TCKs and parents: Same country, different lives

Something I’ve heard a lot of expat parents say is that their whole family is “in it together” or that they are called together. The basic assumption is that all members of the family go abroad and live overseas together; they are bonded by the same experience. When I hear this, however, I think two things: First, I am so glad you and your kids are on the same team! Second, are you aware that you aren’t sharing the same experience?

To explain what I mean, I need to define some confusingly similar acronyms: TCK, ATCK, and TCA.

TCK stands for third culture kid: a young person who has spent a significant part of childhood outside her passport country. ATCK is adult third culture kid: an adult who had a TCK childhood. TCA is third culture adult: an adult who has lived outside his passport country but only as an adult.

Same country, different experiences

An important thing to grasp is that TCKs (who become ATCKs) begin their expat journey as children while TCAs do not live abroad until adulthood.

It might sound subtle, but the difference is actually very significant. The children of expat families are TCKs, but the parents are usually TCAs. They are living in the same country, but while parents experience and process the challenge of cross-cultural living as adults, TCKs grow up and form their identities in the middle of it. Essentially, the parents and children live in the same country, but they are affected differently.

Overseas life is different for TCAs and TCKs in a few ways. These differences do not mean the TCK has a better (or worse) experience. If these differences go unnoticed, however, they lead to misunderstandings between parents and children. This leaves many parents feeling frustrated and many children feeling unheard.

I’ve worked with TCKs for over 18 years (most of them in China and Cambodia), including ten years researching the TCK experience both qualitatively and quantitatively—which means I’ve talked to hundreds of TCKs, ATCKs, and TCAs as well as spent a lot of time analysing data about their experiences. Most ATCKs and TCKs were aware that they experienced their host countries and passport countries differently to their parents; unfortunately, many felt their parents were far less aware of the differences. In fact, one-third of the 750 TCKs I surveyed for my first book said they felt misunderstood by their parents. (All data mentioned here comes from my book Misunderstood: The Impact of Growing Up Overseas in the 21st Century.)

I am going to outline three of the differences between what a TCA and a TCK experience overseas: connection, identity, and choice.

Connection

A TCA moves abroad having experienced comprehensive connections to one country as a child. A TCA has deep emotional connections to their passport country because a large percentage of their life was spent there. These emotional connections are experiential—memories of life lived there.

A TCK, however, experiences multiple countries/cultures during childhood. Two-thirds of the TCKs I surveyed first moved abroad before age five, 58% spent more than half their childhoods abroad, and 30% spent less than three years in their passport countries. This means many TCKs have spent more time in their host countries than in their passport countries, so most of their emotional connections were made in those places abroad.

TCK children will not have the same emotional connection to the people, places, and activities of the parents’ country and their childhood. Things that mean the world to the parents may not mean much to the child. They may dislike the parents’ comfort foods, find a favourite sport boring, or be unmoved by things that bring their parents to tears. They may intellectually understand that these things are supposed to matter but not feel a connection to them. If they fear disapproval, they may learn to fake the expected emotion. Giving TCKs space to feel differently, even if it is sad or disappointing to the parents, is vital to maintaining open communication and strong understanding.

Identity

A TCA comes abroad with a fully formed sense of self, connected to a particular country, the place that is home. A TCK grows up caught between two places that are both home. Most TCKs develop their personal identity against a backdrop of frequent change. TCKs are not just experiencing life overseas; they are trying to make sense of the world (and themselves) while doing so.

The events of international life certainly affect TCAs, but they affect TCKs much more deeply, becoming part of the bedrock of their emotional worlds. For example, many TCKs I interviewed spoke of learning that “everyone leaves.” Watching friends leave or moving on themselves affected how they saw the world. Woven into their sense of self was the knowledge that nothing is permanent.

TCKs are individuals, and they deal with international life differently. But regardless of how they process the experience, living overseas will impact how they see the world and the people in it. This can lead to what may be a very different worldview from that of their parents. When a child’s perspective clashes, parents should take time to understand why the child thinks this way rather than trying to correct that perspective.

Choice

Being an adult, a TCA has far more control over the decision to live abroad. No one becomes a TCK by choice. Not that it’s a bad thing (quite the opposite: 92% of missionary kids I surveyed were thankful for their experience), but it happens because a decision has been made on the child’s behalf. Even when a child (especially an older child) is consulted about moving abroad, it is still the parent who has the power to actually make the decision.

While a few TCKs from missionary backgrounds I interviewed said they felt that living abroad was their own calling as well as their parents’, most did not share this feeling. A few expressed strong resentment that these choices were made on their behalf (12% of MKs I surveyed felt resentment about their childhoods).

All parents make decisions on behalf of their children, but the decision to take a child overseas means giving them a very different childhood. It is important for parents to understand their choices have created a culture gap. That gap is not evidence of a bad decision—it is a natural consequence of a different cultural upbringing. Denying that a gap exists or trying to make it disappear will not help the child. What does make a positive difference is recognising the gap and taking steps to listen to the child’s point of view.

Understanding the difference

Parents and children live abroad together. But the impact of that life is different. My book is titled Misunderstood¹ because that is how many young TCKs feel. Having spent years helping expat parents understand their children, I wrote a book to do what I do—give insights into the perspective of TCKs.

When parents and other adults recognise the difference between an adult’s experience of life overseas and a child’s experience, it is a huge step toward the sort of understanding that encourages and comforts TCKs. Parents and children are on the same team. While they experience life abroad differently, with awareness and care, they can still understand each other deeply.

An earlier version of this article first appeared on the blog A Life Overseas and is reproduced with permission.

1. See the next page for a book review of this book by a missionary parent.