15 Things I Want to Tell my Third Culture Parents

Earlier this week, I read a blog entitled "15 Things I Want to Tell My Third Culture Kids." I had tears in my eyes several times as I read. It was well-written and hit close to home. For those of you interested, you can read it here. My parents are not Third Culture Kid's themselves, but they are the parents of 4 TCK's, and it is to them, and to any other parents of TCK's, that I write the following. 

I realize it may appear overly dramatic; perhaps a bit overdone. I will most likely think of things later I will wish I had added and comments I'll wish I had left out. The pictures are old ones, a bit embarrassing, but since this whole writing affair seems a bit sentimental and nostalgic, they seem fitting. Plus, if I don't have pictures, Erika will never read my post! Anyhow, before I lose all determination to complete this task, here goes:

1. Thank-you. Thank-you for allowing us the immense privilege and opportunity of growing up in places that most people can't pronounce or have never heard of  before. Thank-you for making us go to French school, for letting us play in in the red-flooded roads after a big rain when you knew perfectly well what might be in that water, for playing hours of memory on the plane to keep us entertained, for teaching us to read and write in English so we wouldn't be behind, for nursing us through worms, malaria, and the chicken pox. Thank-you for making our home an American-African blend.

2. Your devotion and obedience to the Lord humbles and inspires me. You were, and are, willing to sacrifice comfort, ease, security, and family to move halfway around the globe and raise your family in unknown and often scary places because you knew you were to trust and obey God in His calling.

3. You sacrificed family...in the States. You gave up family reunions, weddings, births, and funerals. Mom, I'll never forget your anguish and agony of not making it back to the States in time to say goodbye to your dear sweet mother, my grandma.

4. You sacrificed family...on the field. You gave up goodnight kisses, Saturday morning father-daughter errands, late-night mother-daughter talks, and much much more, as giving my older sister, Melissa, the best education meant having her attend school in a completely different country. 

 (Trying to sleep and stay warm in the Paris Airport.)

5. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for blaming you for the unwanted yet constant change in my TCK world. I'm sorry for shutting you out when you were the only people around who knew me best and loved me the most. I'm sorry for unfairly accusing you of never understanding me, when you were trying so hard to do so. I'm sorry for thinking my pain was your doing. I'm sorry for the times I wished I had been raised in only one place.

6. You made home about the people and not the place. You made our family a safe and fun place to be. Whether I was sleeping on the top bunk of my bed in Bangui, on a cot in the French army camp, in a hotel room, in what felt like the tenth strange person's house on a support trip, in my shared room in Ouagadougou, or in my very own room in Kansas, you were there to tuck me in, sing to me, pray with me, and I felt secure. You showed me that my siblings are my playmates, my confidantes, my best friends. You proved to me that a family that prays together stays together. 

7. You were always there...especially when no one else seemed to be. You made sure you were the one to drop me off and pick me up on my first days of school when everything in my world seemed scary, unknown, and shaken. You were there to defend my arithmetic when my teacher took off points because I wrote my 1's the French way, and my teacher thought they were 7's. You were there to help me with my French when I felt so lost in school because I couldn't fully understand the teacher.

(This was taken for my grade 8 graduation.)

8. You showed me the importance of scripture. I never read Psalm 91 without thinking back to the night before my junior year of high school was about to start. I was crying. I was terrified. I was still grieving over the loss of my friends and was not ready to meet new ones. You comforted. You opened your Bible. You read Psalm 91. 

9. You allowed me to grieve. You didn't push me. You didn't rush me. You didn't tell me I should be over it by now. Every year, for many years, when June 28 would come around and the same familiar feelings of sorrow and anger and frustration would overwhelm me, you let me cry. But you never let me cry alone; you cried, too.

10. You helped me embrace my TCK tendencies. Although you may have sometimes disapproved, you allowed me to be stubbornly different in an effort to not lose ties to my host culture; whether it was wearing flipflops during winter or willfully trying not to grow accustomed to American milk. You let me keep dirty old nick-nacks, books, and clothes when we moved back to the States because you knew they were physical reminders of a place that I loved so dearly.

11. You explored my cultures with me. In Africa, you helped me see first-hand "the utter poverty of the masses" while we drove to the 3rd largest Basilica in the world. You showed me giant anthills, helped me not to take the grandeur of a Baobab tree for granted, watched wide-eyed with me as wild elephants cooled themselves off in a lake after sunset, walked with me across the canopy of the rainforest, somberly looked through the narrow door of the colonial slave castle in Ghana where thousands of African slaves, including princes and chiefs, ripped of human dignity, were pushed through without hope of return. In America, you stood with me in the bread aisle, dumbfounded that there was actually a whole aisle devoted to bread. You reacted incredulously to stand-up staplers, so I didn't feel so bad when I though machines in bathrooms that blew hot air on your hands to dry them were SO cool! You showed me your love for the Kansas country and farms, and helped me learn to love it too, without feeling like I was betraying my other home.

12. You prayed for me. You prayed for healing when I was hurt, boldness when I was shy, love when I was bitter, and forgiveness when I was resentful. You prayed for friends at all of our new schools. You prayed for patience and help when your kids seemed so complicated and closed-off. You prayed for our salvation and sanctification.

13. You walk by faith more than any parents I know because you are willing to put your family on the line for the sake of the Gospel. You are willing to raise Third Culture Kids with all of their intricately weird complex tendencies and mood swings! You are willing to watch your daughter start and almost complete college from across the Atlantic. 

14. You have shown me the Biblical perspective of home. Because you have raised me in multiple countries, I have no one physical home on earth. I am a restless person with wandering tendencies, but it makes me long for my heavenly home all the more. It causes me to rejoice in the One Unchanging Father who will be there. In Heaven, all of my cultural backgrounds and homes will be perfectly mixed.


15. I wouldn't change anything. Although there were times growing up I wished I could be like my American friends and live in one place my whole life and have the opportunity to excel with all of the possibilities surrounding me, I am glad I have lived where I have and have done what I've done.