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Being a Third Culture Kid

Posted by on April 9, 2011 4 Comments

I’ve recently discovered that I’m a Third Culture Kid which explains a lot about how I view and feel about a lot if things in my life and travels. Born in the United Arab Emirates to Sudanese parents, moving to New Zealand in my early teens and now in adulthood living in Canada, makes me a classic TCK. Now in adulthood, I find myself having trouble connecting with a home, and with the constant mindset of wanting to move on. Finding out I’m a TCK explains a lot about myself, and settles me in the idea that I’m not alone in how I see the world.

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4 Responses to “Being a Third Culture Kid”

  1. Liesl April 10, 2011 8:03 pm #

    Nice post!

    We’re lucky there are so many TCKs in Canada, which is where they shot this documentary. We often have more in common which each other even when our lived-in countries or passport countries are different, than we do with born-n-breds.

    I can’t wait for the full film to come out, supposedly this spring, according to their FB group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=131117614296

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  2. Liesl April 11, 2011 6:33 pm #

    Awesome, I had no idea they had a new edition! I have the older one but I’ll have to order the more recent version.

    It’s a great book! I love how they distinguish between the immigrant & TCK narratives, and how TCKs are more advanced in their teens than their stay-put peers, but encounter bigger identity challenges in their 20s.

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  3. Sonia May 27, 2011 9:48 pm #

    When Farah and I were in our late teens we coined the term International Kids because we both had mothers from other countries and extensive networks of family abroad, not to mention travel experiences beyond what most people we went to school with had had. It’s true that as a child and teen, TCK’s deal with such a wide variety of experiences, pushing us to the limits of our abilities and bringing out superior performance. Maybe the idea that anything is possible and that we should be free to choose whatever destiny we please is what makes us push off making big choices or truly investing ourselves in a place or in other people.
    I haven’t read the book yet and am excited to.

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