third culture kids

The holidays are the season of family reunion. For those of us who live outside of our culture of origin, to have the opportunity to share our traditions with the loved ones is a special treat that doesn’t come often, so we must embrace fully. But deciding which traditions we honor is not necessarily an easy choice because after a while our loyalty to one or another culture tends to blur. Surprisingly, far from being a problem, this is only allowing us to accept a wider range of traditions without the usual conflict of feeling foreign to them. This seems to be the special gift of Third Culture Kids:

While Third Culture Kids usually grow up to be fiercely independent and cosmopolitan, they are more culturally sound and sensitive. They also tend to get along with people of any culture.

Third culture kids grow up in a genuinely cross-cultural world. While expatriates watch and study cultures that they live in, third culture kids actually live in different cultural worlds. Third culture kids have incorporated different cultures on the deepest level, as to have several cultures incorporated into their thought processes. This means that third culture kids not only have deep cultural access to at least two cultures, this also means that thought processes are truly multicultural. That, in turn, influences how third culture kids relate to the world around them, and makes third culture kids’ thought processes different even from members of cultures they have deep-level access to. TCKs also have certain personal characteristics in common. Growing up in the third culture rewards certain behaviors and personality traits in different ways than growing up in a single culture does, which results in common characteristics. Third culture kids are often tolerant cultural chameleons who can choose to what degree they wish to display their background.

TCK’s are on the rise as a result of the massive migrations triggered by globalization processes. The impact that this demographic group may have on culture understanding is possibly a prelude to how a global culture may be a good thing in the long run: A wonderful generation of culturally sensitive people who have been exposed to several cultures and are accepting of all things new.