This week, I watched the Lifetime movie, Will You Merry Me about a couple, Rebecca and Hank, who are from very different backgrounds. Hank is a corn-fed, mid-Westerner from Madison, Wisconsin and is a Christian. Rebecca is a sophisticated Jewish city girl from an upper class Los Angeles family. Just before Christmas and Hanukkah, Hank finally pops the question. Rebecca says yes, and the two couldn’t be happier. But the road to happiness has some potholes! It is time to meet the parents during two important religious holidays and the couple must go through the natural anxiety-filled process of meeting the in-laws. What also awaits them is the stress (and blunders) of immersing each other into two very different families, from two different cultures with very different experiences and expectations around religious beliefs and traditions during the holiday season.

Though a fictitious comedy with a happy ending, this storyline reminded me of the challenges that come from having lived in other cultures for extended periods of time. And… for some, the lyrics from the song made popular by American singer, Andy Williams, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” can invoke sadness, even dread, especially when far away from home or one’s passport culture. Not being prepared adds un-needed stress.

You may find that living in a country that does not celebrate the holidays the way you do can be especially stressful. It can also offer the opportunity to be mindful about those traditions from your home culture that are especially meaningful, as well as provide an opportunity to explore traditions of the culture where you now live.

I remember getting ready to celebrate Christmas the first time I was assigned abroad. I had been in the country less than six months and was excited about celebrating Christmas overseas. I had carefully planned my traditional Louisiana Creole/Cajun holiday menu and prepared a list of grocery items I would need to prepare my feast. Unfortunately, I discovered that the rush on traditional food items from the US had been thoroughly decimated and the grocery aisles were left mostly empty at the base commissary. I purchased what I could and left the store nearly in tears. Underneath, I felt devastated.

OMG! What was I going to do?

Thankfully, one of my more seasoned neighbors from Taiwan suggested that we pool our resources and celebrate the holiday together. She accompanied me to the local market to supplement what I had found. More importantly, she helped my family to focus on celebrating the holiday season in new ways, including being introduced to traditions from her culture and sharing my traditions with her family. Instead of allowing me to focus on the disappointments and challenges, on this occasion, she offered me the opportunity to have new and memorable experiences that I cherish to this day! The next year, I prepared early, joined the rush and did not despair when items ran out before I could get to them. I looked for even more enjoyable memories to share with other families on my installation and with local people in my host country.

ATCKs/ACCKs are often faced with several holiday challenges:

• If currently living overseas or far away from home, finding ways to participate in existing family holiday traditions from their home or passport culture and at the same time participating in the celebrations in their new environment.
• Being able to hold on to and celebrate those practices  that were developed as a result of having lived in another culture as a child or as an adult once returning home.
• Being from more than one background through cross cultural marriages or blended families, especially those with different backgrounds.
• If married to non-TCKs, the subject of how to celebrate the holidays can be even more complex and fraught with emotions and stress

What Can You Do?

You can approach this holiday season with dread and isolate yourself from your environment or other people. Or, make a decision to do as American CCK/TCA, Christophe Landry chose.

Finding himself feeling lonely and isolated during this holiday break where he recently enrolled in doctoral/postgraduate research studies in Brighton, UK, Christophe recognized that he could spend his entire holiday season feeling sad, especially because his flatmate had already gone home to Kuwait City. He wished he could fly back home and was feeling powerless to do anything. He reached out for advice and suggestions for shaking his holiday doldrums. As a result, Christophe was able to reach inside, control his inner thoughts and redirect them toward action. Within a short period of time, he was excited about Christmas. He contacted a few friends and locals he discovered were also still in the area and made plans for meeting at the pub and going to the movies as well as putting together a pot luck lunch and dinner on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. He offers this advice:

For even the most seasoned of us CCKs/TCKs, holiday seasons in new environments with minimal local contacts can be lonely; but not impossible to overcome. Here in England, as a postgraduate student arriving at the wrong time of the year, it’s been rough, but an idea came to me as I sobbed about being lonely: a job in retail and/or bartending would be perfect to meet and befriend lots of locals; I also reached out to contacts I had made over the summer term, whom I imagined had returned “home” after studies, or for the holidays.

