Category: Third Culture Kids

Last night we had a dinner-time discussion on what a Peep is. I have no idea how this came up. My kids don’t remember what they are, so I gave them a description because I am feeling the urgency of what they don’t know about America.

Granted, I don’t even like Peeps. And I am not looking forward to my children consuming them this Easter. Or, for that matter, any of the various forms of garbage that are disguised as food in America. But they should at least be able to recognize those marshmallow American Easter icons.

We get on a plane exactly five weeks from today, and we’ll be in California for four months.

It’s been almost three years since we were in America. My kids were 8, 6, and 5 the last time we were there. Now they are 11, 9, and 8. And then there’s Johnny, who at age 5 has no conception of this mystical land we keep talking about.

As the oldest, Grace has the most memories about the States. She also has an uncanny knack for remembering people and names. (I think she remembers more people than her Dad does.) But an 11-year-old is entirely different than an 8-year-old. This time, she will be experiencing America in an entirely different way. All of them will.

We have thrust these dual identities on these children, whether they like it or not. I think I see it more acutely because our children have Tanzanian blood, are being raised in Tanzania, but by American parents. They’ve learned to say “Good morning” to white people and “Shikamoo” to brown people. They eat rice and beans multiple times every week, but wouldn’t recognize a box of macaroni and cheese if it hit them in the face. We insist they use a knife and fork, but the children on the side of the fence eat with their hands.

They saw The Force Awakens and Rogue One on opening day–both times–but they have no idea how amazing it is that they didn’t have to wait in line. They know Pizza Hut is a special treat, but they think it’s normal to rip up the box to make plates, since the restaurant here doesn’t provide them. They are used to trying on used Nike sneakers at the local open air market instead of going to Payless. Oh, and they think sneakers are called trainers.

They watched the last 30 minutes of the World Series and the Super Bowl–delayed, of course. But Josiah is insanely obsessed with (British) Premier League Soccer, which he insists can only be called Football. They came home from school asking if Trump is kicking all the black people out of America, because that’s what their friends said.

Lily loves her American Girl doll, but straps her to her back with a kanga, Tanzanian style. Josiah learned how to dab from….somewhere. He also learned that flipping bottles is fun. (Seriously? Of all the ideas America had to export?) But he doesn’t know what a Peep is.

I am incredibly grateful that my kids have Haven of Peace Academy, because there they have their own culture. It’s a mixed-up, semi-western, very international melting pot of ideas and cultures and trends. Most of the children there are confused about their ethnicity and identity, so my children fit right in. I’m thankful. But I also worry, because I’ve given these children American passports. And chances are good that at some point in their lives, they will be living there for a lot longer than just a few months.

The great thing about kids is that they just go with it. My children have no idea that it’s crazy that they have two passports, that they have already criss-crossed the world a number of times, that international travel is normal for them. Or even more, they haven’t realized that it’s unusual to grow up as Tanzanian children of American missionaries.

I worry because this time around, they may start to feel that tension. They are kind of American, but kind of not. Kind of Tanzanian, but kind of not. The Third-Culture Kid paradox is even more acute because my children are adopted. Who are they? Who will they identify with? Where will they feel at home? That struggle looms large before them. They don’t see it yet, but I do.

I gave them this struggle. It is my fault. I have to trust that it was the right decision, that giving them a family will be worth the struggle in the long run. I chose this life for them, and all I can do is hope and pray that they continue to love it. That they become bridge-builders, reconcilers, peace-makers. That they ultimately find their identity as children of God and citizens of Heaven.

Raising Kids With Forbidden Roots

By Amy Medina

On September 9, 2016

In Third Culture Kids

If my roots are forbidden, then what happens to my kids?

My kids are indeed TCKs (third-culture kids), but not in the usual sense. They are Tanzanian by birth, being raised in Tanzania by Americans. They have two passports, are spending their childhood in their birth country but will most likely one day live in their parents’ country. If that sounds confusing, trying explaining it to your kids.

My children have never been allowed to live one life. There is always a whole other universe lurking behind everything we do. When they were little and were able to just go along with everywhere we yanked them, it wasn’t really a big deal. But they are older now, growing into lives of their own, and I’m finding myself trying to help them figure out their two worlds. I don’t usually feel very successful.

Have you ever thought about when would be a “good” time to just leave everything behind from your life and go visit another country for four months? Your job, your house, your church, your car, your everything. That’s what it’s like for missionaries to go on home assignment. And now that our kids are getting older? Even more complicated.

