Third Culture Kids

I am reading a book at the moment called Third Culture Kids. (Note: I am in the process of reading it. I have not finished it. Maybe when I do I will need to revise this post, but for now…here goes!)
It basically defines and analyses the phenomenon of children who are born to parents of different cultures or who spend formative childhood years growing up in a culture that is different to their parents’.

Since I myself am a cross culture kid (one parent is Irish, one parent Dutch), I find this book interesting. I also grew up in multiple countries (England, Holland, Spain, Singapore). I now find myself with my Scottish husband living in India with my two daughters, both of whom speak Dutch, English and some Hindi. One counts herself English and the other considers herself Indian.

This book throws up many interesting ideas and observations around culture and how we define culture. It uses an iceberg analogy to show that the parts of culture that are “visible” such as clothing and food are only the most superficial aspects of something that runs much deeper and which children absorb through osmosis by the adults that surround them. Culture is about much more than quaint traditions and national costumes, it is also about values, ethics, ideas about religion, the universe and concepts of right and wrong.

From our own experience of living in India, I remember that when we first moved here my husband and I were shocked and often appalled at how forward people were about approaching and photographing our children. Even when we visited the Taj Mahal, one of the wonders of the world, it seemed that the Indian visitors were much more interested in following my children around, pinching their cheeks and taking endless of photos of them. Permission seemed irrelevant, as did personal space.

My eldest daughter found this very difficult. Having come from London, there is not only a strong sense of entitlement to personal space, there is also a lot of fear and suspicion around the act of touching or photographing a child. Obviously she sensed her parents discomfort at this behaviour and this made her confused.

Neither culture is right or wrong, and over time we have come to understand and appreciate the differences of both. Of course I sometimes wish for my personal space as I have grown up to understand it as a right, but equally I am much more objective about the fear and negativity which sits behind the disapproval of innocent touch or admiration of children.

I think this book is engaged in a very noble attempt to empower people by helping them to understand themselves or the experiences of their child. This will lead to increased understanding and empathy for these “global nomads” that belong “everywhere and nowhere”.

At the same time, I wonder why we so easily give in to this tendency to put ourselves and others into prescribed categories and boxes. The book is littered with definitional boxes and venn diagrams. Who fits in here? Could somebody with such and such a background or experience be defined as x or y?

Krishnamurti says in his book Freedom From The Known:
“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”

We who have had the privilege of seeing something of this beautiful world, of absorbing wisdom and tradition from people and cultures different to us, should understand this more than anybody. The need to belong is strong within all of us, and feeling lost can be uncomfortable and difficult to put into words.

However, as global travellers and inhabitants of the world, we should be leading the way on this thinking. Instead of boxing ourselves into an exclusive society and deciding who does and does not gain entry to our somewhat elitist club, we should be wide open, removing judgement and our concepts of understanding every day so that we are optimally able to influence and enhance this world and our collective population.

You might say that it is our duty, in exchange for the privileges bestowed upon us.

We all long to belong, because we think that belonging means that we are understood.

The wider truth here is that we sometimes all struggle to understand each other. Assumptions can sometimes be helpful, but more often than not these boxes place barriers around us instead of freeing us to reach out with love and openness to one another and seek to understand each other better.

We should aim higher. We should try to climb out of our boxes and look up at each other. Once we look each other in the eye, without judgement, without preconceptions, with open hearts, we have an actual chance of connecting with each other. That connection is the very thing that we are looking for, the very thing that will put everything else into perspective. So let us reach high! Let us think outside of our boxes!