 One of those friends is Faith, an MBA student here from Michigan, who was my flatmate earlier in the year. I called her up and she was excited about having Christmas dinner, and hosting it at her flat. What put the icing on the cake for her was my contribution of chicken and sausage Gumbo, which she loves. In this context, we all will have a bit of “home”, or familiarity, with us here in England while away from “home.” The key for me, as a sociable nut, is to make friends with people from my host culture and to connect with people from home.  I’m now a happy camper.

He adds,

 If you are new to the area and do not yet have local friendship networks, but have passions or hobbies, another option would be to seek venues and people who share those passions. If we agree that communities are built on common interests and that socially, these networks are meaningful – enough to make us content, and happy– then ultimately our goal in new spaces and places during the holidays could be to ‘just reach out and touch someone.’ It may just work for you.

Holiday Survival Guide: 6 Expert’s Tips for Thriving Through the Holidays

Here are a few more reflections and suggestions from TCKs and well-known TCK/CCK experts:

1. Maintain Old Traditions and Create New Traditions.

Ann Copeland, PhD, Executive Director of The Interchange Institute a not-for-profit research organization on intercultural transitions offers this:

I think it can go two [opposite] ways for ATCKs living away from their home culture, and knowing this ahead may be helpful. On one hand, some people rejoice in celebrating a familiar or new holiday in another country, enjoying the expansion of their vision of the meaning of the holiday with new food, customs, images, music, etc. On the other hand, such newness hits other people really hard – it reminds them of their distance from their families and friends and doubles the loneliness that may have been dormant.

Her Advice: Try to find others from your home culture and replicate what you can. And then, try to find one new custom you enjoy – you may find yourself keeping that custom for the rest of your life.

2. Enjoy the Holiday Season.

Paul & Susanna Holcomb are both ATCKs who grew up as missionary kids in Africa and Indonesia, respectively. Having lived away from their extended family for long periods of time, they have learned to cherish the times when they are able to see loved ones, especially during the Christmas holiday season.

We are often amazed when we hear people say their families must choose which family to be with on Christmas and causing anxiety for everyone, especially children. Because our families on both sides understand how difficult this can be at times, we have adopted a very flexible approach to holiday gatherings. We look for what will work best and operate around any challenges that may occur, including having more than one celebration at alternate times or days, if needed. What’s most important for us is the time spent together and reflecting on the meaning of the Christmas season.

Their Advice: You don’t have to be dogmatic about it. Just focus on the meaning of the holiday season and the people you are spending time with, even if not on the exact holiday. If you’re worried that not being able to be with specific family members will upset them, proactively contact them in advance and let them know what plans you have chosen. Using the language of love and caring, be flexible and work with them to make alternative plans.

3. Plan Self-Care During the Holidays.

“Stress, grief, sadness, anxiety, can all be words associated with the holiday season as well as joy, celebration, family, friends and loved ones”, says money and relationship coach, Lorraine Edey, LCSW, PhD, ACC. As a multiracial/multicultural military brat and Merchant Marines ATCK, she understands what it means to navigate the cultural and distance intricacies of the holiday season. In her Married Again Radio holiday series, Blue, Blues Go Away, I Want a Happy Holiday she encourages her listeners to take care of themselves. According to Dr. Edey,

Relationships are the main focus during the holiday season, whether positive or negative. Communication skills must be sharpened and kept at the forefront of our minds as we weave in and out of a variety of family and relationship situations.

Her Advice: Since the holiday is a time for gathering…..plan the gathering. I call this “my relationship planner”. This planner can include those individuals you most want to spend time with….they are the ones with whom you have a solid relationship, enjoy spending time with and whose friendship you value.

Then plan out the individuals that you do not necessarily have fun with nor resonate with, but feel “obligated” to visit. You can manage this by putting them in between the solid relationships; keeping visits short and sweet, then ending the holiday with your solid relationships. A win-win for all, and a less stressed holiday. Planning is the key, especially for TCKs/CCKs…use it to open the door for a different kind of celebration!

4. Stay Connected.

When I asked, What are some of your holiday survival tips/gifts for Adult Third Culture Kids?, Brice Royer, founder of TCKid and co-founder of the TCK Academy, posted the question on the TCK Facebook page because he wanted to hear what other TCKs had to say. He shared that amongst his personal favorite responses were “Tickets to see family” and “Receiving something personal”.

