Home Keeps Moving for Third Culture Kids
Heidi Sand-Hart kindly sent us a copy of her book, Home Keeps Moving. Heidi was born to a Norwegian father and a Finnish mother, but she grew up in India and the United Kingdom. This unique experience classifies her as a Third Culture Kid (TCK) – someone who grew up in a culture other than either parent’s.
Home Keeps Moving follows her and her missionary family on their many moves through the eyes of a Third Culture Kid and the unique phenomena of having four very different home countries to relate to.
Heidi is most passionate about her upbringing – not that it is hard to conceive, considering her luck. She highlights not only the benefits, but also the struggles that TCKs have to deal with. Feeling left out and dealing with different schooling systems are but two examples.
Despite not being a textbook TCK myself, I can’t help but relate to some of the feelings Heidi depicts. Yet, the overall tone leaves us wanting. Countless children grow up in different countries, making the TCK experience not quite as unique and privileged as Heidi would have us believe.
In spite of our “‘shallow’ talk and immature behaviour”, as Heidi puts it, the TCKs at Just Landed still talk to us non-TCKs. I like to think it’s because we have more in common than just a workspace.
Although an endearing tale of relationships with people, with countries, and to home, Home Keeps Moving should be taken as a collection of personal memories rather than a TCK bible.
Find out more about Heidi and her book at homekeepsmoving.blogspot.com.
Being of the TCK format myself I still find myself puzzled after having read your response. You have, yet again, managed to misunderstand the entire premise of this book/post/discussion. Not that you are obviously morphed into the personae of the original reviewer but it is obvious you both write/work for this blog and therefore are under the same umbrella, outwardly speaking. I find it irritating that someone can garner so much confusion and insult from such a straight forward book.
First of all extraordinary does not mean THE MOST FANTASTIC ENVIABLE LIFESTYLE ON EARTh. IT means extraordinary. The writer grew up moving continent every 6-12 months, having over 40 homes, 10 schools, leaving/meeting friends and strangers every couple of terms. I find that sort of lifestyle absolutely extraordinary. Its not the usual go-to-the-same-school-graduate-college-uni-marriage-pension as most people find themselves in now is it? Therefore obviously her/our lives are entirely different to normal peoples, even our personalities carry traits of multicultural aspects within us. This is something to embrace and cherish and use. Heidi decided to write a book about it to help other MKS TCKS PKS to relate or feel understood. This is a noble cause and I feel you are tainting it with your misguided attempts at trying to review something which you cannot understand unless you have lived it. And if I am mistaken and you yourself are a TCK then you definitely missed the boat. Sorry you have such juvenile expectations from the book (as to being a profound analysis of the TCK condition), as it was never meant to be anything but her childhood wrapped up in her words. Period.
Fine then. This review was stupid. It missed the point.
@ Nab – “I guess it requires a certain amount of intelligence to understand.” This is not really raising the level of debate – if you want to call someone stupid, or call a review stupid, do so. Don’t hide!
Maybe the problem starts on the cover, “A Glimpse into the Extraordinary Life of a Third Culture Kid” – the content is interesting, but it is far from extra-ordinary.
I think the only negative in the review is that maybe being a TCK isn’t really as special as some of the text makes out – there is a lot of rubbish talked between TCKs (especially those trying to prove a point to fit in to one of their cultures) so they are not ‘special’ in any way, they just have different points of reference.
For the record, I read the book and concluded it was more ‘memoir’ (which is great) than profound analysis of the TCK condition. Fun, but I got the feeling the author could have done so much more (and maybe will in the future) with her experience and making it more relevant to a wider audience. The religious elements of the writing could be an issue for some readers and – at least for me – didn’t really add much to the mix. I would second the opinion of the review that this the book is ‘interesting’ but will only appeal to a small segment of TCKs.
It is my express position that you utterly misunderstood every aspect of this books initial inception. Your defense handling of a topic that was in no way meant to be a personal attack (as far as I can gather from having read the book) says more about you than the insults you apparently lifted from the pages of an honest, open, story of a person torn between continents, spending her time seeing some of the worlds greatest sights onto to return home to hear people more interested in (as the above so correctly notes) Brad Pitt’s jeans or some other fluffy and totally banal pocket of today’s throw-away society.
This book is not meant to be taken as an attack on normal people, just a chance for them to understand TCK’s a bit better too if they care to read it.
Obviously not being a TCK helped you miss the point, Other non-TCK’s have taken to this book, I guess it requires a certain amount of intelligence to understand.
I agree with Bob above- the point is not about attacking anyone personally but when you move as often as most TCK’s do it is hard to connect to popular culture and/or the daily celebrities in the country du jour and so the obsessive discussion of said celebrities in most societies strikes us as quite shallow having no reference point to it whatsoever. This does not mean that we view the people as shallow – thats an over simplified statement. As a TCK myself I can attest that most of the feelings that Heidi describes are most relevant. And the point is not that we view ourselves as better than anyone – of course most of us have TCK friends, spouses and co-workers! It is that we have a different perspective on the world due to our upbringing and seek to understand it just as someone who say, grew up all their lives in New York City, seeks to understand their lives based on their experiences.
I read this book. Sounds like this reviewer missed the point a bit. I don’t think Sand-hart is attacking you personally or anyone else for that matter when she describes “shallow” talk. The desire for conversation greater than what Brad Pitt is wearing or which celebrity is dating j-lo is nothing to be scorned at.