We need to go on a home assignment this year. We would have loved to do it this past summer, but Johnny’s adoption was not yet finalized. So that means it will happen sometime this school year, depending on when we can get Johnny’s passport. I had to sit down with Grace recently and talk to her about this. Of course, she loves visiting the States. But I had to tell her that this year, that will mean she will miss out on some important events in fifth grade. She might miss the week-long rainforest trip, or she might miss her elementary school graduation. She might miss the end of soccer season or the entirety of track season. I could see her face fall as we talked about this. As much as she wants to see her grandparents, it’s hard for her to accept the loss of something significant in exchange. But this is the reality of the life we have given our children. That other universe will be constantly interrupting her life.

“Most TCKs go through more grief experiences by the time they
are twenty than monocultural individuals do in a lifetime.” (David Pollock)

I grew up that way. I flip-flopped between a typical suburban childhood on a cul-de-sac in California with a manicured lawn and a BMX bike, to a life on a tropical beach in Liberia, West Africa, where I walked through the forest to school and rode a canoe in the lagoon. I knew two lives, two universes with different sets of routines and rules and cultures that I learned to navigate. Two places where I put down roots that kept being yanked up.

Maybe that’s why it scares me to find myself unconsciously putting down roots again. Maybe that’s why it’s even harder to know that I am deliberately doing the same thing to my own children. Will they figure out how to live in these two worlds? Will they know who they are? Will the joy out-weigh the grief?

It worked for me. Which is why I was happy to choose this two-world life for my children. I just never realized how difficult it would be to walk with them through it.

“We know goodbyes in a way we wish we didn’t, and we struggle
to articulate grief and loss. Yet in the
next breath we speak of how we wouldn’t give up the lives we’ve had for
anything.” (Marilyn Gardner)

Dear Mom and Dad, If I Suffered, It Was Worth It

By Amy Medina

On December 28, 2015

In Liberia, Third Culture Kids

ELWA Mission Station in Liberia, source unknown

Dear Mom and Dad,

Last week I read an article called “Should the Children Suffer?” It’s about a missionary father’s struggle to trust God with the suffering his children are experiencing on the mission field.

In 1982, you took my younger brother and me to west Africa. In the months preceding that move, I remember listening to you and my Gram–your mother–weeping loudly as you tried to get her to understand that decision. Gram was not only devastated, she was angry. And she even threatened to hire a lawyer to try to get custody of Paul and me. Another grandparent fretted out loud over our deprived childhoods.

Some people would probably say that Paul and I suffered.

Paul got Hepatitis in Liberia. I got amoebic dysentery in Kenya. Once we found a green mamba in our garage. Twice, we lost almost all of our possessions due to war and evacuation. In Ethiopia in 1991, there wasn’t much to eat. We never went hungry, but we all got skinnier. I went to boarding school at age 13. Before college, I attended six different schools in four different countries. I made friends and lost them more times than I could count. I grew up never really knowing my cousins. When we finally moved back to the States, Paul was bullied. I was weird. We were completely oblivious to styles and trends and TV shows. I struggled deeply to figure out where I belonged.

Rift Valley Academy in Kenya, 9th grade, Swala Dorm

Was it a mistake to take us to Africa?

But then I think of those times in Liberia, Dad, when you would put me barefoot on the back of your motorcycle, and the ocean breeze would whip my hair as the sun set over the Atlantic. We would pick up the mail and then stop by our favorite beach spot and collect shells.

I think of the times my friends and I would take the canoe out into the swamp, the fear of leeches and crocodiles keeping us out of the water, but we would prance across the spidery roots of the mangrove trees. There are the memories of that time that the millions of baby crabs hatched, or the bright blue jellyfish that would wash ashore every July, or sitting in the hammock on our front porch and watching the lightning hit the ocean.

The swamp. Our house in Liberia was directly to the right of this picture.

Photo credit: Robin Shea McGee

Denmark, Australia, and Lebanon became real to me because my school friends came from those places. Leprosy and malaria were real, because I saw them too. I witnessed the devastation of war. I played with a little boy whose family ate frogs from the swamp when they ran out of food. I encountered a little girl with a huge abscessed eye, begging outside of the supermarket. I may have been sheltered from Michael Jackson, but I was not sheltered from the reality of life.

