Why TCK and not CCK? (Jo Clifford)

Hello and welcome.  I’m Ted Siemens inviting you to think through some acronyms and some definitions that my help you in understanding yourself or your children.  Jo Clifford joined our staff earlier this year in order to strengthen our ability to encourage you and your family through MemCare by Radio.  My colleague Jonathan Griffiths will interview her about Third Culture Kids and Cross-Culture Kids.  Jo will explain why we will mostly concentrate on Third Culture Kids as we prepare future editions of our program.

 

Before we get to that interview, here are some reflections of some Adult Third Culture Kids.  Maybe you find that you identify with some of the things that they’re saying.

 

‘Well, I was born on the border of India and Nepal and my parents are Australians.  They were working in Nepal so I was born in India but I grew up in Nepal.  One of the fundamental issues of TCK’s is – Where am I actually from?  When we understand that we come to terms with it, both on a human level but also in terms of our spiritual identity.  Those two things are absolutely fundamental for our well-being.’

 

‘My parents are Dutch and immigrated to New Zealand when I was 2.  The way of life here in Europe was pretty fast-paced.  In New Zealand it’s real easy-going.’

 

‘Brazil is my home today even though I’ve moved around and lived in other countries.  I still consider Brazil my home country.  They say you can take the monkey out of the jungle but you can’t take the jungle out of the monkey.’

 

Did any of those comments match up with your life?  Do the words sounds like things that your children might say?  My colleagues Jonathan Griffiths and Jo Clifford sat down to talk about some terms and definitions that may help you in understanding yourself or your children.

 

Now last week here on MemCare by Radio Jo Clifford joined us for the first time as our Third Culture Kid professional for the year.  We dub you as the professional whether you like it or not.  Last week we talked about the definition of a Third Culture Kid.  So – what’s the definition of a Third Culture Kid again?

 

A Third Culture Kid, a TCK, is a person who has spent the significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture.  Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.

 

There’s a wonderful description, done by Dave Pollock, and it has been built up over the years.  Now, there are other acronyms being tossed around and we as a program have decided to concentrate on Third Culture Kids.  We do want to define one other significant acronym out there and that is – Cross-Culture Kids.  We have TCK’s, Third Culture Kids, and Cross-Culture Kids as CCK.  Can you give a little bit of history as to where Cross-Culture Kids’ interests came out of?

 

Well, with the book done by Dave Pollock and Ruth Van Reken about the Third Culture Kid experience, there was very much interest from Third Culture Kids but also from other children who had grown up with cross-culture influence.  These were people such as cross-culturally adopted children, refugees, asylum seekers and children who had grown up with parents of two different nationalities. 

 

Now with globalization this really is becoming much more evident within our cultures and communities we associate with.  We’re seeing a lot more refugees, we’re seeing a lot more people as families moving into our countries because of business, children of minorities…  There is a definition of who is a Cross-Culture Kid and we have to first of all say, this is research that has been done by Ruth Van Reken and Paulette Bethel. We’ll give the information where you can find more information about this and the article that we’re talking about.  Ruth Van Reken’s definition is – a cross-cultural kid is a person who has lived in, or meaningfully interacted with, two or more cultural environments for a significant part of time during development years.  So we go back to the Third Culture Kid and the developmental years are between 0 and 18.  More than one culture, meaning living cross-culturally…  Ruth Van Reken and Paulette Bethel have broken down CCK’s into different groups.  Can you quickly define what those groups are?

 

Yes.  They list several groups that come under the wider umbrella of Cross-Culture Kid.  There are the traditional Cross-Culture Kids, children who move into another culture with parents due to the parents’ career choice.  There are the bi-cultural or multicultural children, children who are born to parents from at least 2 different cultures or races.  There are children of immigrants.  There are children of refugees, children whose parents are living outside of their original culture not by personal choice but due to war, etc.  There are children of minorities, such as the Indian population in the UK.  There are international adoptees, children adopted from another culture to that of their parents and then finally, there are the domestic Third Culture Kids, those children whose parents have moved within their country between different sub-cultures within their country.

 

There are a lot of definitions here.  There are a lot of loose descriptions.  Some are easier to define that others, like international adoptees, domestic TCK’s…  That may not be as significant in our Western European cultures, but especially in India, for example, the difference between north and south India is extremely religiously and culturally different.  That’s a definition there. 