His Advice: Invite family and friends to visit you where you are. Share a part of your culture with them. Introduce them to new people, languages, foods and customs. Not only is it a great way to spend the holidays, it’s also a great way to stay connected to people you care about.

I would like to add to Brice’s advice.  As a licensed therapist and family adjustment coach, I know that maintaining family traditions and rituals, especially holiday traditions can help families to stay connected and plays a vital role in the TCKs emotional well-being and identity development. Honoring established family traditions not only add to their socio-cultural development, their sense of self and their place in the world, it helps to strengthen their attachments to family and home. By staying connected to loved ones using email, snail mail, social media and family visits, it can provide an anchor to extended family, especially grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in their home culture. This is vitally important to a TCKs ability to venture forth and find their “own” place in the world as adults

5. Learn More About Your Host Culture.

Carol Prewitt, owner of Prewitt Consulting, a civility, etiquette and business protocol training company and parent of an ATCK, reflects on her experiences of living in Morocco as a US Air Force wife when her family was assigned to the American Embassy:

While living in Rabat, Morocco, my family had the opportunity to experience a couple of memorable, warm and colorful Christmases. Although Morocco is an Islamic country where Christmas is not observed, Americans and other foreign nationals celebrated Christmas in a climate of 80 degree weather and beautiful sunshine. Colorful Christmas ornaments reflected the hue of the Christmas spirit although we were thousands of miles from home.

We prepared our traditional Christmas dinners and included lamb and Moroccan tea out of respect for our Moroccan friends who visited and celebrated with us. ‘Oh, how we appreciated their company and helping us to feel at home, as much as possible, since  we did not have family to celebrate with us’.

It was such a pleasure sharing our American tradition of singing, gift sharing and enjoying our festive cuisine with our Moroccan friends. We sincerely appreciated their sensitivity and respect of our Christian beliefs while not compromising their own religious beliefs. Their children enjoyed the colorful lights and American tokens given to them as a gift from our family. Our Christmases in Morocco will never be forgotten.

Her Advice: While living internationally, keep an open mind. Make sure you are aware of the customs and courtesies of the host country and culture. Be eager to learn and be eager to explore the culture and environment, especially holiday celebrations, religious customs and everyday lifestyle. Make an effort to get to know the people in your host culture and – above all – make every effort to enjoy the experience.

6. Give Yourself a Gift of Year-End Reflection.

Dr Geoff Abbott, executive coach and Global Director for The Centre for International Business Coaching says:

I think that this time of the year offers TCKs the perfect opportunity to reflect on their lives and what it means to be a TCK; dealing with the experiences, complexities and realities of having lived among cultures.

His Advice: Create an active space to explore and reflect on your life and design actions that will bring new futures not only during this season, but throughout 2012 and the rest of your life. As a start, I recommend reading a poem written by TCK, Susanne Carlson “And Your Past In Three Seconds, Please” that speaks to the challenges and complexities of having lived outside your passport culture.

Susanne’s poem is showcased on Barbara Schaetti’s Transition Dynamics website.

I would love to hear from you!

• What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?
• Is there a tradition that you encountered outside your passport culture that is memorable”.
• How has  your life been enhanced by having these experiences?

Happy holidays to all!!

The New Normal : Obama and Other Third Culture Kids Using The Gifts of Their Global Childhoods

Pundits throughout the presidential campaign struggled to define President-elect Barack Obama by traditional measurements of race or ethnicity. They wondered if his vision for “no blue States, no red States, but the United States of America ” was possible. Could any nation move beyond its political or racial divisions to some sort of unified whole?

While the debates on talk shows on these issues seemed endless, they missed one basic reality about Barack Obama: he grew up as a third culture kid (TCK) — a child who spends a significant period of his or her developmental years outside the parent(s)’ passport culture.  The themes Obama describes in his autobiographies – his search for identity, his wondering where he belongs in the traditional slots – are common concerns for the countless children being raised among different cultures in today’s society – not just TCKs, but what we now call Cross Culture Kids (CCKs) as well – children of immigrants, biracial or international adoptees, and more.

