My English name is Jack.
Our oldest son is a cultural chameleon. His language and his behaviour change depending on the cultural environment. The timber in his voice will switch. He’ll count starting from a […]
TCK
5 wonderful new cross-cultural books well worth your time
Following a stint of abandoned books, I’ve had the pleasure of reading a few phenomenal ones that have really broadened my horizons. What a relief! It made me think of […]
Meet Emily Steele Jackson, author of TCK novel “Home, James”
Last month, I devoured “Home, James“, a brand new novel (Feb. 2018) featuring Third Culture Kid, James, who makes an epic ‘return home’ to the US after growing up in […]
You belong here.
These days, I have been filling my fringe hours preparing for an upcoming Third Culture Kid speaking engagement. In my very early morning researching, there has been a most peculiar […]
The day they asked me to speak to them in different languages
Some of our family’s best conversations happen around the dinner table. I’ll reassure you, some of our worst happen there too. Dinner in a home of young ones is a […]
The not so warm welcome home
The following is a sequel to my last post on our recent trip to America. In that article, I shared how we all went through some adjusting, after being gone […]
Welcome back to America, Third Culture Kids!
The kids were delirious by the time we reached the rental car place in Denver. They kept flipping from giggling to crying, while I tried to make sense of the […]
How families can bridge the academic gap when moving around
I am delighted to feature this guest post written by Christianna Pangalos, Founder and CEO of TwigaTutors. Christianna helps highly-mobile US families scattered across the globe, maintain a consistent US […]
World-schooling… without the camper van!
There’s a LOT of buzz in my circles around “world-schooling”. While definitions differ, most people use the term world-schooling to talk about using the world as your school. World-schooling families […]
When cross-cultural kids are rejected by their own family
From this side of the ocean, I don’t have a chip on my shoulder. Those little moments of laughter or mimicking or side comments are natural and usually not out […]
Third Culture Kids in marriage: 10 survey results & trends
This past month of focusing on Third Culture Kids in relationships has been a thrilling roller coaster to say the least. It all started when the 2017 EuroTCK consultation invited […]
Third Culture Kids in love: Jackie’s story
Welcome to the third and final part of the “TCKs in Love” interview series. Join me as I interview part Chinese-Malaysian, part Filipino-Chinese Third Culture Kid Jackie who is married […]
Third Culture Kids in love: MaDonna’s story
Welcome to part two of the TCKs in love series. Join me as I interview MaDonna, who was raised in small town America and has been married to her German-Taiwanese […]
Third Culture Kids in love: Suzanne’s story
Welcome to a three part series all about married Third Culture Kids and how their Third Culture affects their relationship. For our first interview, I really wanted to hear from […]
TCK love and marriage: survey and giveaway!
Calling all Third Culture Kids in love, married TCKs or all you brave monoculturals married to TCKs! 🙂 I am collecting some data for a workshop I am hosting for […]
6 Ways to show some love to a TCK
By now, you know what a Third Culture Kid (TCK) is. It’s highly possible TCKs are all around you. They are the expat kids, military kids, missionary kids, navy kids […]
Where do I belong? The early years.
Could my young children already be wrestling with their cultural identity? In preschool?? As with many profound reflections, this one came about at the table, where precious friends asked us […]
The year of the table
There is something about “The Table” that keeps drawing us in. Even before we moved to France, we owned a well-loved dining table that came with a leaf to extend […]
The Granny I want to be.
After dropping the kids off at our little village school, I took the right turn that takes me back home. I checked over my shoulder for oncoming cars, and it […]
Holidays are for world-schooling
Well, we’re back from our adventure to Italy. Wow. The film director and family were staying at our place between the London film premiere and a London award ceremonies (yeay!). […]
The Q&A edition!
In this post, I ask my husband (aka Tall Mountain) to share from his perspective how the transition has affected him.. Alright. Why don’t you start by painting a bit […]
Not all French people are foodies
France has got to be one of the most romanticized countries on the planet. Foreigners picture men wearing berets kissing kids in knee-high socks as they cycle together to the […]
Surprised by Culture Shock!
