The Arrogance of a TCK:
An Exploration of Arrogance Among Third Culture Kids
David C.
Pollock, a man who has worked with Missionary Kids for years, co-wrote a book
called “The Third Culture Kid Experience.” It begins with a great explanation
of the term ‘Third Culture Kid:’
“A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents' culture. The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK's life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background. (Pollock p. 5)"
This explains my life perfectly; I was
born and raised in various parts of Poland, in Central Europe. I loved my
upbringing, but I know that there are some drawbacks. In the online magazine Denizen Katharine Alexander (a TCK from
Taiwan) used the term ‘Hidden Immigrants.’ This is so accurate, because while
TCKs may seem completely normal at first, one can quickly notice that they are
aliens. For instance, they cannot distinguish between a dime and a nickel, or
they have a very hard time going to big grocery stores like Wal-Mart or Target.
When I was visiting some family friends who were working with TCKs who had
moved back to their passport country, we started to discuss issues that I might
have when I move to the USA for college. One of the main things that came up
was how judgmental of their passport country and its inhabitants TCKs are.
That really struck a cord with me; this was something that was common in my
life. And I wanted to know why this is such a common thing. I wanted to know about the impact of judgment on TCKs.
My first
step was to look for books. However, they were not very helpful in my search of
reasons for the judgment of TCKs. I started looking online, in library
resources and so on, but I was not sure what exactly to look for. Then a link
on Facebook from an Adult Missionary Kid to a Wordpress article titled
‘Exploring TCK Bigotry’ caught my attention. From there I found a lot of other
interesting articles written by TCKs. As I started reading these
articles and blog posts, I found a very different connection
than I had first anticipated.
The first
surprise came when I realized that what I was experiencing was not as much
judgment, but much more so arrogance. It was not that I declared these other
people, these ‘monoculturals’[1], to be bad people, but more so to declare myself better than them. But
this does not answer the question of why TCKs are arrogant in and of itself.
There is something more required. Something has to be connected to the
arrogance, and it must be something that all TCKs experience. But what, of all
the commonalities, is the deciding factor that causes arrogance?
This was the
second surprise; the arrogance comes from alienation. This alienation is a hard
thing for people who have not experienced it to understand, but I will try to
explain. Having grown up in one country, learning its culture and ways,
speaking its language, etc., and then relating to your parents (and possibly
friends) in a different culture is quite confusing. Add to that the relatively
frequent visits back to ones ‘home’ (passport) country and culture, and what
you end up with is a person who does not really know where they fit in. Because
they know the culture they live in, and the culture of their heritage, but they
don’t really fully belong in either of them. This is extremely hard for a
child/teenager to go through. How many times have we heard others (in movies,
books and in real life) speak of their longing to fit in? One of the hardest
questions for a TCK is “Where are you from? Where is home?” The simple fact is,
they don’t know. Pollock puts this well,
“For some TCKs, however, ‘Where is home?’ is the hardest question of all. Home connotes an emotional place – somewhere you truly belong. There simply is no real answer to that question for many TCKs. They may have moved so many times, lived in so many different residences, and attended so many different schools they never had time to become attached to any. (Pollock p. 124)”
But how does this tie in to arrogance? Well, I was not sure myself.
However I found an article online written by Marilyn Gardner that explained it
quiet well:
“As a third culture kid I put on arrogance as a protection. It was hard to fit nowhere and always be on the outside of every group. I didn’t know the rules of the culture I was supposed to belong to and I didn’t have the group knowledge that my peers took for granted. I didn’t like feeling like I was second best; an oddity; that girl with the funny accent. (The Arrogance of a Third Culture Kid – Part Two)”
We do not fit in, and we
feel that very acutely. This is painful and scary, and the only way we know how
to react is to look at those around us and see them as inferior.
This
arrogance is not always very obvious. TCKs are actually incredibly gifted: they
are usually very good at socializing, they often speak two languages fluently,
and they have a more global worldview. This holds a lot of potential for growth
with the ‘monoculturals,’ because the TCKs have a unique possibility to share
with others their well-expanded worldview. But this arrogance that they have halts that possibility. It blocks any chance of these good things
we know and want to share from getting through. When we can’t get over
ourselves others will not really be willing to listen to us, no matter how good
our content is. Not to mention the fact that when we are arrogant we assume
that we are better than not only our mono-cultural peers, but also better than
their culture in itself. This thus causes us not to be open to the new cultural
ideas of our home culture. The fact is every culture has something to offer,
and cultural arrogance blocks us from receiving what the culture that we are arrogant against is giving.
But one of the biggest problems that face TCKs is loneliness. They feel
that they are the only ones in the world that feel this way, and because of
their arrogance they forbid themselves
from having real and meaningful relationships with monoculturals. As Wenda
Sheard, a teacher to many TCKs, puts it in her article Lessons From Our Kissing Cousins: Third Culture Kids and Gifted
Children, "Many TCKs experience
disappointment when they return home and discover that their heightened global
knowledge has distanced them from one-country children. (Sheard p. 3)” They are unwilling to relinquish this arrogance because, if they do, then they admit that they are not the greatest, that these people who
know so little of the world are just as good as them. The question that then emerges is, ‘if they with their one culture
are just as good as me with my many, then what am I worth?’
This may
seem like a reality from the TCKs perspective, but it is not the case at all. When
the TCK will relinquish their armor of superiority they may feel insecure, but
in reality they will be able to build much more meaningful relationships.
[1] This a a term used to refer to people who
have grown up in only one culture.
There you go. Hope it helps.
Oh! Here are some books/articles to check out:
1.
Alexander, Katharine. “Clark Kent and
Third Culture Superpower.” denizenmag.com.
denizenmag.com, n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2013
2.
Gardner, Marilyn. “Exploring TCK
Bigotry.” CommunicatingAcrossBoundariesBlog. Wordpress, n.d. Web. 16 Nov.
2013
3.
Gardner, Marilyn. “The Arrogance of the
Third Culture Kid – Part Two.” CommunicatingAcrossBoundariesBlog.
Wordpress, n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013
4.
Pollock, David C., and Ruth E. Van
Reken. “Third Culture Kid Experience: The
Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds.” Yarmouth: Intercultural Press,
2001. Print.
5.
Sheard, Wenda. “Lessons From Our
Kissing Cousins: Third Culture Kids and gifted Children” Roeper Review, 30 (2008): 31-38. PDF
