Reentering a passport culture is usually a tough transition for TCKs since they’re going through a cultural shift that the people around them can’t easily see. They look like the people around them but inside they are from a whole different place and way of thinking. TCKs who have recently gone through this reentry themselves share their experiences here–the good and the bad– and give advice about navigating reentry.
TCKs are notorious for hating the question “Where are you from?” Such a mobile childhood, surrounded by others moving all the time as well, can make it difficult to belong to one place or group of people. These TCKs were asked about their own experience of home and where they feel they belong.
How many homes have you lived in?
Where are you from?
Where do you consider home?
Where do you fit in best?
How has your sense of home changed over the years?
TCKs are often asked awkward questions about their lives far away from their parents’ culture. Some are broad and difficult to answer and others are just weird. These TCKs share some of what they have been asked and also how they want people to get to know them. This video would be great to show to a church group or anyone who is about to meet TCKs and wants to know how to be their friends. The interviewees were asked:
TCKs say many goodbyes in their growing up years as most of them move back and forth between several places. Even if they stay in one place, the expat community around them is constantly moving and they say goodbye to friends all the time. In these interviews, TCKs reflect on what they miss most about the places they have left and how all the goodbyes have affected them. They were asked:
How do you handle goodbyes?
Where are your best friends and when did you last see them?
Besides people, what do you miss most?
Have goodbyes affected your ability to make commitments?
TCKs –MKs in particular– can have mixed experiences in US American churches, both in visiting when their families are fundraising in churches, and when they try to find a church home when they’re older. In these interviews TCKs are asked:
Third Culture Kids grow up between two worlds (or three, or more) and looking back on their experiences, see the good and the hard of being global nomads. The TCKs being interviewed are middle school, high school and college age, reflecting on their own lives.
What are you grateful for about being a TCK?
What has been the most challenging thing about being a TCK?
Do you ever wish you had grown up with a more normal life?
