MK & TCK Book Club discussion
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Chapter 9: Rootlessness and Restlessness
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Hi everyone! I'm excited to be back to get your input on the chapter "Rootlessness and Restlessness." To me there is something so rich about the question "Where is home?" which is why I'm passionate about this chapter in particular. :-)I always have to laugh when I read Erika's reaction to the question "Where are you from?" because I can relate to it so well:
"Like most other TCKs, when Erika hears that question, her internal computer starts the search mode. What does this person mean by 'from'? ..." (p. 124)
Sometimes I respond by simply saying "it's complicated," other times I say where my parents are from, or I say where I was born. Sometimes I pause and ask myself out loud "Hmm, where am I from today?" How have you learned to anticipate this question? What can make answering this question fun rather than stressful?
Hi. I'm Kathleen. I lived on 5 continents by the time I was18 and I also lived overseas as an adult. Growing up this question was never a problem because I just answered the country I currently lived in. When I went to college in my passport country I had a lot of problems. I didn't understand what was wrong. I stopped telling people about my background and usually just made something up I thought they wanted to hear. I discovered this book in my 40's and it changed everything. Super aha moment. Now when people ask me I tell them my story and try to educate them about people like me. If they aren't interested, it's ok but I no longer chop off pieces of myself.
I love your comment that you no longer chop off pieces of yourself, Kathleen..one of the wonderful moments for me was realizing I could be "all of the above" instead of one of the above..and that I can feel at home in different ways in different places..and enjoy each expereince for what it is..part of the rich tapestry of my life...and thanks, Kilian, for your great job starting us off right before and now again!
Home is where I plant my butt-at-the-moment. Like so many other TCK's... I lived in 12 countries by the time I was 18 and then continued to travel and get posted [US Army and State Department] at another 8 countries. My passport is thicker than most people's phone book from all of the extension pages glued in and the funny thing is that I have seamlessly moved from Rep of China to Iran without even a second thought... and yet to nearly all of my American friends - these two entities could not be further apart from each other. As I stated before - before I would answer the question at hand at some party... I would try to get a sense of the mood - what could people absorb or be interested in. A good many parties and gatherings - when asked that question - I simply tell the person that I am from a city that is close by [if I'm in San Francisco I will tell them Modesto]... and be done with it. Rarely do I find locals "wanting to actually know..." that someone could have actually grown up in China or Fiji or Iran... I mean that is just crazy. Finally, I always resented when I DID tell them that I grew up overseas... and their response was, "Why? Didn't you like the USA?" So before I would deck the person [a few times it made me angry] I would simply excuse myself from the conversation.
Kilian wrote: "Hi everyone! I'm excited to be back to get your input on the chapter "Rootlessness and Restlessness." To me there is something so rich about the question "Where is home?" which is why I'm passionat..."Hi guys, so glad to have found that such a book club exists online. I've grown up in the UAE, Kuwait and Malaysia, and I now live in Canada.
I usually answer depending on my mood and how i'm feeling about my TCKness on that day. If it's a good day, I say I'm from everywhere. If it' a bad day, I say I'm from nowhere.
I gave a TED talk on this matter a while ago too, perhaps people in the group may want to watch it (: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quS_p...
Thank you, Kathleen, Peter and Abeer for your insights so far -- what they all have in common is the question of how you describe (or avoid describing) where you're from. How do you literally tell your story? What's your "elevator pitch" (30-second speech) about your basic coordinates in life?So before we explore what home might actually be to us, let's stick with how we "package" how we place ourselves in the world. Have you ever talked to someone who is in a career crisis, and you ask them "What do you do for a living?" In that moment, the person might be annoyed, starts stammering about their plans, says something vague to avoid the question or gives you way too much detail about their horrible boss. You pick up on that immediately and either change the topic because the other person seems uncomfortable or tune out because you don't understand what they're talking about. Both parties feel confused/disempowered by the plump question and the squirmish answer.
As humans when we meet each other, it is our instinct to obtain basic coordinates (some call it "root chakra" information) about a person. It's a way of feeling safe with someone you know nothing about. Those basic coordinates may include geographic, professional, family, educational, sometimes even financial information -- who is this person and how can I relate to them? Almost every conversation starts with a version of "where are you from" and "where are you going." So it helps to be prepared with answers, even or especially if it's a sensitive topic. (No one casually asking these questions is looking to deal with my identity crisis!) How to introduce yourself as a TCK without cutting yourself short or lying straight through your teeth?
