The term Third Culture Kid is pretty popular. These are children who grew up in a culture that is not their own, meaning the culture around them was not the same than the culture in their home. This can result in cultural homelessness. I’m one of these third culture kid. In this post I’ll be telling you about two cognitive struggles I experience thanks to not having one culture I identify with.
I’m right now developing a research project on location independent adults. If you are interested to participate or be updated about the results, let me know.
Cultural homelessness
Cultural homelessness is the lack of membership in a culture. The mixture of cultural values and norms, from the home and host country, makes individuals out-group members. They are not considered anymore to be members of their home culture, nor are they members of their host culture.
That’s me I thought when I read the description.
I’m going to share two recent experiences which give you some insight into the struggle that comes when you don’t have a cultural home?
Experience 1: Would you return home?
I recently had a discussion with a couple of Greek people in Livin’ room. I was interested what made these young men leave their home country (answer: the economy) and if they would return home. One would, the other not. In return I was asked if I would return home. The short answer is “Of course not.”
Why, ‘of course not’ ? Let’s examine the words ‘return’ and ‘home’. First, I’m not sure where home is. Yes, of course I have a house. So, in plain English I have something with walls, rooms, bathrooms and the other things you would expect in a traditional western house. But this is a house. A home is more. It conveys feelings of stability, ‘gezelligheid’ (Dutch for something like ‘comfortable/cozy/intimate togetherness’).
More difficult to comprehend — for me — is the word return. Return implies a movement. More specifically, it means going back, retracing your steps, arriving (again) at the starting point. While writing this, my first thought is Why would I go again to where I was already ? What is the purpose of this ? But more confusing, I wouldn’t know where to return to. Germany? Switzerland ? Belgium ? Spain ?
Now, does this make me restless ? Confused ? Unhappy? No, I’m fine with wandering the world. But as a parent I keep an eye out for my kids, always wondering if they are fine with wandering the world.
Experience 2: Where are you from?
I was camping last week with the kids. We went to a lovely place in the ring of Beara, south of Ireland. We stayed at Camping Beara. I can recommend this place. Nice people on the site, nearby stone and sand beach, and great internet connection for a camping site. The playground is a bit small, and geared towards smaller kids.
The kids went out and about and made Dutch and Irish friends. I got to meet the parents of their friends and inevitable got asked the question ‘Where are you guys from?’. If you ask me this question, this is going on in my brain:
- What do they want to know?
- They can hear my German accent, I’m sure. If I say ‘Irish’ they not gonna believe me.
- If I say German, that is 50 % correct for me, and 25 % correct for the kids.
- I can’t say Dutch. We just lived there, we don’t have citizenship.
- What about … ah, they look at me and want an answer. They wondering why I can’t answer such a simple question
In that moment I said “I’m half-German, half-Spanish, but the kid’s dad was Irish. The kids were all born in the Netherlands. We are just moving to Ireland.
Ups, that was too much. I need to work on a better answer. Maybe I should say ‘Irish-German’, but the kid’s German is worse than their Dutch. Ah, cultural homelessness in action.
There was a time where I struggled with this lack of cultural home. However, I have come to accept that I appropriate cultural values and norms from the places I visit and reside in. The consequence of this is that others might not regard me as being a member of their culture.
Are you a nomad or a vivid traveler ? Have you ever spent some time considering what your advice network is ? How do you build relationships on the road? My research is examining this question. If you like to participate, reach out to me. The study has two parts: A survey and an interview. It’s a longitudinal study and you can start whenever you want. If you just like to be updated about the results, that’s fine. Connect with me.
