I'm the Mother of Third Culture Kids who Repatriated

by E. Cuddy
(Ottawa, Canada)

I can't find anything other than academics in regard to the parents, to the unit: The Repat/TCKS family. A Repat/TCKS family isn't all about the TCKS.

My husband and I had not lived here for almost seventeen years. For ten of those years we lived in a land about as different as any could be on this planet. From there we raised our two TCKS. We weren't associated with government or any other national organization from here. We were on our own.

Thanks to employee benefits we were able to see our extended family once a year, but they turned on us. Aunts, Uncles, cousins, even Grandma. Society and extended family were saying - what kind of person has culture shock in their own country? One who's not a patriot, that's who… Our attempts to explain seemed to go right over their heads. We're seen as uppity 'n snotty.

We're not - We basically ordinary people who've been called to live a somewhat extraordinary life, with reality experiences vastly different from those around us who've shared a common context of life all their lives. Seems that this notification is taken as an insult to them, and we are perceived as being uppity, name dropping, snotty.

Our lives, our hearts, our patriotism challenged by all factions of society here, hurting the most when it came/comes to extended family. They seem to prefer presumptions as real.

When it came to job hunting on my part, my husband's skill is highly transferable, mine not, the experience was also insightful and depressing. I got treated/perceived as an Immigrant.

Unlike an Immigrant, we had no soft place to land, no mentors, and no guides. It's been a horrible fight to live and thrive, taken far longer than I think it should've had we had mentors and guides instead of the ignorant arrogantly imposing presumptions as real, directing us to shut up, don't talk back, listen and learn.

It's been brutal for this Repat/TCKS family to thrive and live, to assimilate in a kind, friendly and nurturing way. I've worked harder in all ways more than ever in our lives to keep us together to be as tight as we are today. It's been an emotional roller-coast

By the grace of some Higher Power, we're all still together; we've survived, ending up tighter than ever. We have each other when triggered, when flashbacks come, we have each other like never before