The gifts of the TCK and CCK experience are great in number and depth – a broad world view, the ability to be a cultural bridge, linguistic skills, and a sense of confidence to think “outside the box” are well documented benefits of this background.

In this webinar we will explore how this “new normal” — the reality that fewer and fewer children grow up in traditional mono-cultural environments – presents new opportunities for our globalizing world. We will look at the common benefits and challenges such a childhood brings. And we will consider both how to recognize and use the gifts so many adult TCKs bring with them to the workplace, to the community, or to their governments.

Whether you are a TCK yourself, or are interested in how to leverage others’ TCK skills in the service of improved understanding, communication, and effectiveness, please join us for a fascinating, interactive discussion.

Date:    Jan. 29th, 2009

Time:    7:30 AM Eastern,

   12:00 Noon Eastern,

    OR

    5:00 PM Eastern

To register, please email Laura Thielges on or before January 28 at lthielges@girlscouts.org and indicate which timeslot you’d like to participate in.  You will then be sent an email with instructions for attending the webinar.  Participation is limited to the first 100 people who respond. 

Girl Scouts of the USA has recently released some interesting research on the affects of the recent election on girls and youth.  See more from the Girl Scout Research Institute here:

http://www.girlscouts.org/news/news_releases/2009/elections_impact.asp

Please join me for the next interview in my ongoing series of the TCK Academy teleconferences. I will be interviewing  Donna Musil,  Army Brat/ATCK, writer, director and producer of Brats: Our Journey Home.

Donna was raised an Army brat and has lived and worked in Germany, Korea, Ireland, Copenhagen, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, and Paris. As a child, she moved 12 times in 16 years. Her father was a JAG officer and military judge. When she was 16, her father died, and two weeks later, her family moved to Columbus, Georgia, where she finished high school.

For the next 20 years, Donna moved 19 times, graduated college, and worked in a variety of jobs, but always felt “different” from her fellow Americans. In 1997, she learned that she was not alone. While surfing the Internet, Donna discovered a Web site for her Taegu, Korea high school. A few weeks later, she attended an impromptu reunion in Washington, DC. It was revelatory. For the first time, Donna felt like she “belonged” somewhere, and thus began her journey “home.

According to Musil, “It’s really about reconnecting and finding a home…. Finding a home not in a place but with a group of people.”

During our conversation, Donna will discuss the making of her seven-year passion, Brats: Our Journey Home, finding that place of belonging, being comfortable with who you are in the mix of paradoxes, the positive and the challenging legacies that “third culture kids” experience around the globe, and how BRATs/TCKs can develop an ability to “fully employ your strengths and have compassion for your weaknesses.”

Paulette

For example, I have discovered while traveling the globe to speak on issues related to Third Culture Kids (TCKs) that many in my audience will come up and say “I relate completely to the profile you describe for TCKs, but I never grew up the way my [child, student, employee] is (or did). Am I allowed to apply some of these things to my own life?”

On further exploring the stories of those who feel so connected to the issues of those who have clearly grown up among many cultures with high mobility taking them back and forth between these different cultural worlds, we began to see larger patterns emerge. Some of those sharing their stories had grown up in the former Eastern bloc countries. When the “Iron Curtain” fell, the cultural worlds in which they lived changed dramatically. No longer were they living in the traditional cultural patterns their parents had known. They hadn’t physically moved to a new culture, but a new world had come to them. For international adoptees, for those raised in bi-cultural homes, many of the same issues of “Which of my many cultural selves am I?” that TCKs have often faced were theirs as well.

As we wanted to enlarge our discussions to include this growing group of those who have grown up and/or lived among this multiplicy of cultural worlds for all sorts of reasons, we started with one simple, obvious place.

Years ago, the late Dave Pollock (my co-author Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds) and Norma McCaig (originator of the term, Global Nomads) first used the term “Hidden Immigrant” to describe the repatriation experience of TCKs. In other words, if someone came from another country who was clearly an immigrant because he or she didn’t speak the language, share the same ethnicity, or whatever, those around would give that person space to be different. Others would help these clearly defined immigrants to learn the cultural ways of this country.