Elements of an "elevator pitch" include:
+ Concrete information that anyone can relate to
+ Authentic information about your experience
+ Values or intentions that you are currently pursuing
+ Confidence in what you are saying ("fake it till you make it")
So for example, when I ask you "Where are you from?" you might say: "Well, do you know how some employees of large companies are assigned to work in different places around the world? [Engaging with listener about a general concept they might know] My parents worked for an Indian oil company with oil rigs all over Asia, so I grew up in India, China and Malaysia. [Concrete information about your particular upbringing placed in the larger context of TCK upbringing -- without having to use weird jargon] I attended International Schools, which is why my English sounds the way it does. [People always want to know about your language capabilities -- oh, she's not a spy!] I'm in Canada finishing up my bachelor's degree and I'll be looking for a profession that lets me make a difference in the world. [Currently pursuing -- ie why are you here? -- and broad value that describes what's next.] I love all of these places, but if you ask me where I feel most at home, it's probably Singapore airport, because it's the most constant place I've returned to in my life. [Again, authentic, not too risky, and a great conversation starter if the listener chooses to engage -- thank you, Abeer for this image in your video!]"
An answer like this may be more than the question asker is initially expecting, but it does several things at once:
+ Provides basic ("root chakra") information that humans instinctively need
+ Feels authentic to your experience and allows you to speak with confidence
+ Is honest, factual and unpretentious, and allows you and the listener to take the conversation in many directions
+ Educates the listener about TCK upbringing with simple language that most people can relate to
+ Communicates that you know who you are (even if you're secretly having an identity crisis -- save that for your friends!)
I would be so curious to read your "elevator pitch" -- and your thoughts about this approach in general. Does it feel authentic, fake, simplistic, practical, unrealistic?
I usually say something like " I was born and raised overseas so I'm not really from anywhere in particular but I currently live in ****** ". Since I recently moved to a new area, I will sometimes say, "I just moved here from Washington DC but I have lived all over the world."
That usually stops the conversation but I figure it also opens it up if anybody is interested. There are times when you can tell they really aren't interested and then I just say where I live but I have gotten into trouble when people want to know more details, like where I went to high school or if I know a particular landmark. Then it becomes awkward because I have to backtrack. I prefer to lay it out there and leave it up to them.
My pat answer is where I live. Where are you from? I live in Spokane, Washington. Ta da! I'm done.But I like your elevator pitch better. I always feel like I'm lying or deceiving people when all I say is where I currently live, as if that defined me whatsoever, because it doesn't.
Ok, I'll give it a go: Someone asks, "Where are you from?"
My dad was a professor in Guatemala, so that's where I grew up. After becoming a teacher, I lived in England for a few years. I currently homeschool my kids in Spokane, Washington, and I love it. Home is wherever my husband is.
I need to stop there. Like, slap my hand over my mouth and shut up because there is my elevator pitch. Yay!
See, now I want to say that I don't call any piece of dirt home, even though I long for Guatemala. I never belonged there either. So I just feel adrift. I've lived in way more places, and there is no home!! (At this point I shift around uncomfortably and blame them for starting this hurtful conversation...)
G'day Kilian - Your query is interesting. As a listener who is intent on "finding the truth..." you are assuming that I - as a TCK - want to tell you my life story... or anything at all. TCK's have learned to "stop their diatribe..." for fear of loosing the listener and/or irritating them into an argument or worse yet... just leaving you hanging there. I cannot tell you how many times folks who have heard where I have lived through the years... and the languages that I speak automatically assume that I am a spy. While they think it is a cute come-back... the fact that they have this "picture" in their collective heads that we are spies is... well... not fun or funny after the 45th time you have heard it at a party. My elevator pitch is very simple... "I have lived in a few places but Pacifica is home now." period... end of story. Your approach above is both clinical, mechanical, and offensive to many TCKs...
Peter, I hear you loud and clear. My true friends know that "my story" is the most valuable part of who I am. After all, it has shaped me into the person I have become. I like to think of myself as transparent and genuine. In fact, I am very much that way with people for whom I share mutual respect. Self-revelation is generally quite easy for me, since I'm about 50-50 on introversion/extroversion. Yet I've experienced being painfully stereotyped so many times by casual acquaintances that I'm also cautious. Occasionally, I laugh and say that I frequently like "to be where nobody knows my name."
All interesting ways of handling probably one of our most common issues..answering this question of "where are you from?" In fact, my husband asks how i meet so many TCKs and I tell him anytime someone doesn't really answer that question but uses some of the ways listed about that avoid an absolutely direct answer, I always ask for more pieces of their story and often it comes out that they are TCKs of some sort. Interestingly, I thought Kilian's way to answer was quite creative and I smiled imagining the responses I might get if I tried at it rather than finding it offensive, So that's why this is a fun forum because we share so much in common but our uniqueness is also evident which is a profound gift as well. Thanks for all the good comments..I am really enjoying each one and always learn!
