Quotes of the Day
Whether their parents are missionaries or managing directors, almost all expat kids have a moment when they realize that their adopted home means as much, if not more, to them than their country of origin. For Daniel Welch, now a senior at the American School in Japan, it came when his family temporarily returned to Utah after living in Tokyo for three-and-a-half years. "It wasn't big in the news, but just after I moved, there was a volcanic eruption in Miyakejima," says Daniel. "I'd taken a field trip there and I remembered the people I'd met. It was really sad."
He reveled in some aspects of life in his hometown of Orem, Utah—driving, watching basketball and listening to new bands. But, he laments, classmates there never asked about his life abroad: "I would say I was from Japan and they wouldn't care." Daniel had become—to use a phrase popularized by David Pollock, a consultant to expat communities—a Third Culture Kid, one who inherited the culture of neither parent but instead formed his own, more international outlook.
Often, all is well until the fateful day when the parents decide they want to go home—but the children don't. Pollock, who explores this parent-child divide in Third Culture Kids: the Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds, explains that there can be a deep fissure between the country on someone's passport and the place he or she considers home: "Your passport tells you what country you are allowed to reside in. Your heart tells you what is home. Sometimes parents don't realize the depth of connection their children feel to the country they are living in." Dale Ford, head counselor at the Singapore American School, observes, "No student ever wants to leave where they are. It doesn't matter if they're moving from Singapore to Tokyo or from Las Vegas to Peoria. There is almost always a row within the family."
The key is to be honest with your kids. Based on his 15 years of professional experience overseas, Ford says the children who have the hardest time adjusting are those whose parents have made false promises about the possibility of moving back to their last posting. Kids won't bother to fit in "back home," he explains, if they think there is a chance they might leave again.
Dr. Michael Gerner, a consulting psychologist who specializes in internationally mobile children, estimates that 5% of kids may actually be genetically predisposed to resist change: "These are kids that cried when the nursery door slammed." The good news, though, is that the experience can ultimately be positive. In the early 1990s, Gerner's research comparing more than 1,000 students in Egypt, Thailand and the U.S. verified what everyone knew anecdotally: children growing up in different countries are more open to other cultures and languages and are less apt to stereotype.
Take, for example, Seynabou Ba, 35, who was born in Senegal and moved with her diplomat father to a different country every few years, including the U.S. and Russia. "I'm very different from women in Senegal but also very different from European women," she says. Her hybrid identity didn't always sit easy, and was something she only began to resolve when she was in her 20s. Today, it's an advantage. "I think that's why it's so easy for me to move from one country to the next. On the positive side, I'm very adaptable to change."
"Kids can sulk for a week or two" after moving, says Ford. But before too long, "most kids will be fine"—especially once they've made new friends. The solution is to accept that your children are not cultural facsimiles of you or your partner but part of a privileged group growing up without frontiers.
- Hanna Kite | Tokyo
- Globe hopping can be an emotional strain on expat kids—but it can also bring them lifelong benefits