We’ve lived in France for 90 days and it has probably taken several years off my life. We figured our move with little ones trailing behind was going to stretch […]
Growing a world-shaped heart
I just love that French word “terroir”, most often used in reference to wine. Terroir describes that dynamic process by which the whole environment: climate, geography, soil, air – gives […]
The fantastic gift of being a Third Culture Kid
Hey kiddos, it’s your own Third Culture Mama here (with papa chiming in!). It’s your parents who watch from the edge of our seats as you slowly attempt to recreate […]
New Eyes for an Old Home: Adult Third Culture Kids
“I am sure you’ll be so thankful to be back home in your country” wrote my friend in a farewell card as all the cogs were in motion for us […]
Big news for our family
In case you’ve caught word, friends, the rumors are true. In just five weeks from today, we will move our little family of five to a village in France. It’s […]
All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes
I jumped right into All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes, the fifth of Maya Angelou’s seven part autobiographical series and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In this installment, Angelou writes about […]
6 tips for TCKs returning “home”
The move to my passport culture, a country I hadn’t lived in for 20 years, was littered with pain and grief. I felt the physical ache in my heart as […]
On race, immigration and love: Americanah
Introducing a book that depicts life pretty accurately on three continents and unpacks the sensitive subject of race in a relatively non-judgmental fashion. It’s a book that also humanizes the […]
Beyond Skype: let’s stay in touch!
8264km / 5135miles. That is the closest I have lived to my parents in the past seven years. In the meantime, we’ve had children that can walk, talk, communicate. Despite […]
“They’re gonna hate you for it”
I have been grateful for so many encouraging comments and emails about traveling with small kids, multilingualism, and cross-cultural living on social media. Then, almost out of nowhere, this one […]
Bilingual Avenue Podcast
I am really honored to feature on this week’s episode of Bilingual Avenue, a weekly podcast with insightful tips and advice from language experts and normal parents like us, raising […]
“H” is for…Humility
“I’m going to China, where are you going, Grammie?” Ayo asked last week as if nothing were. I didn’t think much of it at the time but it really marked […]
Good grief.
Late last night, I mustered up the courage to flick through my old blog that accompanied me like a best friend from graduate school, outlasting even my first two real […]
Beautiful multicultural books for children
Take a quick tour of the children’s classics in Anglo-Saxon literature and you will see a glaring predominance of Caucasian protagonists. I don’t feel it is wrong to feature white […]
What? I’m not calling them “maids”!
It started with a whole lot of tension and ended with a whole lot of compromise. It climbed hills of heartache but led to a lush land of so much […]
Ditching Brittany
I sat in my favorite solid wooden chair at our kitchen table and stared out the window. Many an “aha” moment has come to me on this comforting chair with […]
Be.
You know you are getting older when you get all negative about setting New Year’s resolutions. It’s kind of sad when you lose that youthful trust in humanity and in […]
That global vs. local tension
A friend of mine recently sent me a message with a question that got me thinking. He asked me how I developed a hunger for both local and global experiences, […]
Advent around the world
Living in Germany first gave me an insight into the craft of the homemade advent calendar. Ten years ago, a German friend of mine showed me a perfectly engineered cardboard […]
God Bless America.
The first Fourth of July I experienced as an Adult Third Culture Kid was in 2008. We went to some highly political parade in the middle of the country. We […]
East Hampton: a maid’s embrace & survival parenting
After filming all week in NYC, the production team moved to East Hampton for the weekend: a wealthy coastal village located on the peninsula east of New York. Ayo and […]
When less is more…
Last week, I returned our ill-functioning blender we had bought over two years ago. Tall Mountain put it on my “to do list” and I shuddered thinking of the battle […]
Pico Iyer: Where is home? (TED Talk)
I posted this beautiful TED talk by Third Culture Kid author Pico Iyer to my Facebook wall the other day, but I am not sure the fast pace of social […]
Cupcakes & hotdogs
Today was the first day I have felt like myself again following another gruesome trip over the Atlantic. The airplane didn’t turn back this time, but we missed our connection in […]
The World Until Yesterday
I first heard about best-selling author Jared Diamond and his newly released The World Until Yesterday – What we can Learn from Traditional Societies in an in-flight magazine. In the […]
Bend, Not Break
Unexpected packages are the best! Well, non work-related unexpected packages, that is. The other day, that sort of package arrived on our doorstep. It gets better. It was addressed…to me! […]
Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens!
One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it’s left behind. -Charles Dickens
Un peu de tout
A bit of everything. My kid smells like a skunk. I need to strip his dipes again. It’s the second time in five months, so I’m not complaining. Especially, because […]