Hi everyone, I'll respond to Susan first:Two things strike me about your attempt to write your "elevator pitch":
1. I have an instant picture of what growing up might have been for you and where you see yourself in the world in just three sentences. That's a lot of information to either start a deeper conversation now or at a later time.
2. It sounds like you really want to feel "at home" in Spokane. I think a large part of that is actually letting go of the question "where is home?" and just claiming your rightful place in that community. Your presence there fulfills a special role and makes you essential to the fabric of Spokane. Even if you or others don't recognize you as being "from" there, how can you cultivate a sense of claiming your part of that place that has been called to be in Spokane and nowhere else?
Regarding Peter's and Dee's discussion about how to tell your story to strangers, what I'm offering with the "elevator pitch" approach is a strategy for participating in casual social interactions without overwhelming the other person with TMI. It is not meant to diminish your own story or to be formulaic about expressing yourself around those who care about you -- quite the contrary. It's a tool in your toolbox for responding authentically and confidently when the "where are you from?" question catches you off guard. These are routine, not intimate, interactions -- and for good reason. You will not be close to most people you talk to; but neither should you have to have a mini identity crisis every time someone asks you a routine question. Being prepared with a quick enough answer that feels true to who you are might lessen the anxiety triggered each time the question is asked. It's just a proposal I put out there -- it might work for some but not for others.
There's been some interesting discussions here about being "understood." Each of us longs to be understood, that is for sure. But it is unrealistic to expect that each person who asks me where I'm from has the capacity or interest to understand me -- it's frankly in neither of our interest to be able to intimately connect with everyone around us. Most, if not all, of the time people hear what they want to hear -- even those who care deeply about us. Feeling "misunderstood" is therefore really about our disappointment about not being able to connect with someone -- again, an expectation -- and feeling cut off from knowing and quietly reveling in who we really are. My questions for the group are: How important is it really to pursue an answer to the question "where is home?" Might the pursuit of this answer prevent us from truly connecting with where we are right here, right now? What have you learned about yourself through pursuing a sense of "home"?
I tend to just say "I am from Amsterdam" which is not a lie. I have lived here for over ten years now. But I didnt grow up here, nor do I know the city very well. I dont want to tell my story straight away to people. It is too complicated and none of their business. As people get to know me better a little about the bits and pieces will come out (there are (at least) two seperate African pieces, a British piece and a Dutch piece).
Some of those pieces however that will never connect up to other pieces . Most people who grew up in different countries were at least in the same setting (ie military, mission, diplomat service) in each country. For me those settings change per country (and sometimes per city in a country). That makes it even more confusing for myself.
People from different pieces of my life dont know each other. People who know me now might know about the pieces, but they dont understand what it is like. And I dont bother trying to tell them.
I have stopped wondering how those pieces fit into me. I just live with them and accept that there are pieces people won't understand no matter who I am with.
I have chosen to make a home in Amsterdam. I dont feel particularly connected to this city, but I have grown to love my house. It is MY place in this world at this moment (and it just happens to be in Amsterdam).
But if you ask me where my real home is ... it is a place of my heart, it is with the people I love.
I am new to these TCK discussions and am wondering if this one is still going on.I am an ATCK. A number of years ago I found and read the TCK book. I found myself described in the pages. This "Rootless and Restless" chapter is of particular interest to me at this point in my life.....and I am jumping in to the discussion late...
Hi Raquel and Heylane, welcome to the discussion! I sometimes have to think of relationship advice I've gotten that as soon as you expect your partner to be different than they are, you're going to run into trouble -- everyone changes, but only when they want to, not when you want them to. You can change and maybe your partner will change in response, or maybe they won't. And the more comfortable you are being who you are and knowing what you need, the easier it is to approach accepting someone without conditions. I sometimes feel the same about cities or places I live. I've spent a lot of time, energy and money finding that place that will fit me the best -- essentially looking for a sense of home outside myself (in a city, for example) rather than inside myself. If I perceive to be living in a place full of monocultural people who don't know much about world events, maybe all I need is to find one or two people who truly get me in the TCK way -- but I don't need the whole city/country to fulfill that need. As soon as I know that I am a multi-cultural person and my needs of sharing myself with a couple of people are met, I can accept everyone else for who they are. Sounds too simple, perhaps, but I am, indeed, curious about how restlessness and the constant pursuit of the next perfect place has to do with our expectation of having a *place* (or even other people) provide a sense of home, rather than us providing it for ourselves and then simply inhabiting the place in which we reside.
How important is it to you to feel restless? How would it feel if you were truly at home where you are right now?
The question you pose is interesting, "how important is it to you to feel restless?".My family returned from the mission field when I was nine years old. I am in my mid 50's now. I raised a family living in one place for 20 years. My family, my church and my job kept me grounded during that time. Now that my kids are grown and after a divorce I have moved eight times in 8 years. I haven't allowed myself to become engaged in another community. Always there is the feeling of needing to move on and not get too involved because I may be moving again.
