Are you a 'third culture kid'?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Are you a third culture kid, or TCK? We you brought up abroad? Were your parents military people, missionaries, EFL teachers, diplomats, salespeople, economic migrants or 'global nomads'? Did you live all over, and never quite fit back in when you came home (you know, the country named on the front of your passport)?

If so, according to Ruth Hill Useem, you were a TCK or ATCK (adult third culture kid). And you're a bit different from the other kids. Oh yes. You're four times more likely to earn bachelor's degrees, you may be experiencing a prolonged adolescence, and you're probably having problems relating to your own ethnic group. You tend to 'maintain global dimensions throughout your life' even if you do end up back 'home'.

This global perspective may be why Katherine Gun, the GCHQ whistle-blower (and hero to millions) is citing her TCK childhood as one explanation for her brilliant treachery.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Treachery?!?

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:15 (twenty-two years ago)

"If so, according to Ruth Hill Useem, you were a TCK or ATCK (adult third culture kid). And you're a bit different from the other kids. Oh yes. You're four times more likely to earn bachelor's degrees, you may be experiencing a prolonged adolescence, and you're probably having problems relating to your own ethnic group. You tend to 'maintain global dimensions throughout your life' even if you do end up back 'home'."

I dunno 'bout the bachelor degree part, Momus, but the rest seems to be rightfully OTM. Although, I don't think I quite qualify.

"This global perspective may be why Katherine Gun, the GCHQ whistle-blower (and hero to millions) is citing her TCK childhood as one explanation for her brilliant treachery."

Hmmmm, interesting. Seems like a new role model to take up on. Haha.

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Treachery?!?

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm being the Blair's advocate here. My blog essay today is called The correct use of treachery. Gun admits to breaking the Official Secrets Act. But she has an excuse. A very good one.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:20 (twenty-two years ago)

As I suspected, I fit all the criteria. After leaving my wandering parents and trying to settle down where I'm officially from (France), I realized pretty quickly that I could not stay in one place for more than 4 years. What I used to find exciting and original is now starting to worry me, as my ability to fit in and relate to my surroundings seem to be going downhill. And the multiple cultures/identities, which I use to consider an asset is now starting to undermine my sense of self, of personal worth and purpose.

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Katherine Gun spent a good part of her childhood in Taiwan, and is citing the 'global empathy' of TCKs as the reason she looked further than 'the national interest' when she decided to release to the press the e mail asking British intelligence services to spy in the UN. TCKs all wish Kofi Annan ruled the world.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:28 (twenty-two years ago)

(This is beginning to sound like a Wallpaper magazine feature now, isn't it?)

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh no, another question for the GCHQ job application process (which I almost went through once!) - 'Are you a Third Culture Kid?'.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:30 (twenty-two years ago)

there are lots of whistle-blowers who come from more provincial backgrounds if that's what you're wondering

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Clare Short is pretty provincial in origin.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Haha! Everyone is lining up to be a traitor now! Equal opportunities for traitors! Give a working class traitor a chance!

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Treachery for the many and not the few!

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Traitors are human too, know! If you prickle our whistles, do they not bleed?

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:37 (twenty-two years ago)

i do know some folks who seem to embody a lot of these traits and have a similar background

but

i wonder what the research was exactly... it all sounds a bit nebulous pop-psych to me

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Time was when you had to be an Oxbridge bugger and study Fine Art to betray your country. But in Tony Blair's Britain anyone has a chance!

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:39 (twenty-two years ago)

(am i being blind or has no one started a thread about us bugging the UN?)

i was hoping third culture kids were people who didn't fit into "high" or "low" culture...

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Anyway, it seems entirely logical to me that, generally speaking, people with a rootless upbringing would be less inclined towards blind patriotism and more likely to view the bigger picture.

This is not to say people with a provincial upbringing are more likely to be inbred gung-ho drones though, because we're into scary tr*ck*r h*t debate territory there.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:40 (twenty-two years ago)

If you prickle our whistles, do they not bleed?

Whoops, I meant 'If you prick our whistles, do they not blow?'

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:41 (twenty-two years ago)

"They may feel out of place and alienated because they do not have an "American identity" and may not hold varied values and behavior norms. As a result, they tend to cope rather than adjust, becoming "a part of" and "apart from" any situation (Smith, 1991). The TCKs who exhibit encapsulated marginality and fell isolated may have difficulty in maintaining commitments and may avoid solving problems up-front (as they have learned that problems tend to move away). In addition, TCKs may feel unique and may feel that no one understands them (K.A. Jordan, personal communication, 1998)."

AT LONG LAST. Someone understands my plight!

