TCKs - Deprived or Privileged? (Jo Clifford)

Are TCKs deprived or privileged? This is a question that is often heard when parents plan to take their children abroad. So what is the answer? Keep listening to today’s programme and find out.

Hello and welcome to Memcare by Radio. My name is Jo Clifford and I am your host today as we discuss some of the advantages and challenges of growing up as a TCK.

The question ‘Are TCKs deprived or privileged?’ is often asked when I am talking to people about what it means to be TCK. Of course they do not use that exact wording, but that is often what is implied. My reply to them is that they are asking the wrong question. Wherever and however you grow up in the world, whether you grow up in Asia, in the States or in Europe, each place has advantages or challenges and is different from the other. Growing up as a TCK is just different, not better or worse. So let us take a look at some of the advantages and challenges of growing up as a TCK.

The first, most obvious advantage of being a TCK is the cross-cultural exposure that they have growing up. This leads to good cross-cultural skills and a wide world view. The more you interact with a wide variety of cultures, the more cross-cultural skills you have. However, having a good set of cross-cultural skills does not mean you automatically know your passport culture. So when a TCK goes to live in their passport culture they need to realise that though they know parts of their passport culture, especially if they have visited it regularly, living in the culture is a whole new experience.

The other challenge that comes with growing up outside of your parents’ culture is the confused loyalties.  On the surface level it can easily be seen when you ask a TCK which team they support in the Soccer World Cup or which country do they cheer in the Olympics. You often get some very interesting answers!

In some cultures not being patriotic is not an issue, but in other cultures it can be and cause difficulty in school or with the wider family if you are not willing to salute the flag, or if you don’t know the national anthem, etc.

Another advantage of growing up cross-culturally is that the world is real to you. Or another way of saying it is that you have a 3D worldview. What do I mean by this? For example, when a TCK is watching the news they often don’t see the news items as just another story… they see the people in the story and maybe even know the country where the story is taking place, they know the sounds, the smells, the temperature. It is not a story…it is real. With this 3D world view comes also the painful reality of what is happening there and identifying with it. I personally find it hard to watch disaster stories happening in Africa as I can often imagine what else is happening, the untold part of the story and the pain that goes with it.

With all the changes that occur throughout a TCK’s life, one skill that is naturally developed is being able to be adaptable. As situations and environments change so the TCK adapts. And this is a skill that is useful in later life not only in the job situation but also in personal life too. However, being too adaptable can have it’s own challenges. In the extreme a TCK can be so willing to adapt to everyone else that they don’t know their own mind and what they really want. To friends it might appear that the TCK keeps changing their opinion and therefore can they really be trusted?

Living a transient life encourages the TCK to make the most of the ‘now’. This is a skill that most TCKs are good at. They make the most of the present situation that they are in and if an opportunity suddenly turns up they are willing to go for it even if it wasn’t planned. But sometimes this advantage is to the detriment of friends and family who are not in the now, but are maybe elsewhere. Often they feel that the TCK is having a case of ‘out of sight is out of mind’. The TCK will focus on the people around them at the present time. Another challenge to the ‘Importance of Now’ is that it can sometimes be difficult for the TCK to plan ahead.

One reason some TCKs find it hard to plan ahead is a concept called ‘Delusion of Choice’. What do I mean by this? While growing up, TCKs find that plans made in advance often change due to circumstances beyond their control. One example of this might be a child who is really excited about going to their friend’s birthday party, but suddenly the family has to go back to their passport culture for various reasons. Changes to plans can happen so often that the TCK eventually stops making plans in case they don’t happen, or the TCK will just wait and see what finally happens. Let me give an example of a friend of mine. I would see her and ask if she would like to join me in doing something in two days time and she would agree to come. Then she would meet somebody else who also invited her to come to something on that same day. Again my friend would say yes. Then on the day somebody else again turned up and invited her…and she would say yes too just in case the other two options didn’t happen. So in the end she had some very frustrated friends….

The final advantage of being a TCK is that they are very good at making friends. Growing up as TCK either you are moving, or when you aren’t moving everybody else around you is moving. Therefore TCKs have learnt to make friends quickly. The question that arises is how good are they at keeping friends? For the TCKs who live in the ‘now’, once friends leave it is often a case of out of sight out of mind. They are not very good at keeping in touch. Email and Facebook have made this a lot easier these days. In spite of that another reason for not keeping in touch might be that it is emotionally difficult keeping in touch with someone as it constantly reminds the TCK that their friend has left.  However, when the TCK meets with that friend again they just pick up where they left off and it is as if the time of separation hadn’t happened.

Growing up as a TCK has its challenges and advantages as much as growing up anywhere else in the world. The challenge to TCKs and those living and working with them is to make the most of the advantages and to overcome the challenges.

This has been a brief outline of some of the advantages and challenges of growing up in another culture. For further reading on this subject do have a look at the book ‘The Third Culture Kid Experience’ by Dave Pollock and Ruth van Reken.