Third Culture Kids:

A confusing name for a thing we don’t understand.

One summer, in a tiny New England seaside town, my teenage son and I were stuck in a falling-down house with no Wi-Fi or AC. Sweaty and cranky, we were trying to figure out America again.

I’d returned home to stop the long-neglected house I’d inherited from my parents from collapsing under the weight of accumulated mouse droppings. This is where I want to blame Covid travel restrictions for the problem, but that’s only partly true.

Left uninhabited for years, the house slowly reverted to nature: leaky roof, busted water heater, and the vile mice. Mice in the cellar, mice in the walls—so many mice. But as the cheerful exterminator exclaimed as he took my money, at least there’s no raccoons in the attic!

Yay?

After our long absence, America was also trying to figure us out.

Up to my ears in home repair projects that overwhelmed me and left me feeling incompetent, I was flustered by the tradespeople who threw a Scrabble board of words and terms at me I didn’t understand. Many thousands of dollars later, I still wouldn’t be able to explain to you the difference between a furnace and a boiler.

Meanwhile, my son, a walking mash-up of languages, countries, and long-haul flights, was experiencing the cultural equivalent of a repatriation ice bath. A quick shock to the system—bracing, but usually not fatal.

He had two goals that summer: get a driving license and down as many chocolate malts (so, so many) as his young constitution would allow—a dangerous habit he inherited from his late, insulin-dependent grandpa. One afternoon, on the way home from Ace Hardware—a store that sells nothing I want to buy, yet there I was again—we walked by his preferred ice cream dealer, where he was shocked to see a woman eating a hot fudge sundae for lunch, “You can do that?” he asked.

What is a third culture kid? 

To be a third-culture kid means you grew up outside the culture of both your parents, but this puts a negative spin on it. Like a third wheel, it denotes being out of place or unwanted. What should be seen as enriching—living in and understanding multiple cultures—becomes suspect. 

The problem with third-culture kids is that they don’t fit into a single box—they are never just one thing.

Even though I regularly felt my otherness (exactly how much small talk should one make with the electrician?) I was still surprised by how strange my son seemed to his fellow Americans. It wasn’t just his not driving or his international school-accented English; his entire demeanor confused them. He looked and sounded American, but something about him was off—he was giving cultural uncanny valley, and people didn’t know in which category to place him.

Third Culture Kid-ness #1: To Drive or Not to Drive?

His willingness to adopt American driving and car culture was a minor miracle. 

None of the third-culture kids he grew up with in Switzerland had a license, and none of them were planning on getting one anytime soon.

When I called the small Cape Cod driving school to arrange driving lessons, the guy on the other end of the phone found it inconceivable that a nearly 19-year-old male wouldn’t already be driving. I had to reassure him that, no, nothing was wrong—no felonies, drug abuse or hidden medical issues—and that, yes, it would be safe to get in the car with my son.

Third Culture Kid-ness #2: Sans Tribe

My son thinks outside any tribe—and nothing could be more dangerous to our monkey brains.

We claim to value diverse perspectives, but in reality, we expect people to be one category of thing. When they aren’t, when they are more than the sum of their parts, and so unlike us in their experiences that we can’t understand them, we tend to other them and make them wrong.

For better or worse, Americans have immense main-character energy.

We have strong opinions, big voices and large appetites—our defining national trait is supersized. If you take issue with this, I present you with the 7-Eleven 50-ounce Double Gulp: “genetically engineered to quench even the most diabolical thirst.”

My son, when compared to the locals around him, whether navigating the aisle at the grocery store or giving right of way at an intersection, viewed himself more as part of an ensemble cast and less as a one-person show.

Third Culture Kid-ness #3: Jane Goodall level observational skills

My son has been an observer for most of his life. He sees you: the good and the bad.

Looking at things differently and seeing your home country through a new lens is one of the benefits and burdens of our expatary life. So, while he and I might have seemed a bit off to the locals on Cape Cod who judged us and found us wanting, in full disclosure, my child and I gave as good as we got.

My kid won’t give you a free pass because that’s the way everyone does it. When Massachusetts drivers in full-on rage mode flip him off, or he watches you melt down in the rearview mirror because he didn’t run the yellow light, he knows the problem is you. What is a Massachusetts driver, anyway?¹ It’s not a free pass to be a jerk—but the people here think it is. That’s awfulness masquerading as culture.

Third-culture kids can distinguish you as a person from the larger cultural norms and pressures that constrain you and reinforce your behavior. He knows the rules change with languages and borders, but he also knows that you take yourself with you wherever you go. As Thrive by Sean Kernan puts it, not to become culturally married to the status quo.

Culture is not an excuse for being unkind or awful; if anything, it’s a magnifier of your values—how willing are you to go against norms of behavior that are hurtful to your fellow humans? Do you speak up for a colleague at the office even when it’s risky? Do you vent your frustrations on service workers or yell at the poor shlub on the other end of the helpline? 

How we treat each other is as much a dictate of culture as of personality, and third-culture kids know this in their bones; maybe that’s why they make us so uncomfortable.

I’d love to know about you and your third culture kids.

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1. Massachusetts Drivers: often considered the worst drivers in America. Calling someone a “Massachusetts driver” is not a compliment; it means they drive aggressively and dangerously. Can also be known as a “Masshole” when they cut you off or run you down in the crosswalk.