― Mr. P. M-O-S-H, Friday, 27 February 2004 13:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Third culture kids with whistles are the logical result of 'the third way'. This is what 'the big conversation' ends up being about. Who knew Tony would be conducting it with people who could speak Arabic and mandarin Chinese?

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Blair, Claire and Kofi - the diplomatic consequences of Britain bugging the UN

Here you go, Steve.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:43 (twenty-two years ago)

i really dont think there is much of a point here, seeing as whistle blowers come from all backgrounds

but there has been some lovely wordplay on this thread

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Time was when you had to be an Oxbridge bugger and study Fine Art to betray your country.

Flaaah? Should I be spying right now? I would have though Classics was the obvious choice for spy training: good choice of cryptic allusions to use when meeting Russian 'counterparts' at duck ponds.

But I am one of these. And I would like to nominate Kofi Anaan for world president.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I fit loosely into this model, and like Baaderist upthread, as I get older I'm starting to worry whether I'll really feel "comfortable in my skin" anywhere. Here where I live I'm a foreigner, but when I go "home" I also feel foreign. It's starting to ever so gently screw with my mind.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:49 (twenty-two years ago)

i hate to be an ass but this all sounds a little like self-pity to me

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:50 (twenty-two years ago)

self-pity slash self-aggrandizement

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Possibly, amateurist, but it's nonetheless a real concern to me.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:52 (twenty-two years ago)

OTM with the self-aggrandisement. I'm just smug about how much of the insides of 747s I saw as a wean. Even if my cultural experiences mount to little more than hanging out with other rich/professional people's kids and drinking from a different kind of Fanta bottle.

I don't really want to feel comfortable with stupid people. My own skin I'm fine with.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Cue 'the wandering jew' and 'the rootless cosmopolitan'. Cue 'fly-over country'. Cue me, and cue you.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:53 (twenty-two years ago)

(liz is really secretly upset because she never gets to join in the "kids tv in the 80s" conversations ;))

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Curse, my secret is out. But I do have the video-related knowledge necessary to OWN at Star Wars Trivial Pursuit.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Friday, 27 February 2004 13:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Self-pity I guess, but isn't that what half of ILE is about? Anyway, I wasn't trying to make a big deal out of it, my point was mostly that something (my "third culture", if you will) I used to feel grafeful (privileged, lucky, whatever) to have, now seemed more of a burden and a problem.

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Friday, 27 February 2004 14:03 (twenty-two years ago)

hehe, i read ILE as LIFE there for a moment, oh dear...

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Friday, 27 February 2004 14:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I think Katherine Gun was possibly planning to use the TCK thing as one of her legal defences, should it have come to that. Her defence team would probably have wanted to give another motive than 'Katherine listened to Bush saying if you're not with us you're against us and decided to go against' or 'Katherine really liked the cut of Bin Laden's jib'.

I think she wanted to portray herself, as a TCK, as a victim in one sense, and someone privileged with superior empathy and a global view on the other. In a weird way, she is using this global view in much the same way Christians use God as a higher court of appeal than any human one. Britain is (as surveys this week show) increasingly secular, but micro-identities like this TCK thing are a valuable stop-gap against nihilism. That 'higher court of appeal' is important, even if it's imaginary.

Of course the UN comes close to being an actual, existing version, or the ICC, or the Court of Human Rights at the Hague. But they tend to be toothless. I think I'd rather have 'global empathy' poised at the end of the whistle.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 14:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Playing 'We are the World'?

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 14:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I've known a zillion US army brats who fit this profile.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Friday, 27 February 2004 14:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I like the way 'third culture kid' goes blue when I click on this thread (when it's at the top of New Answers).

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 14:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess I'm a TCK. My dad's in the State Department, so I grew up in India (Bombay, then New Delhi), Yugoslavia, and France. Plus my family was in Hong Kong while I was in college in the US, so I went over there a few times. I guess I'm a traitor. I don't know about the prolonged adolescence, but I do have two bachelors degrees.

― NA (Nick A.), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Even though I have lived in the same part of the UK all my life, I was brought up to speak only French until I went to school. My mother was a strict believer in French values so that really rubbed off on me.

I have a bachelors degree and I definitely am living a prolonged adolescence.

― dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:40 (twenty-two years ago)

This reminds me of conversations I used to have with other kids at the (ahem) British Embassy School in Athens. Someone would come up to you and say 'What countries have you been to?' You'd list three or four and the kid would say 'That's nothing, I've been to Kenya, India, Australia, Malaysia...' (continued for three of four minutes).

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I've known a zillion US army brats who fit this profile.

