We All See this World a Little Differently

Recently, I’ve been somewhat convicted by the thought that I am betraying my TCK upbringing by claiming to be best friends with a mono-cultural (someone who has grown up in the same place/region as their passport). What prompted this thought was that I was with a group of TCKs and the topic of engaging with mono-culturals came up and I was unpleasantly shocked by what I heard. One of the first things uttered was “well, they can’t relate to us at all” and this was followed by “also, we are considerably more mature than our mono-cultural counterparts”. Honestly, hearing these things made me want to denounce my TCK loyalties entirely. It was frustrating to hear these things because one of the things we (the TCK community) pride ourselves in is being tolerant and accepting of other cultures… ...except the culture of our passport, apparently. After hearing these comments, in a moment of weakness due to being baffled by this arrogance, I turned it on them and asked them if the...

We all have a story to share. No matter if you were raised in Detroit or New Delhi - you've had experiences that others need to hear. Over the last year, I've been in therapy and a huge part of therapy is just telling your story. Therapy is just processing your story. When it comes to growing up overseas, we have a little different need to share our stories because there is a consistent element of change. Based on conversations I've had with mono-cultural friends, I've had a higher amount of "goodbyes" in my life than they have had. The first goodbye I remember was when I was 5 and we moved to Budapest. My parents did a phenomenal job preparing my sister and me for our departure from Chattanooga. From the time they told us we were moving, it was a regular topic of "when we get to Hungary" or "when we leave Chattanooga". We had to begin to think about our new home and when the time came it was hard, but it wasn't unexpected. Anot...

Below is an entry written by my friend Rachel.  Rachel grew up in different areas of the world...she went from the mid-western United States to East Asia to Pennsylvania. All very different places to call home. Something that many TCKs struggle with is how to answer the question "Where are you from?" My personal answer is "I moved here from Orlando" - with that, the asker naturally assumes I'm from Orlando. I'm not lying - I moved to Birmingham from Orlando...but if they press a little more I tell them I grew up in Central Europe because my parents work there. Sometimes, this provokes further conversation and other times it shuts the conversation down. One of the reasons TCKs struggle with answering this question is because we've said "Oh, I'm from Romania" and then an accusatory "You don't have an accent" comes our way. I had Hungary listed on my nametag as to where I'm from the whole time I worked at SeaWorld and m...

My name is Joel. I was born in Chattanooga, TN. When I was five, my family moved from Chattanooga to Budapest. I went to a Hungarian daycare, had Hungarian friends, my family had a Hungarian housekeeper (fairly common for that area of the world) all the way through middle school. My parents' jobs changed a little bit when I was in the 8th grade and I then started going to the international school in our suburb of Budapest until I went to college in the Chicago area in 2007. From the time we moved to Budapest, my family was regularly presented the topic of living cross-culturally and my sister and I being raised as Third Culture Kids (or Cross-Cultural Citizens). Sociologists have defined Third Culture Kids as “A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents' culture. The TCK frequently builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from eac...