and host countries— both in kind and amount—during the first eighteen years of the ATCK’s life?
2. How did the respondent think these separations had affected him or her?
The results were revealing. We not only learned the ways many ATCKs felt their lives had been affected by these patterns of separation, but a vivid picture of the changes occurring in the third culture community emerged as well. The findings painted a clear historical picture of the TCK world as well as showing changing trends.
When we began noticing some significant differences in certain statistics among ATCKs of the pre- and post-World War II eras, we decided we could best compare the past and present world of TCKs by dividing our respondents into two major categories: those born before 1947 we called the “older ATCKs”; those born in 1947 and later we called the “younger ATCKs.” To study the data more precisely, we broke these two larger groups down into subgroups representing all the respondents born within five-year spans. Each of the following graphs and discussions is based on this framework.
Our first clue about the changing patterns in the third culture world came when we graphed the place of birth. In every five-year group of the older ATCKs— those born during or before World War II—the majority were born in the host country (see Figure A-1). It was the opposite for every five-year age group of TCKs born after the war: the majority of these younger ATCKs were born in their home countries.
There are undoubtedly several reasons for this marked difference. In the prewar years, most missionaries (the major group from which our sample came) went overseas for at least four years at a time—some much longer. It could easily take six weeks to three months on an ocean freighter before they arrived at their destination.
In those early days, many mission boards didn’t accept people over thirty years of age, feeling that by the time anyone older than that learned the language in a new country, they would be too old for useful, long-term service. Agencies also believed that only younger people could better stand up to the health risks involved in overseas living. This meant people went overseas in their early twenties, often before the birth of their children. When babies came later, they were born wherever their parents were—usually in the host country.
Figure A-1 Place of Birth—Home or Host Country
In the post-World War II era, children were and are still being born wherever parents are, but patterns for how and when people engage in international careers are vastly different from before. Long, uninterrupted stints in faraway lands are less common now than they used to be. Because people can travel by jet rather than ship, it means they come and go between countries far more easily. Leaves or furloughs are scheduled more frequently. Women who choose to do so can fly home for the delivery of their babies rather than stay in a host culture that may have less adequate facilities. Short-term assignments are also possible because the business or mission started by the lifelong pioneers of earlier days is now well established. It’s easy to identify a place where people can plug in to meet a specific need of the Moment. For these reasons, and doubtless others, more TCKs are being born in their home country now than formerly.
The next difference between the older and younger ATCK groups became clear when we looked at how many had been separated from their parents for a significant period of time before the age of six. Many ATCKs born just before and during World War II were in this category (see Figure A-2). There were two common reasons children were left in the home country at an extremely early age while parents went overseas.
Figure A-2 Those Separated from Parents for a Significant Period before Age Six
1. Children weren’t allowed to travel overseas during the war because of the risks involved. In 1944 this ban on children traveling across the ocean meant Ruth Van Reken’s parents faced a major dilemma when they discovered Ruth’s Mom, Bet
ty, was pregnant while they were preparing to go to Africa for the first time. They could either go while Betty was pregnant, not go at all, or wait in the United States for the baby to be born and then go on to Africa, leaving the baby with caregivers until the war was over. Ruth’s folks chose to cross the ocean while her Mom was still pregnant. (Sadly, the ship that carried them to Europe was torpedoed and sunk by enemy fire on its return trip to the U.S.; there were obviously good reasons for the ban on travel for children.)
2. Even before the war, many parents chose to leave their young children at home for educational purposes. Others left their children behind because they feared the disease and other perils they might face in an overseas post such as West Africa, which in the colonial era was called “the white man’s grave.”
Figure A-3 Those who Lost a Family Member to Death before Respondent Was Eighteen
During their first eighteen years of life, the older ATCKs surveyed had suffered a much higher mortality rate in their immediate family than had the younger ATCKs (see Figure A-3). Before antibiotics and antimalarial drugs became available, death rates were high for expatriates in many tropical countries. When an article came out in the early 1990s in Christianity Today discussing the children’s graves at a mission station in Nigeria, Ruth realized she’d known every one of those children personally except for two. They’d either been her friends, or she had babysat them, or they were the children of her parents’ close friends. Death was a sad, but common, occurrence among the expatriate community in those earlier days.
Aside from the TCKs mentioned in Figure A-2, who were left at home for fear of war or disease, most separations for TCKs occurred because of schooling. Figure A-4 reflects some interesting possibilities regarding educational patterns. The higher number of total years away for the oldest ATCKs likely reflects not only time away in boarding school overseas but long stretches in their home country as well.
The graph stays relatively steady until we see those born after the war, in the 1950s and 1960s. Suddenly, the total number of years away drops. The trend toward homeschooling and the more varied options offered by satellite schools and by local national and international schools are likely reflected in these statistics.
The greatest difference between the older and younger ATCKs, however, is in the average longest period of time TCKs went without seeing their parents at all during those same first eighteen years of life. These figures tell a remarkable story.
In the older group, the average length of time for not seeing parents even once was 3.6 years. The normal pattern for most missionaries in those days was four years overseas and one year back in the home country for furlough. With few American or British secondary schools available overseas, many TCKs stayed in the United States, Canada, or England and went to boarding schools or lived with relatives in the home country during their teenage years. Meanwhile, parents returned overseas for the next four-year stint. With slower transportation and the high costs involved for travel, TCKs rarely visited their parents overseas during those four-or-more-year stretches.
