Where were you going?

Although I didn't know the term "Third Cultural Kid" as a kid, I remember clearly when I first realized I hadn't kept up with American kids my age while overseas.  I lived in Belgrade, (then) Yugoslavia from 1973-1976, from age 7 to 10.  We moved back to our house in Glen Echo, Maryland in April 1976, and I finished the school year at Brookmont Elementary School.  We moved to a new house in Bethesda, Maryland in October 1976, where I went to a new school, Bradley Elementary.  I was in the 5th grade.  Everything was going fine, especially considering I had gone to three schools in the space of 6 months -- 3, if you take out summer.  One day, probably 5 or 6 weeks after I started Bradley, a girl named Karen and I were chatting at lunch time.  She began telling me about all the boys she had gone with -- Jack, Cliff, Biff -- whatever, and a guy she was currently going with.  I asked, "Where are you going?"

In my defense, no one at Brookmont Elementary had talked about "going" with boys.  Then again, maybe no one in fourth grade, at Brookmont or at Bradley, had any idea what "going" with boys was and it just hit you like a bolt of hormone-filled lightning when you started fifth grade.  You just knew what the phrase meant -- no one had to define it to anyone else because everyone just knew.  Or maybe I had missed it during the transition from Brookmont to Bradley.  Or maybe all the girls at Brookmont were wall flowers. 

But as Karen was explaining to me that she and what's-his-name weren't "going anywhere," that they were "going steady" (which frankly, I still didn't really get), I knew it was being in Yugoslavia for three years that had made me ignorant.  If I had been in the States all along, I would have learned "going steady" because my American classmates would have been on top of all this and I would have heard about it.  The kids at the International School of Belgrade (ISB) were all clueless because most of them weren't American, so they didn't know about America and weren't on top of things the way Americans were, and since I went to school with them, I was as clueless as they were.  I realized in the same flash that by tomorrow it would be all over the school that I didn't know what "going" and "going steady" meant.

Actually, it took less than a day.

A Third Culture Kid

I had an unusual childhood compared to most Americans'.  My dad, now retired, was a Foreign Service Officer. I was born in Jerusalem and lived in then-West Germany, then-Yugoslavia, Italy, and intermittently, Bulgaria and Zambia. We would live in each country 2-3 years, and then move back to the United States in the DC area.  When you're a young kid, moving to other countries away from your friends isn't a big deal. We moved to Yugoslavia when I was seven, but I didn't really conceptualize that we were going to a whole other country.  We could have moved to a different DC suburb and it would have meant the same to me - I still would have lived in a neighborhood without my friends and gone to a different school.  And needless to say, at age 7, your friendships are not as tight as they are at age 10 or especially at 16.

Coming back to the States was much harder than moving away from them.  Even in the DC area where people from all over the world came to represent their countries and where there were many families like mine, who worked and lived overseas off and on, I often felt I was more of a foreigner than I had abroad.  My friends and I didn't know how to resume where we had left off; we didn't know how to overcome the yawning gaps of time, space, and contact.  It wasn't anyone's fault, but it was painful.

At the same time, I never fully embraced the cultures of the countries I lived in.  I always went to an English- speaking international school -- the best part of being a diplomat's kid -- that was pretty similar to an American school (except my classmates were from all over the world and I didn't learn very much American history.)  I didn't become fluent in the countries' languages -- far from it.  I often didn't even become friends with kids from the countries -- it was usually other diplomats' kids.  I grew up in the subculture of the U.S. Embassy.  More on that another time. 

I found out what a Third Culture Kid was about five years ago: “A third culture kid is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside their parents’ culture. The third culture kid builds relationships to all the cultures, while not having full ownership in any."  From TCKWorld, http://www.tckworld.com/  At 40 years old, I finally felt a sense of relief when I discovered a term for my childhood experience.  I also felt less alone.  I knew then that there were many people who have had the same pangs of loneliness and other-ness, the same sense of being unanchored, unidentified, and adrift, the same yearning for attachment, but also the pride of being worldly and comfort of adapting to different cultures.  I had some words, finally, to say who I was and am now.  A Third Culture Kid and Alum.