Why Third-Culture Kids May Struggle to Say Where They’re From
I’m a human of the world; isn’t that enough?
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People who grew up in one home, in one country and attended one school fascinate me.
I’m from everywhere and nowhere. My soul's recipe comprises a little bit of this and a sprinkling of that.
By the time I was seven years old, I had lived in four different countries. By eight or nine, my parents separated, creating two home environments with different domestic cultures.
And so I continued my misfit path, adding to the weird and wonderful mix of my internal culture while always being on the periphery of the group.
I recently read up on “third-culture kids,” which blew me away. As explained in this BBC article “third-culture kids” describes children who spend their early years in countries that are not their parents’ homeland.
Yemen, Jamaica, and Saudi Arabia were not my parents' homelands, and yet there I was, in my formative years, soaking up these countries while I learned how to be human.
At age 12, I went to boarding school, yet another world to adapt to.
Hailing from a remote corner of Scotland with a small community, at school, I was regarded as a hippie, and in my home community, I was considered a snob.
No side ever claimed me as one of their own. The idea of belonging and home was somewhat muddled for my young brain.
Strangers at Home is the title of a collection of essays compiled into a book. This book features an essay by US sociologist Ruth Hill Useem, who first coined the term “third culture kids” back in the 1950s.
What an apt title.
Because that’s exactly it: when we live away from our allocated home, we absorb different influences and ideas; we expand in ways we wouldn’t and couldn’t had we remained at home. When we return to our homeland, this can lead us to feel exactly as that title suggests, a stranger in our own home, whether it’s the mortar and bricks of our home or the community in which we live. We are different somehow, like we have no anchor keeping us secure.
And with this sense of rootlessness comes insight and awareness that not everyone is graced with.
Ruth Van Reken, co-author of the book Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, describes third-culture kids as having a broader worldview and being more culturally aware than those who haven’t experienced this type of upbringing.
While home itself can be elusive for third-culture kids, it makes me wonder if in actual fact we have the ability to find home wherever we go? It feels clichéd to say it, but home is where the heart is right?
I believe we are all so much more than where we are from.
In Māori culture, the land we walk on is an honoured part of our history. Māori people recognise that the land and water that supports us, once supported our ancestors, and so it becomes integral to our identity. This is recognised in the Māori mihi, which is a way of introducing ourselves based on our mountain, our river, our tribe, our family and lastly ourselves.
Right now, my mountain is Galtee Mhor and my river is the River Lee. But with my transience, this will change.
Perhaps it’s no wonder I’ve always felt like an outsider, swooping in momentarily, resting on whatever perch is the home of the moment before returning to the air in search of a new resting spot.
Not to be outdone by my jet-setting childhood, in adulthood, I worked in six different countries over three continents.
My melting pot of influences has made me the person I am today — someone who can blend into any environment. I chameleon my way through life, and while it seems to work fine, at my core, there’s a nagging, an unsettled sense that I don’t belong.
I’m a spiritual nomad with a restless heart.
My life is full of Hellos and Goodbyes, and I’m that person who experiences culture shock when I return to my own country of origin instead of when I leave it.
Wasn’t it the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus who said, “The only constant in life is change?” That’s certainly true for me. Every way I turn in life, there’s always been change. While change may be unsettling for some, for me, it brings a sort of reassurance. It’s what I know. Familiarity with the sense of unfamiliarity is my comfort blanket.
Maybe this is why I like meeting new people and trying new experiences.
A thesis by Mikayla Carroll looking into the life choices of third-culture kids found that we have strong social skills and view change as a normal part of life, which does not impede us in any way. In fact, quite the contrary. Our ability to ride the waves of change equips us with life skills we couldn’t learn in the classroom.
Perhaps what resonated with me the most in that thesis was how Carroll describes third-culture kids as having a “strong sense of identity” and a “sense of belonging rooted in relationships.”
I know who I am, and I know who I am not, and the older I get, the stronger I feel in the conviction of my identity.
And as for belonging. Yes! I always say that my husband is my home. And my friends and animals are my place. My people may be scattered around the world, but they are the ties that bind me to this world and help me feel like I belong.
My ex-boyfriend said I speak like a weather presenter. At times, an Australian twang seeps in, a telltale sign of the year I spent there. Here in my current home in Ireland I’m sometimes accused of being English, then my accuser softens when I say I’m Scottish. But why should it even matter? I’m me.
You see, my people, the ones who fuel my belonging, love and accept me for who I am. My people do not care that my accent doesn’t allow anyone to put me in a box and pinpoint my history. My people do not judge me for being a butterfly, floating between cultures yet not committing to any.
My people leave the cage door open and don’t try to shackle me to be one thing or another because third-culture kids can’t be defined as just one thing.
When I am with any of my people I am home, irrespective of where in the world I am.
Here in Ireland, we have a term for those who are not born and bred where they live. We are blow-ins. I love that, a word that permits me to come and go.
I no longer try to be like everyone else because I can’t be. And finding this acceptance has been liberating.
In the words of the Littlest Hobo,
Maybe tomorrow, I’ll want to settle down
Until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on
I do not belong to the bricks and mortar that currently house me. I am a child of the earth. I belong to the wind, and the ocean.
Remember, my friends, we all share the same light from the sun and the stars.
For anyone struggling to define where home is, this beautiful song In Your Bones by Olivia Fern may help. Lyrical spoiler alert: “This earth is your home… may you feel like you belong.”
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It is not groundbreaking to suggest that navigating different cultural identities can complicate the feeling of belonging. This is a common theme among individuals whose upbringing was influenced by multiple locations, and most have reached this same conclusion.
However, we seldom hear about the experiences of "third-culture kids" who grow up in a constantly shifting environment, marked by a shared sense of disorientation and the notion that home is everywhere and nowhere.