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)
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
