How are TCKs Coping with the Pandemic?
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
Many of us who have grown up in a country that is not our passport country call ourselves “TCKs,” the acronym for “Third Culture Kids.” According to David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken, authors of Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, TCKs are raised cross-culturally, often with a high degree of mobility — either our family moves consistently or the communities that surround us shift as people come and go. Due to that mobility and lack of cultural rigidity, TCKs tend to develop flexibility and resilience within change.
In the current COVID-19 pandemic, the world has been turned upside-down in ways no one could have predicted just a year ago. While the world reels under the changes or attempts to block it out, TCKs have a unique position of familiarity with change and cultural expectations as well as, often, a lack of stability in location.
Our See Beyond TCK staff had the opportunity to interview teenage TCKs (with their parents’ permission) on their experience during this turbulent time. All names have been changed to preserve privacy.
What makes you a TCK?
Charlie: Because we grew up in a different country, we had three different cultures. We had our parents’ culture, then the culture we lived in, and then our own culture.
Giannis: For me, being a TCK is not just the literal definition, it’s also adapting to where you are and meeting people with different religions and ideas.
Jess: Being a TCK, I live in a blend of cultures and traditions and understand them at the same time. Even though I didn’t make the choice to come here—it was my parents’ choice—I’m encouraged and able to adapt. I’m grateful for that.
Fillipa: Being a TCK is feeling like you belong in two different worlds and wanting to meet somewhere in-between.
You have been through a lot of changes and transitions in your life as a TCK. How has that impacted how you deal with the uncertainty of the pandemic?
Emily:Growing up as a TCK, you have to be flexible. You don’t know what is happening, and you don’t know which culture is okay with this and that. It’s been a curveball, but we are so used to being flexible and not knowing what’s coming next that it’s not as hard to cope with.
Fillipa: It has made us flexible, to just accept and move on. Like, “What are we going to do about it?” Just get with it.
Photo by Anastasiia Chepinska on Unsplash
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How has this pandemic interrupted your life?
Charlie: I used to hang out with my friends more. And school was weird, because I had just finished online schooling [in Morocco], and as soon as I got to real school [in Germany], it shut down.
Emily: Teachers didn’t know what they were doing at first. They were used to a classroom, so they would give an assignment but not know how to turn it in. Or they were skeptical about tests because they thought, “Oh, you’ll just cheat.” But they ended up getting good at online teaching, and we only missed one day of school.
Giannis: We didn’t have a lot of debate tournaments this year, but we had to stop. My friends and I started a homework club, but that had to stop . . . no school, no homework club. Yesterday, I was stressed, and I wanted to go out to run. Even running got harder with Corona, and if you can’t even go out to the neighborhood then, what’s the point?
Jess: I started to let go of social media. I also made buckets of things that I wanted to donate, though I couldn’t go out to give it yet.
“Being a TCK has made me more flexible, coming to accept change quicker.”
— Fillipa
What have you appreciated about how your family has handled the shutdown? What do you wish they had handled differently?
Emily: I think they did a good job, because as soon as they heard that (boarding) school was shutting down, they tried to get us home straightaway, and they kept trying. They were talking to a lot of people to see how we could be together—we all ended up in England. It was hard being apart for six months, but we’re together now.
Emma: I appreciate my family letting me go outside, and that they always had something to do. It wasn’t just laying on the couch.
Giannis: I got to know my Dad more; I had never gotten to know him so deeply. One hard thing was that we have never been together as a family for this amount of time, except for summer vacation—even then we would go to Korea or I would be outside with friends.
To add on, one stressor is that most of my TCK friends are from the western side of the world. It’s not like Western parents give more freedom, but their mentalities are different. A [Western TCK] friend of mine lives in a city with lots of hospitals for patients of Coronavirus, and his mom would let him go out with a mask and gloves. But I can’t leave the yard. That’s why my Dad and I decided to play more ping-pong in the house.
Jess: My brother and I used to chat with our friends a lot on social media, but our parents taught us to reduce online time since we already had to be on six hours for classes.The negative parts were that my brother and I fought—small fights about dumb things like food. The major thing was that my brother started sneaking out, which was dangerous because our parents are aging.
What have been the hardest and easiest parts of the change?
Emily: The hardest for me is not knowing when we would see our (parents) next. I told myself that we wouldn’t see each other until August, when the borders would finally open. In the end, we didn’t have to wait until August.
Easiest part: Because we lived in Germany, they were a lot more chill about the pandemic than a lot of other countries. We were still allowed to go outside for as long as we wanted. We could go into the woods. We just had limits on who we could hang out with, which wasn’t that big of a deal.
Emma: The hardest part was that I had to stay home, and the easiest is that I’m lucky to have a yard, because a lot of the people on my tennis team were stuck in their apartment for three months. All they had to do was watch TV.
Jon: When the lockdown happened in Morocco, I was like, “How long are we going to be in this lockdown? What if the electricity went out, and we can’t go and pay it?” Also, not seeing my sisters was difficult, because I thought, “After winter, I will be able to see Emily and Charlie, and we can be together.” But then, somehow, it started spinning so quickly, and we had to do the lockdown.
Giannis: One of the hardest things was being on screens all day for online school and assignments. There have also been problems at school between teachers and administration—teachers were stressed and wouldn’t come to class. I still have TCK friends. One friend had to leave recently, but he is coming back this December. We might be able to visit our friends in their new country. Other friends left, too. My friend who is still here asked, “What if you leave?”
Fillipa: Hardest: not seeing anyone other than family. Always the same people!
How do you think being a TCK has impacted your experience?
Giannis: For me, during this pandemic especially, the racism against a lot of Asians. Sometimes, I can’t distinguish between certain ethnic groups, and I’m not totally mad at people, because I understand why they’re mad. A lot of people lost jobs, their businesses failed, or their parents and grandparents passed away. They’re putting a lot of blame on where the virus began, which a lot of people agree is China.
Jess: There were several flights to Korea during this pandemic which made me want to go, but my parents wanted to stay here because we had things to do. Also, racism: when the pandemic began, many of my classmates avoided me. That went on for a month or so, but we’re good now. Also, since I live overseas, I get to know more languages. I get to be friends with people of so many different races. I have many friends to chat with, and they are always supportive.
Fillipa: Being a TCK has made me more flexible, coming to accept change quicker.
What patterns did you notice in these stories? Is there anything you relate to or that could help you connect with a TCK in your life? TCKs around the world bond over their shared and varied stories. We thank our interviewees for sharing their stories with us.
