Third Culture Kids

When we become old enough that another generation is behind us, we become aware of the significance of cultural change, even if we do not have that phrase in our minds. The generation behind us will not be aware of events that shaped us. Baby boomers and up could ask where they were when someone shot JFK. It became rather sobering when you ask someone that question who was too young to know.

"There's no place like home!" This phrase is an American idiom that means that home is the most satisfying place to be. It comes from the song, "Home! Sweet Home!" that has been around for about 180 years. The first two lines read:  

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. 

Apparently, those ten words touched a very profound need people have for safety, peace and companionship, because the phrase immediately entered the American idiomatic lexicon. There's no place like home!

What do you call home? A common question at parties is the simple question, “Where are you from?” In a world that is increasingly mobile and increasingly global, however, it has become a complex question. 

According to a Pew Research study, six in 10 Americans have moved to a new community at least once in their lives, and the definition of where one's "home" is has become more fluid. For example, 38 percent of Americans do not consider the place they are now living to be "home." Some consider "home" to be where they were born and raised. Others say it is where they lived the longest, where their family comes from or where they went to high school.

Moreover, if there is domestic confusion about "home," it is even more apparent in the highly globalized world where international travel and living abroad is now quite common. Previous generations tended to stay put unless someone was in the military, the foreign service or on the mission field. Emerging generations in the United States are now increasingly more likely to spend at least part of their lives living in a completely different culture in another country due to parent moves, study abroad programs or a myriad of other reasons linked to the emerging global economy.

Sociologist and anthropologist Ruth Useem calls these young nomads.

 "Third Culture Kids" (TCK) are people who have spent a significant part of their developmental years outside the culture of the parents. They build relationships to both cultures while not feeling fully at home in either. The sense of belonging has fulfillment in relationships with others of similar background. The first culture is that of the parents, the second culture is the culture in which the child lives now, and the third culture is the new culture in which they live. Such third culture kids must pause a moment when asked, “Where are you from?”

TCKs do life a little differently.

Minnesota Timberwolves rookie Alexey Shved is getting a ton of help in his transition to the NBA from fellow Russian player Andrei Kirilenko. Kirilenko has been in the league for 10 years, and he is acting as a mentor to Shved as he moves from Moscow to Minneapolis, especially when it comes to off-the-court issues. Here is what Kirilenko said about the "little things" in an interview with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: "In Russia, if the police stop you, you can give him five dollars and say, 'I'm sorry' and keep going. Here you cannot do that. So, the little things, it's different."

Here are some of the signs that you might be one:  

- Your accent changes depending on who is with you.

- You are good at calculating time differences because you have to do it every time you call your parents.

- You spend a crazy amount of time in airports and on airplanes.

- Your passport looks like it has been through hell and back.

- Your circle of friends is as racially and ethnically diverse as the UN.

- You can curse convincingly in five different languages.

- You do not call it "home," you call it your "passport country."  

TCKs thus tend to gravitate toward those who are like them, regardless of their nationality, than those in their "passport country." That is why you can say they live in a culture that is all their own.

According to dictionary.com , Culture shock is "a state of bewilderment and distress experienced by an individual who is suddenly exposed to a new, strange or foreign social and cultural environment."

Wikipedia offers this description: Culture shock is the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life due to immigration or a visit to a new country, a move between social environments, or simply travel to another type of life. One of the most common causes of culture shock involves individuals in a foreign environment. Culture shock may consist of at least one of four distinct phases: Honeymoon, Negotiation, Adjustment and Mastery. Other problems may be information overload, language barrier, generation gap, technology gap, skill interdependence, formulation dependency, homesickness (cultural), infinite regress (homesickness), boredom (job dependency), response ability (cultural skill set). There is no true way to prevent culture shock entirely, as cultural contrasts affect individuals in any society differently.

Cultures are not static. We can still think of culture, but it has a history and therefore it changes. For that reason, the culture in which we grow up may not feel like home. In fact, it may almost feel like a foreign country. No wonder nostalgia hits us. We long for what feels like “home.”