 

Now we have had long debates as to what our focus is going to be.  Why have you decided to concentrate on Third Culture Kids rather than on Cross-Culture Kids definition?

 

I think after much thought, pondering and as you said, discussion, I realized as we talked that a lot of the people who listen to these programs are abroad due to their career choice.  Therefore, we decided that we would talk about the traditional TCK’s, those whose parents are abroad because of career choice and the issues that go with that, rather than the wider Cross-Cultural Kid definition. 

 

One of the things that is important that Ruth and Paulette go on to talk about is that they admit that these other definitions and the research into these other definitions has come out of the traditional Third Culture Kid.

 

That’s right, yes.

 

So when we’re going to be addressing some of the issues specific to Third Culture Kids, they are relevant to Cross-Culture Kids.

 

That’s right, yes. They will be relevant and there will be topics such as growing up in another culture and what values do you choose and where is home and where do I fit in…  All those topics are relevant to all Cross-Cultural Kids, wherever they grow up and however they grow up.

 

Now this is going to be helpful for parents because one of the things we’ve talked about Third Culture Kids, is that Third Culture Kids identify with people of similar backgrounds.  So your house may be full of children of multicultural parents, immigrant children, refugee children, children of minorities, international adoptees and domestic Third Culture Kids.

 

Absolutely.

 

So you will probably see this whole variety around your dinner table in your family’s upbringing.  Now, another definition that we will also be tossing around a little bit is, Adult TCK.  That’s the Adult Third Culture Kid.  Who are they?

 

Adult Third Culture Kids are Third Culture Kids who have grown up.  They are probably over 21 years old and one thing I would say is that Third Culture Kids never stop being Third Culture Kids.  It was very interesting one time - I was talking at a church about Third Culture Kids and the wife of a man I know, who is a Third Culture Kid, came up and said, “Well, that’s all very nice but that’s not relevant to him anymore.”  Interestingly, a few minutes later I had a conversation with the husband and he said, “Jo, that brought up so many memories of my time growing up abroad.  I remember having to say goodbye to a house helper and I was nearly in tears just remembering it.”  That reminded me again that you never stop being a Third Culture Kid.  It will always influence your life in some way or other.  That doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing or a good thing, it just is your life wherever you go next, wherever you are now.

 

Now a lot of those influences are because Third Culture Kids are bringing in influences from many different cultures, the good, the bad, the ugly of all these cultures.  That is identifying who the Third Culture Kid is.  Let’s quickly go over the definition of Third Culture Kid again.

 

A Third Culture Kid is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture.  Although elements of each culture are assimilated into the Third Culture Kid life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.

 

Now an Adult TCK is just somebody who has grown up in that way and has moved on in their life cycle.  They’re married now, in university now, in their 80’s…  They’re all there and can identify because it’s a significant part of who they are.  It’s the Third Culture Kid definition.  The other term that’s being tossed around is Cross-Cultural Kid.

 

That again is a person who has lived in or meaningfully interacted with two or more cultural environments for a significant period of time during developmental years.

 

There are some other terms that are tossed around as well, but they’re fairly self-explanatory.  We have Military Kid.  So they are…?

 

They are kids whose parents work for the army in whichever country that might be.

 

Business Kids…?

 

Very self-explanatory, as you said, whose parents work for businesses abroad.  These could be big companies like Coca-Cola, MacDonald’s, etc.

 

Then we also have Diplomatic Kids…

 

…whose parents work in other countries in embassies.

 

Another one that is not so well known is NGO Kids.

 

Right.  These are children whose parents work for Non-Governmental Organizations and growing up abroad due to that factor.

 

So these are some of the terms that you might hear tossed around in our local settings and in our communities, but we’re going to concentrate on Third Culture Kids.

 

Third Culture Kids, which includes Missionary Kids, Military Kids, Diplomatic Kids, Business Kids, NGO children.

 

…so anybody who has grown up overseas for a significant period of time because of their parents’ career choice.  Thank you very much, Jo.  We look forward to expanding this and looking into some of the issues that Third Culture Kids face.

 

 

www.crossculturalkid.org