I almost feel compelled to move and I can't seem to find this invisible thing I'm looking for.
But then when I ask myself if I really want to settle somewhere I don't know where feels "right".
At times I have told myself that this is just the way I am. I may never find home and there is no place that feels right.
This chapter about "rootless and restless" seems to fit my experience even this many years after my family's return form the mission field.
Kilian, perhaps the most important thing my parents did right was to teach me, whenever we changed locations, that there were some things better about the last home and some things worse. As a result, I never built a sense of there being a "perfect" place or a "perfect" set of people. That training was limited to stateside moves, though. As I've explained before, I was a PK, not an international TCK. Still, I believe that understanding helped immensely back then and has continued in my adjustments throughout multiple moves across various cultures and international borders as an adult. As I look back, I realize that my father (also a PK who had moved a lot himself, growing up) was quite comfortable in his own skin. My mother learned to be adaptable and helped to set this philosophy, though she was somewhat depressed by our moves. Still, the emphasis in our dinner table discussions leaned more toward the improvements they could see in the new place over the old. They dwelled on the challenges rather than the losses, so that it was neither serious denial or idealization. It's only been since I turned 60 that I've realized what a gift this was. It helped even in my most difficult transition--at age 13.
To echo Kilian's coping style, finding 1-2 good friends who could accept and understand me OR leaning on old family friends for a while from afar with nothing more than writing letters is what helped me through the transitions as a child. It still does.
I no longer share many of the values of my parents. My education and professional life began moving me toward very different views than the conservative, southern culture that might be considered "roots" for me. It was the sense of being at home with myself and the willingness to trust myself through the evolution of thought and beliefs, no matter where I've lived, that has made it all work out for the good.
And good is "good enough" for me.
I actually do feel at home here in Spokane, and one huge factor that makes it finally feel like home is that I found a Hispanic community. I now feel like my childhood and my adult life have combined themselves into one, and I feel like I belong here.The other factor is that I've given birth to 4 children, and all they've ever known is this house for 15 years. Their grandparents from both sides live here, and so they have the life that I wish I'd had growing up. It's almost like I'm living life over again, the way I wished it had been.
But growing up in a Hispanic culture has made me who I am today, and I would not change a thing. I don't assume that others will understand me. I forge my own path.
Restlessness? Hmmm... I do love to travel. But I'm enjoying setting down roots finally.
I dont consider myself restless. I am happy where I am, but there is a sense in me that says that one day I will up and move. In some way that gives me a sad feeling. As I said I ve grown to love my house.i recognise the 1 or 2 good friends policy to feel at home. I tend to feel at home because of people, not because of the place. I dont rely on those people to be there to make it home, but it helps.
The main focus of the questions and responses seems to be how you answer the question where is home. I used to respond - I don't know really I'm British but I don't feel it. I used to live in Malaysia but that was a long time ago and I'm not from there. I've recently amended this to "My childhood home was Malaysia ..." which I quite like. However what I really want to share about is the terrible restlessness and over sensitivity to place that I feel. I have not moved countries since I came back but I constantly feel I'm not in the right place and need to move. I have lived in over 50 places. And tte sense of place and home is like quicksilver one minute it is so right and the next it is so wrong and frightening.
I recently met another TCK who lived in Trinidad as a child for similar ages and we talked about this ... and found each other finishing each others sentances about this effect of place. The main difference was that mine could happen really quickly in hours and days and hers over mainly months.
Anyway of all the tricky things my TCK childhood has left me with this is the most difficult. Because behind it all ... I just want to go "home." I know that home is within myself but ...
Anyway I'd love to hear from others. Gill
Dee wrote: "Kilian, perhaps the most important thing my parents did right was to teach me, whenever we changed locations, that there were some things better about the last home and some things worse. As a res..."I like your reply Dee
Mod
A quick note to book club members: As always, please feel free to keep the conversation going in this thread. Please note that while the facilitators have committed to participate during the week of their chapter, they may not be able to continue in our discussions as we move on. Thanks for all your fantastic stories and insights so far, Everyone!
It's a pleasure to welcome back Kilian Kröll, who brilliantly kicked off our first chapter discussion, and will take us through this week's topic of rootlessness and restlessness. He's a TCK from Germany, Austria, and the U.S. As a certified professional coach, he runs a company called Third Culture Coach , guiding organizations through seasons of change and transition. He's currently the president of Families in Global Transition (FIGT) , and has led important and inspiring initiatives in this role. Kilian has a B.A. in English and a Masters in Cultural Studies. He's is also a dancer and published author, and currently resides in Vienna, Austria. You can find him on Twitter at: @3rdculturecoach .