When, however, TCKs who had been raised outside their passport country returned “home,” they usually physically resembled those in the dominant culture around them. They spoke the language well. People assumed they were “the same” and no awareness or room was given for the fact that they did not share a common cultural upbringing.

Paulette and I began to see this same phenomenon was happening to so many she has described in her excellent introduction. For whatever reasons, the old ways of applying labels of “diversity” no longer worked because their experiences were not the traditional ones assumed for members of that “group.” We expanded the term used for TCKs to “Hidden Diversity” to try and include this growing number of people whose life experience often did not match what others assumed was theirs.

The responses across the globe have been remarkable in these past few years since we began to use this language. So many have had their “aha” moment when they see that, indeed, they have been trying to fit a preassigned box but, in fact, that it is not their personal, experiential world.

The most exciting thing, to me, is that in doing this, we also begin to see some of the same benefits identified for traditional TCKs are an unnoticed gift for many others with cross-cultural upbringings. Children of minorities have often had to negotiate between markedly different cultural worlds each day as they go to and from school and home. Have we begun to tap this rich resource for our culturally changing world?

And so it goes. We invite each of you to join this discussion and see how we can continue to grow our discussions of diversity to include the many new looks it has in today’s world and affirm hidden gifts even in the traditional ways we have recognized diversity so that all of us can grow and enjoy the riches of such a lifestyle.

Ruth E. Van Reken

Co-Author

This afternoon I watched a portion of comedian Steve Harvey’s family friendly stand-up performance in his concert film “Don’t trip: He aint through with me yet,” performed before an audience of 16, 0000 churchgoers at an Atlanta-based gospel gathering.

During this performance he confesses to a laundry list of imperfections and life experiences that evolved from his past. Harvey amusingly utters, “There are things that you know about me from just looking at me!” He later added that as a comedian “he sees stuff that others don’t see” and that his uses this observant eye to find the humor that he uses in his unique style of comedy. All joking aside, I suspect that this list of “lived experiences” have informed his life and moved him to where he is today.

Whether you agree or disagree with his typical brand of blue material humor, it occurred to me these descriptions were a reflection of his own brand of “hidden diversity.” If you are aware of his hidden diversities that he shared during this act, it might be easier to surface why he is dedicated to surface why is passionately committed to providing equipment to lower income schools though his foundation and to participating speaking engagements where he stresses the importance of goals and the warns of the dangers of drugs to young audiences.

As acknowledged by Steve Harvey, that if you stop at the observable aspects of an individual’s personhood, you run the risk of missing out on all that exists at the deeper level of their identity, and that offers the potential of bringing forth gifts that can be used for the benefit others who may cross their path.

Are their parts of your identity that if surfaced may reveal all that you have to offer in the way of your own brand of gifting?

Paulette M. Bethel

Co-Author

Why this Blog

In 2003, we interviewed parents from a variety of countries and cultures whose children were then attending school in the U.S. Each of their children had also gone to school in countries outside the U.S., some to local schools, some to more specifically international type of schools. In our conversations with this diverse group of parents around issues connected to their children’s educational experiences due to their internationally mobile lifestyle, a distinctive pattern began to emerge. Often, assumptions and expectations were ascribed to these students were based upon external identity markers and expectations that may or may not have been accurate. … often resulting in missed opportunities for their teachers and peers to benefit from their “more hidden” gifts that have evolved through this lifestyle.

What came from this research gave birth to what we now call “hidden diversity.” Hence, the focus of this blog will be to:

1. Engage in discussion about the increasing number of people who have grown (or are growing) up cross-culturally for many different reasons recognize that they have a core skills set that has been formed from their very lives

2. Help others recognize that there are a cadre of people existing in virtually every workplace, school, or neighborhood environment with these core skills sets but that often these skills are not being recognized or used because those who possess them do not fall into the usual expectations or markers for recognized “diversities.”

3. Provide information that is relevant for people who teach, work, and live with those from cross-cultural backgrounds recognize some of these common gifts and challenges a cross-cultural childhood may bring so they can also help their students, workmates, and family members more intentionally and fully develop their strengths.

Paulette M. Bethel and Ruth E, Van Reken

Hidden Diversity in a Globalizing World Authors