In a change to the usual format, in this episode your host, Jen Mohindra, describes what it’s like to be an adult third culture kid. 

 Topics discussed include:

-     Restlessness and rootlessness

-     How to work out what security and stability mean to you

-     How to find your place in the world – a place that you can belong and a place that you can really call home and mean it.

 Jen shares her personal journey and the challenges faced, navigating her cultural identity as as an adult TCK.

 She also shares how you too can find a sense of peace, balancing the internal conflict of wanting to settle down versus craving adventure and change.

www.jenmohindra.com

Shannon Irby grew up as a military brat. She was born in Germany and also spent her childhood in the USA, Japan and Turkey.

Shannon describes her experience of being a hidden immigrant as an African American woman in the USA. She has since returned to Okinawa, Japan (for an extended period of time thanks to the pandemic) where she feels more comfortable being obviously foreign.

Sabrina Johnston is an adopted TCK of mixed heritage who was born in Indonesia and also spent her childhood in Brunei, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia and she now lives in Perth, Western Australia.

Sabrina talks about what stability and home mean to her and describes her version of adaptability and how she connects with people who don’t share the experience of having lived in different countries.

Sabrina also hosts a podcast show Happily Ever Now: Experiencing Joy amidst Grief.

Agakura Burihabwa was born in Germany to Burundian parents of origin

Then after a brief stint in the United Kingdom her family moved to Kenya. Agakura talks about the difficulty of returning to Germany and describes what belonging and “home” means to her.

She explains how she responds to the classic hard question for us: “Where are you from?”

Agakura’s mixed background and multiple languages has caused her to be mistaken for a spy – listen to this episode to find out why!

Anna Snyder was born in Cameroon which is where her parents are from, and her upbringing was spent between Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger and then she headed to Texas. Anna had to learn a new language quickly with a host family who didn’t speak English and later had to adjust to American English. Her early moves set her up for adjusting quickly to life in America although she was confronted with some dramatic climate changes.

Anna currently lives in the USA and talks about her desire to go back to Africa and do humanitarian work there.

In this week’s episode we have a change to the usual format. Here we have three TCK experts in the discussion: Amanda Bates and Michael V Pollock and me, Jen Mohindra.

We address the things that TCKs want to know most about resolving their issues. Is therapy the right route or is coaching a better option? And what’s the difference between the two?

Jen Mohindra, the host of People Like Us, is a TCK who grew up between the UK, Australia and Kenya (with a bit of backwards and forwards thrown in there for good measure!).

After a career that included hospitality and banking, and another move from Sydney to London in her 30s, Jen found that she was struggling with feelings of restlessness and rootlessness. The work she did with a coach was so profoundly successful in enabling her to settle and find peace that she retrained to become a coach herself.

Jen works with adult TCKs, to help them leverage their TCK journey and find their place in the world.

For almost two decades, Amanda Bates has provided clients with a solution-focused approach to design, develop and execute their professional goals. As a career counselor and consultant, she utilises her creative blend of experience and skills to help clients intentionally design the careers of their choice.

Amanda is also the founder of The Black Expat, where she leads and creates content focused on the Black and Brown experience abroad. She is a frequent speaker on expat topics related to diversity & inclusion, third culture kids and career development.

Michael Pollock, son of the late Dr. David Pollock, is an ATCK educator, speaker, author, trainer and coach who grew up mobile in the US and Kenya. With a Masters in education he and his family relocated from the US to China where he served as a principal and then created Odyssey, a TCK development organization, for the ISC schools. Michael returned to the US in 2012 to create Daraja, an adult TCK (ATCK) focused non-profit and for two and a half years brought it under Interaction International which he directed.  He continues to direct Daraja, which separated from Interaction in 2021, to focus on training, coaching and consulting collaborations with local and global TCK care initiatives. Co-author of Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds 3rd Ed., Michael envisions a world where TCKs thrive, discovering unlimited potential.

Born to American parents, Mark McElroy moved to Malaysia when he was one year old and went back to the USA to go to university. Having attended international schools in Malaysia he grew up with the comings and goings of other students while he had a more stable base. He later moved to China and then Korea which is where he currently resides with his wife and son. Listen as Mark discusses his thoughts around whether to raise his child as a TCK.

Vanessa Callari is of mixed heritage – American and Filipino and spent her formative years between the two countries.  Vanessa describes how what feels like home is not a static concept to her and how Covid has had an impact on this. She is very aware of and appreciates the opportunities that her TCK childhood has provided her.

Vanessa talks about her growing family and her thoughts around the lifestyle she would like her children to have. She also describes the differences between she and her sister’s adult lives, having both had the TCK upbringing.

Anna H is a former triathlete who currently resides in San Francisco. She spent her first 11.5 years in Germany then moved to the USA with her parents but not her older siblings.  She describes what it’s like to feel German and also Californian.

Whilst wanting to keep an international element to her daughter’s upbringing, Anna also wishes for her child to have a deep sense of belonging.

Chloé Donohue was born in Ecuador, her mum being Venezuelan and her dad American and Canadian. She moved to Romania, Thailand, Indonesia, Switzerland and Ghana before making her first solo move to the United States to go to university.

Chloé’s globally mobile upbringing encouraged her sense of adventure in cycling the length of New Zealand then decided to make another solo move, this time to Japan.

She discusses how to embrace your difference and to be ok with it and talks about what home and belonging mean to her, highlighting that these are often different to the meaning attached by non TCKs.