Are you a TCK too?

Have you ever wondered why you are different than most of your friends? Or why it’s so hard for you to tell people where you’re from? If you have, you’re probably at TCK (Third Culture Kid), like myself. TCK is a sociological term that identifies kids that grew up in a country (or countries) that is not their parents'. In other words, "a TCK is person who has spent a significant part of their developmental years outside the parents' culture" (David C. Pollock, Sociologist) 

Image from http://www.theclause.org/collide/2011/05/the-flexible-life-of-a-tck/ 

TCKs often build relationships to all of the countries they “are” from, yet they never have full ownership of any. “If home is where the heart is, then what happens when a heart is attached to more than one place or maybe no place at all?”, (Elissa Emoto, staff writer) 

The first challenge of being a TCK is simply to give an answer to the question: “Where are you from?”. For most people, this is such a simple question. However, a TCK usually has 3 or 4 answers to that, depending on who he/she is talking to.

Ethiopia            Senegal

For me for instance, to the question “where are you from?”, my first answer is: “I’m Ethiopian”. I give this response to people that I don’t know much or people who don’t really care where I’m from but are just asking for conversation’s sake. Now, if I find that the person is interested I can go deeper. Then my answer is: “I am half Ethiopian, half Senegalese, but I grew up in many places”. And then there is the real answer, the one I only give to people who are TCKs or people that seem to REALLY care: “My mother is Ethiopian, my father is Senegalese. I first spent my childhood in the Congo. Then we moved to Senegal for a few years, and then to Ethiopia. While I lived in these 3 countries, I often traveled to Canada, US, France and Belgium”.  This is where I’m from.

Being a TCK child is actually more than a sociological matter, but it’s also psychological. You’ll understand what I mean, when I take you on a journey of my childhood. First of all, I am originally from 2 countries: Ethiopia is in East Africa, the official language is Amharic, we eat injera and my family is Christian; Senegal is in West Africa, we speak wolof, we eat fish, and my family is Muslim. So in a way, just this already makes me a bit more than a TCK.

In addition to this, I lived in the Congo (RDC), where I grew up speaking Lingala and eating fufu and pondu. Yet, I was in a private Belgian School and learned all about King Baudouin and Manneken Pis. So by the age of 6 years old I was already introduced to 4 cultures (Ethiopia, Senegal, Congo, Belgium). You can imagine how this can be confusing for a child and may affect him/her socially.

And, it doesn’t stop here, after a few years, I transferred to a French school so started to learn all about Moliere, Bonaparte, and Napoleon. We then moved to Senegal and Ethiopia (where I learned both languages of course) and travelled to France, US, Canada, Belgium, etc.

Most people who are not TCKs say: “Wow! You are so lucky to have seen all these countries and learned so many languages”. A TCK will admit to this. Yes, it’s true that TCKs have the advantage of being multilingual. Also, we tend to make friends easily. We are outgoing; we adapt quickly to different situations/cultures; so in general, we are very open-minded. This helps us in our careers and education. So that’s awesome. 

Image from: http://fleetfooted.wordpress.com/  

Being a TCK is not all advantage and great experiences though. We easily move from one country to another, but we have a hard time adjusting to our parent’s country when we go back (if we ever go back). We also tend to suffer identity crisis: “where am I really from?”. Believe it or not, everyone treats me as a foreigner, even in Ethiopia and in Senegal (sometimes, even my own family does). 

The other disadvantage of being a TCK is that nobody except TCKs can relate to us. People that have not lived overseas have not experienced what we have, so don’t really understand us. Therefore, we tend to be better friends with TCKs. We feel “out of sync” with people that are not TCKs (but of course, we don’t show them that; we laugh and talk as if everything is normal).

It’s easier for me to relate to a Korean who lived in Zimbabwe, than an Ethiopian who lived all his life in Ethiopia (even though I am half Ethiopian and have never lived in Zimbabwe or Korea); Yes, me and the Korean kid have way more in common. We probably went to the same type of school, we speak more than 2 languages, we are knowledgeable about geography and world politics, our parents have similar values, etc…

Despite this, if I had to do it all over again; be re-born, I’d still want to be a TCK. Why? Because I like speaking many languages, I like understanding different cultures, and mostly I like that I can make friends everywhere. On top of this, research found many more benefits of being a TCK. If you are a TCK reading this blog-post, you are going to love this:

• Teenage TCKs are more mature than non-TCKs http://www.tckworld.com/useem/art3.html
• TCKs are highly linguistically adept http://www.tckworld.com/useem/art5.html
• TCKs are 4 times more likely than non-TCKs to earn a bachelor's degree http://www.tckworld.com/useem/art2.html
• 40% of TCKs earn an advanced degree (as compared to 5% of the non-TCK population http://www.tckworld.com/useem/art5.html
• Divorce rates among TCKs are lower than the general population (Jordan (2002) p.223)
• Education, medicine, business management, self-employment, and highly-skilled positions are the most common professions for TCKs http://www.tckworld.com/useem/art5.html

 Thankfully, the advantages of being a TCK outweighs the disadvantage :-)

If you are a TCK (or know someone who is), please leave a comment, I'd love to hear about your experience.