About our TCKs being not-only-but-also

When a while ago I read this article about the 14 year old Annika Verplancke combining ballet and hip-hop in one performance, it hit me.

Her performance is a great representation of what all Third Culture Kids do every day: they try to combine all the values, beliefs, customs, traditions, languages in the best possible way, trying to make them blend in a way that others can see and recognize their beauty.

It took me more than 30 years to realize that we don’t need to “belong to”, to “fit in” (which usually is synonymous with fitting into a stiff box…). I tried to be better than “enough”, to be accepted and recognized by those I thought matter.

When our German teacher told our class that our German would “never be as good as the German of monolingual Germans, i.e. native speakers, because we were only (!) “Auslandsdeutsche” (Germans living abroad)”, this “only” echoed in my mind for many many years.
My path was paved with this kind of limiting messages, like “you’re not fast enough to win that race”, I was constantly told “you’re not German enough”, “you’re not Italian enough”, “you don’t look Italian enough”, or later “with that German name you can’t teach Italian/French literature” and many more. – It is impressive how much this one sentence echoed in many other contexts over the years! 

We all feel that we constantly have to prove that we are “good enough” for the job, the assignment, the task etc. but what nobody should have to fight for being “good enough” as a person.

We all work on ourselves because growth and the need of change is in our nature. When I think of all the times I tried to fit into groups, belong and be fully accepted, only to find out that there will always be something missing, I can’t but feel sad to have lost so many years trying to fit in, to meet needs of others instead of focusing on what I have and how I am, and see the positive side of it all!

If I would have known 30 years ago that all we (A)TCKs have to do is to embrace the way we are, and blend the values, traditions, beliefs, habits, languages etc. we collect along our international journey into a dance like the one of this 14-year-old girl, it would have saved me many worries and struggles.

I know that teenagers long to belong, but what if they wouldn’t have to hide part of their personality to do so?

What if they were allowed to be the beautiful colorful and multi-faceted beings they are?
What if instead of “you’ll never be…” they would hear people tell them “I see that you are (fill in the blank)”?

I have proven wrong all the limiting voices so far: I have published books and countless articles (and some were even in German!), I’ve taught Italian linguistics and French literature at University level. I’m a very curious, lifelong learner and I love challenges. – I believe that many of the limiting messages people and situations sent me fueled my inner drive and still do, to prove them all wrong… 

Parents often worry about their TCKs not having roots  – but they are not plants! Or they hope that they will develop a sense of belonging and try to make them “fit in(to a box)”. But that will never work.