Navy brat here, I'm not entirely sure if I do. Keep in mind that no matter my dad's assignments, he was based in the States so I never grew up overseas. Personally I think what bemusement/outright cynicism I have is homegrown and comes from both parents.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Get your hair cut, Corporal Raggett!

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:50 (twenty-two years ago)

FUCKIN!! UP!!! MY VIDEO!! TAPE! GET THTE KEY 2 THE BBC!!

― KARL SMUMFY, Friday, 27 February 2004 16:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Get your hair cut, Corporal Raggett!

Nah, that would suck.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 27 February 2004 16:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Regardless of where she grew up, the fact that Gun is acting the smug bitch about all this makes my skin crawl. I wonder where she expects to get a new job.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 27 February 2004 17:50 (twenty-two years ago)

She's the hero of the hour to people like me, so I'd expect her to work for Liberty, Amnesty, the UN, Greenpeace, or some other rights organisation. "I jokingly said to somebody the other day that I'll start making babies, but I don't think I'm ready for that yet," Gun says. Her only certain plan is to go on holiday with her husband.

You kind of want her to suffer, though, don't you? You want her never to eat lunch in this town again, I can tell.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 18:06 (twenty-two years ago)

I do. I mean shit, she handpicked like the most useless e-mail memo in the intelligence world to leak, and now she's special somehow? The most significant fucking consequence of her actions thus far have been 1. the head of regional targets at NSA had to change his home phone number and 2. Diplomatic higgledy-piggledy now that she's gotten off scot free because some dumbass fucked up the investigation procedure. What she herself actually did was of almost zero significance and if you recall at the time was barely a blip on the news radar and hasn't changed a thing about the way business is conducted, though perhaps now NSA won't be so free with the information sharing since Britain seems to think it's OK to just let secret leakers go, as you say, on holiday.

So my question - what the fuck are you calling her a hero for? Or maybe I should phrase it like this:

T/S Doing something subversive vs. Accomplishing anything useful

― TOMBOT, Friday, 27 February 2004 18:20 (twenty-two years ago)

The "TCK" profile sounds like a cross between boho yuppie and trustafarian.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 27 February 2004 18:40 (twenty-two years ago)

an ex-gf of mine was a self-described TCK which always sounded like boohoo-poor-privileged-cosmopolitan-jetset-me. The problem with "TCK" is that it assumes that people who've grown up "provincially" have it any easier as far as fitting in or feeling at ease in one's surroundings. It's like the Onion headline this week: 'Pregnant Woman Acting Like No One Ever Got Pregnant Before'. We all have to deal with the basics like alienation.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 27 February 2004 18:53 (twenty-two years ago)

"Smug bitch"? Someone has an anger management problem.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Friday, 27 February 2004 18:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Aye, Spencer OTM.

Most every relatively intelligent person I know [in the US] has some feelings of alienation whether they grew up here or elsewhere. Is that supposed to be prolonged adolescence?

And what the hell do Bachelors degrees have to do with it? I have two of them. In fact, I identify pretty well in many ways with the description of a TCK, yet I spent almost all of my formative years in the same place and didn't move out until I went to college.

― martin m. (mushrush), Friday, 27 February 2004 19:20 (twenty-two years ago)

What she's achieved Tombot, depends very much on your feelings about stuff like accountability, transparency, the rule of law, international agreements, and the like. It depends on your feelings about Tony Blair's feelings about those things, or rather, the gap between his feelings about those things and his actions. It depends on whether you think it delicious that politicians who use influence with the high and mighty to get themselves off hooks should be hoisted right back on them by a lowly translator. It depends on whether you've been watching to see exactly where, down the chain of command, the lie would be called a lie, the spade a spade, and the emperor naked.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 27 February 2004 19:31 (twenty-two years ago)

And what the hell do Bachelors degrees have to do with it?

I think that the TCK explanation would involve the fear of settling, whereas it would seem to me that class (and the expectations that often come with privilege) is the more obvious explanation.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 27 February 2004 19:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Spencer probably OTM in both of his paragraphs. If anything, I think that I might be better at "fitting in" and adapting than most people who stayed in one place their whole childhood. Changing schools/countries every three years kind of forces you to learn how to do that.

― NA (Nick A.), Friday, 27 February 2004 21:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Also, I should make it clear that I very much wish that I was a TCK!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 27 February 2004 21:49 (twenty-two years ago)

*HORRIBLE pun ahead* Can I still be a TCK if I drop the baggage?

"Were your parents military people, missionaries, EFL teachers, diplomats, salespeople, economic migrants or 'global nomads'?"

What if they were just poor college students?

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Saturday, 28 February 2004 15:27 (twenty-two years ago)

And by 'college', I meant 'grad' and such.

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Saturday, 28 February 2004 15:29 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.