Obama and his Third Culture Kids Team

[N.O.R.F]

Only heard this term on the radio today but found the discussion interesting.

 

Sociologist Ruth Hill Useem coined the term "Third Culture Kids" after spending a year on two separate occasions in India with her three children, (Flopsi, Penny, and Dipsi) in the early '50s. Initially the term "third culture" was used to refer to the process of learning how to relate to another culture; in time, the meaning of the term changed and children who accompany their parents into a different culture were referred to as "Third Culture Kids".[5][6] Useem used the term "Third Culture Kids" because TCKs integrate aspects of their birth culture (the first culture) and the new culture (the second culture), creating a unique "third culture".

 

Source: Wiki

Research points to TCKs being more receptive to different people, cultures, religions etc. It also indicates that they are more likely to have good degrees as well as a hint of arrogance when they are at 'home'.

 

Obama and his team are TCKs.

 

Obama has packed his staff with so-called “Third Culture Kids”—people who grew up outside the U.S. New research suggests this group shares common psychological traits that could shape his administration.

 

John Quincy Adams lived in France, and young Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited Europe often enough to master French and German, but Barack Obama is the first modern American president to have spent some of his formative years outside the United States. It is a trait he shares with several appointees to the new administration: White House advisor Valerie Jarrett was a child in Tehran and London, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was raised in east Africa, India, Thailand, China and Japan as the son of a Ford Foundation executive, and National Security Advisor James L. Jones was raised in Paris. (Also, Bill Richardson, tipped as Secretary of Commerce, grew up in Mexico City.)

 

This is more than a trivial coincidence. So-called “Third Culture Kids”—and the adults they become”—share certain emotional and psychological traits that may exert great influence in the new administration. According to a body of sociological literature devoted to children who spend a portion of their developmental years outside their “passport country,” the classic profile of a “TCK” is someone with a global perspective who is socially adaptable and intellectually flexible. He or she is quick to think outside the box and can appreciate and reconcile different points of view. Beyond whatever diversity in background or appearance a TCK may bring to the party, there is a diversity of thought as well.

 

But TCKs can also feel rootless and detached. The great challenge for maturing Third Culture Kids is to forge a sense of personal and cultural identity from the various environments to which they been exposed. Barack Obama’s memoir, Dreams of My Father, could serve as a textbook in the TCK syllabus, a classic search for self-definition, described in living color. Obama’s colleagues on the Harvard Law Review were among the first to note both his exceptional skill at mediating among competing arguments and the aloofness that made his own views hard to discern. That cool manner of seeming “above it all” is also a classic feature of the Third Culture Kid.

 

The TCKs’ identity struggles can be painful and difficult. The literature documents addictive behaviors, troubled marriages and fitful careers. But meeting this challenge can become a TCK’s greatest strength. Learning to take the positive pieces from a variety of experiences and create a strong sense of “This is who I am, no matter where I am” gives a steadiness when the world around is in flux or chaos”—which helps explain “no-drama Obama.”

 

Among those of us who study Third Culture Kids (almost always because we are TCKs), it has been both gratifying and frustrating to watch “one of us” run for the White House. We began obsessively pointing out to each other the telltale signifiers of the TCK that so often went unremarked in the mainstream press.

 

“I laughed when I heard a commentator call Barack exotic and elitist,” says Lois Bushong, an American who grew up in Costa Rica and now works a therapist for internationally mobile families. “How exotic or elitist can it be to go home to visit your grandmother, even if she lives in Hawaii? She’s still your grandma. This TV guy seemed to forget that the world many see ‘exotic’ is simply home for TCKs.”

 

But we also despaired when his opponents denigrated the importance of Obama’s childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii. “How can they say his international childhood doesn’t count when it comes to foreign affairs?” sputtered my friend and colleague, Paulette Bethel. “That’s just crazy. Barack’s been negotiating between cultural worlds since the day of his birth. No one will have to teach him this skill. It’s already second nature to him!”

 

Bethel feels vindicated by the collection of strong personalities that Obama has invited into the new administration. “He’s lived with so many differences around him in his lifetime, they don’t threaten him anymore,” she says.

 

In 1984, Dr. Ted Ward, then a sociologist at Michigan State University, called TCKs “the prototype citizens of the future,” anticipating a time when a childhood lived in various cultures would be the norm rather than the exception. It seems that time is now.

 

And the characteristics derived from an expat childhood may be well suited to the challenges facing the new administration. The economic crisis, for one, demonstrates how interdependent world cultures have become, and its solution will undoubtedly require the unconventional thinking that comes more easily to a Third Culture Kid. Even though Tim Geithner is not an economist by training, he apparently demonstrated such a keen problem-solving skills in the financial arena that the stock market jumped 500 points on the news of his appointment. Returning to Japan as an adult and speaking the language he learned as a child have given him an unusually deep understanding of the global economy.

 

As TCKs, we have had the joy, and the challenge, of being raised in many places and cultures. Now we get to see whether the values of the TCK can be a force for good on the world stage.

 

Ruth E. Van Reken is a second generation adult TCK and mother of 3 ATCKs. She speaks nationally and internationally on issues related to global family living. She is co-founder of Families in Globlal Transition. In addition to other writing, Ruth is co-author of Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds.

Source

[Thierry.]

Interesting article, I think with regards to international relations and trade having other cultural experiences helps tremendously in bridging gaps, Henry Kissinger was successful because of his international heritage. But when it comes to defence and other domestic matters it would be no use having a footloose person who would cave in.

Its fair to say that majority of young Somalis in Diaspora are officially TCK

[Ibtisam]

Not really a new theory to be honest, been around for a while.

 

Thierry I have the evidence for that from my research.The mix and match generation.

[Thierry.]

Ibti I hope your theory of the remittance drying up wont come true. come even if they mix and math im sure they will send few back home.

 

I wrote this topic along these lines a couple of years back

http://www.somaliaon line.com/cgi-bin/ubb /ultimatebb.cgi?/top ic/8/769

[Ibtisam]

^^It already is, volumes of remittance for Somalis has been in decline in recent years, particularly in stable parts.

 

I'll read it later inshallah.

[N.O.R.F]

^Why is it declining? People not sending or due to economica situation or both?

 

Thierry, dust off that chess board mate. Waa inoo meesheenii sometime next week IA

[Ibtisam]

^TCK absorbing more of western culture and less rooted to back home.

[Thierry.]

^^ Ibti im sure the current economic situation has played a role

 

Torres, Saxiib make sure you get some practise, last thing we want is another abysmal performance and let’s hope you don’t get checkmate in less than 10 Mins lol.

[N.O.R.F]

Originally posted by *Ibtisam:

^TCK absorbing more of western culture and less rooted to back home.

But who do you blame. The kids for not knowing or their parents for not teaching them?

 

Thierry

 

LoL

 

I have been playing with an old Azerbayjaani so watchout!

[SayidSomal]

Originally posted by Thierry.:

Ibti I hope your theory of the remittance drying up wont come true. come even if they mix and math im sure they will send few back home.

 

I wrote this topic along these lines a couple of years back

http://www.somaliaon line.com/cgi-bin/ubb /ultimatebb.cgi?/top ic/8/769

NOT - if i have anything to do with it.

 

Some of the parents were telling me at my last event, that some of the children were saying to them "why do i have sent this money - i need mobile phone more "

[Che -Guevara]

The younger generation has little or no connection with Somalia and those in it, consequently, they don't feel compelled to help.Couple more generations down, remittance will come to abrupt halt.

 

Their self-absorption has little to do with their unwillingness to send money back to the old country.