The path we walked to school. Photo credit: Robin Shea McGee

By nature, I was cautious, timid, and not at all adventurous. But this life you chose forced me to become brave. Airplanes, head scarves, foreign accents, large bugs….all lost their strangeness and scariness. International travel became routine. The world would no longer intimidate me.

Scores of missionaries and Africans poured their love and their lives into mine. I experienced the joy that comes from sacrifice. Together our family learned what it meant to trust God. I tasted and saw that Jesus was not just for America.

So yes, Mom and Dad. There was stress, and there was fear, and there was so much loss. You could call that suffering. But the formation of my heart, the richness of that life, and the indestructible joy….make the suffering feel small.

I know you didn’t make the choice to move to Africa because of Paul and me. In fact, you made it despite us. Like the author of that article, you chose to trust our safety and well-being to a Father who knows all about sacrificing his Son. But in the end, it was the very best choice you could have made for your children. I’m so glad you did.

Love,

Your Amy

Diary of an International Transition: Countdown Day 1–Departure Day and Traveling

By Amy Medina

On July 20, 2014

In Life in Tanzania, Third Culture Kids

I woke up at four yesterday morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. Darn it. I was hoping to make it till 6.

I always have trouble eating on Departure Day. I forced down some breakfast.

I bathed all the kids and slathered them—literally—with lotion. The dry air on the plane makes their skin look like the Sahara Desert.

Did one last load of laundry and stuffed the rest into our already bulging luggage. Sealed all the tubs with zip ties.

Forced down a little lunch and packed up our van and my brother’s SUV. Off to San Francisco.

Miraculously, the guy checking us in didn’t even look at the scale. Whew. Huge sigh of relief.

We said good-bye to my family and pushed our weeping children through the security entrance. It never gets easier, but I knew we would be okay once we went through the door. We were, though I still am trying not to think about all we have left behind.

Once we got through security, I was all at once exhausted and ravenously hungry as the adrenaline leaked out of me. We had made it, and only had the plane trip ahead of us.

As we were boarding the plane, there was a table full of complimentary newspapers for the taking. Almost all of them had their full page cover story on the Malaysian airline crash. Um, yeah, I think I’ll skip a newspaper today. You would think those would be good times for the complimentary newspapers to be removed. Or maybe, it just boosts their alcohol sales on-board.

A couple of months ago, we were at Disneyland and Josiah asked me, “Is Disneyland really the happiest place on earth?”

I told him that I thought there were lots of happy places, and gave him some examples.

He thought about this a moment, and then said, “I think the plane is the happiest place.”

I just about doubled over. “Really?” I said. “Why?”

He smiled, “Because I get to watch so many movies.”

Ah ha.

He is right. The plane is the only time the kids are allowed to watch 5 movies in a row. The only time.

The plane is one of my least favorite places on earth. Especially with children. It’s hard enough not to get claustrophobic in a steel tube 30,000 feet above the earth for 20 hours, let alone trying to sleep sitting up and in between, keeping the kids from spilling their meal onto their lap (or mine).

I definitely would not win any Pinterest awards for “creative activities for kids on the plane.” While packing last week, I came across Grace’s math flash cards and contemplated putting them in her carry-on. That
lasted about five seconds until I came to my senses and remembered that we don’t have any cool little parent/child learning moments on the plane in our
family. It’s not about “using our time well.” It’s about survival, and that means 5 movies in a row.

I also am not above using children’s Benadryl. Hey, until you’ve had a non stop, 16 hour flight with your kids, don’t judge.

Obviously, it worked. Look at Lily’s sleeping position of choice. Notice where her head is (on the right) and where her bum is (on the left). Comfy, eh?

We flew over the North Pole (which is pretty cool from 30,000 feet up) and down across Europe (thankfully avoiding Ukraine) and into the Middle East city of Dubai, which is one of the richest cities in the world.

I am writing this from Dubai. We are near the end of a fifteen hour layover. Thankfully, our airline gave us complimentary hotel room and even food vouchers. It’s amazing what a real bed and a shower does for the soul after spending 16 hours in a metal tube.

Soon, we’ll leave for a five-hour trip (which seems positively short right now) to Dar es Salaam. On our way back to the airport from the hotel, Grace reunited with one of her classmates (and family) from HOPAC, also heading back to Dar. Cool!

The adventure continues.

Category: Third Culture Kids

Those Kids…Are They American or Not?

Raising Kids With Forbidden Roots

Dear Mom and Dad, If I Suffered, It Was Worth It

Diary of an International Transition: Countdown Day 1–Departure Day and Traveling