Figure A-4 Total Years of Separation from Parents before Age Eighteen and Longest Single Stretch of Time without Seeing Parents Even Once in First Eighteen Years
The average length of time the younger TCKs went without seeing parents once was only eleven months. Quite a change.
A quick look at Figure A-5 shows how common these long separations were for older ATCKs. They were accepted as a normal and inevitable part of an international, or at least a missionary, career. The dramatic lowering in this pattern of extended separations for the younger ATCKs (among those born in 1956 and later, not one ATCK during the first eighteen years had gone a full year without seeing parents at least once) clearly reflects several points. Like Figure A-4, this decline no doubt reflects the trend toward homeschooling and the more varied options offered by satellite schools and by local national and international schools. These figures also reflect the trend for sending children who are in their home country back to see their parents in the host country during the school vacation periods.
The rising average age when TCKs permanently reentered the home country clearly reflects the increased availability of international schooling options around the world (see Figure A-6). Instead of returning at age twelve or thirteen for secondary school in the home country as the older ATCKs did, the great majority of younger TCKs stayed in the host country until an average age of almost seventeen. They only returned to the home country for college.
Figure A-5 Percent of Those Separated from Parents for Longer than One Year at a Time before Age Eighteen
After looking at the notable differences in type, amount, and patterns of separation experienced by the older and younger ATCK groups, we expected to find that the issues TCKs from previous generations faced weren’t relevant for today’s culturally mobile kids. We presumed there would be a significant difference in how the older and younger groups responded to our question of how the separations had affected them—with the older generation saying they had been hard and the younger group barely noticing them.
The specific question we asked was, “How do you feel the cycle of separations affected you?” Here are some of the replies.
“Don’t know.”
“Hard to communicate and make friends.”
Figure A-6 Age at Permanent Return to Home Country
“I am sympathetic with those who have to be separated from loved ones.”
“Have never made intimate friends.”
“Because of internment by Japanese, I was spared separation. [Apparently this ATCK was in internment camp with the parents.] My brother, who was separated, was affected.”
“Am very interested in people and their needs.”
There were three basic types of response: positive, negative, and both. Positive responses were judged as those that included such statements as “It made me more independent,” although we have no way to assess if that is a healthy independence or the isolation we talked about in chapter 7. We judged as negative those remarks that included only challenges with no benefits listed. Here’s one example: “I have become very protective emotionally. I do not let others get close emotionally. I find it very hard to communicate in an intimate relationship for fear of rejection. It has crippled my marriage.” A major recurring theme in many of the remarks reflected the ATCK’s fear of intimacy because of the fear of loss.
The responses we marked as “both” included replies such as this respondent’s: “I struggled with depression for years but now find my own struggle gives me greater empathy for others.” None of these were listed in the negative responses.
To our surprise, in spite of all the differences in separation patterns between older and younger ATCKs, 47 (40.1%) of the 117 respondents in the older group said the chronic cycles of separation had a negative impact on them and 62 (39.2%) of the 158 in the younger group said the same thing (see Figure A-7). A mere 1 percent difference!
How could this be? With further reflection, and many intervening years to test our hypothesis, our conclusion was, and remains, that it is the cycles of separation and the loss itself that affect TCKs and ATCKs—not merely the longevity or amount. Though TCKs may now return from boarding school every three months instead of being separated from parents for four years, these children still know, and internally stay prepared for, the fact that they will soon be leaving again. If TCKs see grandparents and relatives back home more often than before, they know it’s not a permanent settling down. In fact, some ATCKs who experienced the long periods of separation from parents adjusted to it much as they would to death. Perhaps they experienced less of the cycle of separation by staying with the same relatives in one place rather than saying “hello” and “good-bye” to parents every three months—although other types of losses are certainly inherent in such prolonged separations between parents and children. It was Figure A-7 that made us begin to look more carefully at the hidden—rather than the obvious—losses we discu
ss in this book.
Surely there is much more research to do in this whole area. While other surveys have been done in the intervening years on ATCKs as well as TCKs, many questions remain unanswered. Perhaps because this is such a highly paradoxical experience, it is hard to measure the both/and-edness in any quantitative survey. For those interested, we would suggest that any survey designed for TCKs and ATCKs take into account the inherent paradoxes and leave room for open-ended responses as well as those designed to gather statistical data
Figure A-7 Impact of Multiple Separations on Relationships
APPENDIX B
Comparing Third Culture Kids
and Kaigai/Kikoku-Shijos
Momo Kano Podolsky was born in Japan and spent 11 years as a TCK in England and France. She received her Ph.D. In sociology from the Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, California, and has studied the kaigai/kikoku-shijo phenomenon since 1985. Momo has worked extensively with Kakehashi (the western Japanese association of kikoku-shijo parents) while associate professor at Kyoto Women’s University (2001–2008), and is currently the program coordinator for the Harney Program in Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies at the University of Toronto.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY IS OFTEN referred to as the “era of mass human migration.” People moved from one country to another on an unprecedented scale in pursuit of better economic and social opportunities or to flee from war and persecution. For some, migration was not a matter of individual choice, but rather mandated, as discussed in this book, by their employers and job requirements.
Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds Page 35