Friday, August 25, 2017

From the perspective of one of my TCKs....

Third-Culture Kids are, in the words of Wikipedia:
Third culture kid (TCK) or third culture individual (TCI) are terms used to refer to children raised in a culture other than their parents' (or the culture of the country given on the child's passport, where they are legally considered native) for a significant part of their early development years.
The most common TCKs are children of missionaries, ex-patriots (aka, ex-pats), and military children, as well as children of the adults attached to embassies.  

I have 6 TCKs, also known as "military brats".

So how many brats are there?In the United States today there are approximately 700,000 children ages six to eighteen classified as military youth. The truth is that no one really knows which is surprising for a country obsessed with polls and statistics. No one has kept a running count of the number of children raised in the U.S. military. The Department of Defense (DoD) school system approximates that since 1946 it has educated four million brats overseas or about 20-30% of the total brat population. One guesstimate would be a total of at least 12-20 million brats.

‘This wouldn’t include the children of National Guard, embassy and Foreign Service personnel, DoD civilian employeesmissionary families and mobile corporate families,’ notes Jump Cut journalist George T. Marshall, ‘ – all of who share more in common with military brats than with their fellow citizens.’ (source)
While we live in a community of military families, our children go to schools with a LOT of non-military-affiliated people...and there is the rub.  

Because so few Americans actually serve or have served in the military, many of their children have NO CLUE as to the culture or experiences our children have grown up experiencing.

One of my children was interacting with a friend in the past few days, lamenting the loss of yet another friend who didn't "get it"...and wrote some profound words describing it....

"They don't understand, they don't get it.  They're the ones who are constantly hanging out with someone new every day, while I'm stuck at home, sitting by myself.  That's what makes me feel like the replaceable one.  They just don't get it...they don't understand what it's like to constantly have to try and make new friends just to have them s**t on you.  They don't get having to move every few years to a completely new place with no one you know.  They don't get not knowing the culture or the area or anything about this new place you're just thrown into.  They don't understand having social anxiety and not being able to start a simple conversation with someone no matter how badly you want to. They don't understand having the people that mean the most to you live on the other side of the country or sometimes the other side of the world...they don't understand how f'ing easy they have it.  They've lived in the same place their whole lives, the same house, the same neighborhood, the same people.  They have everything handed to them, and it's so frustrating that they don't see how much it hurts when they talk about how they got to grow up with someone, how they get to know every inch and crevice of the city they live in.  I feel replaceable because I am, people do it all the time.  I leave and move out of state, not by choice but because I'm forced ot and their lives go on, they don't miss me, they don't try to visit, they don't get excited when I visit.  I'm just a memory to them.  My whole life I've been second to everyone...everyone who I think loves me, everyone who I think is my friend.  They always find someone who's better.  Because that's just me.  Replaceable.  


Thursday, August 17, 2017

Observations as a Daughter of BOTH...

I am a Daughter of the Confederacy.
I am also of Jewish blood.
I am [probably] also a Daughter of American Revolution.  I haven't actually traced that lineage.
I am a Native Daughter.
I am a direct descendent of immigrants.  French, German Jew, Irish, Scottish, Czechoslovakian.
I grew up in the South with a Southern mother, and a Northern father.

But that is not what you see when you meet me.
When you meet me, you are greeted by my VERY white face, my abundant (graying) curls, and my mystifyingly slanted eyes...which show up when I smile, as I am wont to do when I meet people.

This week I have been in such horrible shock I have not known how to respond to the sickening events happening in our world.  I have been sitting, reading how others, much more eloquently than I, have espoused speaking up, making changes, brokering peace amidst such tumultuous events.  I am forever-grateful for those who HAVE made their voices heard.  

Over the past 18 months, I have had the honor to work with some of this country's amazing immigrants, it's poor, and it's AMAZINGLY resilient people.  I have worked with Africans, Asians of many stripes, Latinas/Latinos, and pretty much everyone in-between.  I have learned SO MUCH.

I have learned that, even though I grew up poor, and abused, and neglected, and dirty, I have SO VERY MUCH privilege.
I have learned about my blind spots.
I have learned to be more open-handed and generous...NOT something I learned growing up.

I have been learning about seeing past labels, and skin tones, and hairstyles, and cultural differences, and looking into people's eyes, and seeing the depth of their hurts, and heartaches, and hangups.  I hope that I have been learning to see people the way God sees them...as people made in His image, for His purpose.

There WAS a point in time I was stuck in the mindset of pride and fear that leads to "demonstrations" and "riots", such as has been evidenced this week.  There WAS a time, WAY back in Bible college, when some very brave young men challenged me to look deep inside me to see my own prejudices, and started the process of (hopefully) weeding out that sin in my life.

In light of this week's events, I hope I can continue this learning and growing process, and I hope you will join me.  Because my past, my background, my roots...they are meaningless.  I am a new person, bought by the blood of Jesus, and He has given me a higher call...one of healing and love and reconciliation with Him.  I am praying to that end.  Please join me.

"...for God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind;"
2 Timothy 1:7
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will."
Romans 12:2



Sunday, August 13, 2017

Observations of a Navy wife living on an Air Force base.

1. We are definitely outsiders.  We don't get included in much, unless someone is picking on us.  Then everyone gets in on it...

2. The housing here is NICE.  REALLY REALLY NICE.  Quit complaining about it.

3. It's really neat to drive around and see license plates from so many different states.  I love the diversity of the military life!!

4. Colors at 5:00 pm??  The Navy does them at sundown.

5. Everyone stopping for colors, hats off, car windows down, hand on heart while the anthem plays.

6.  Apparently the Army and Air Force both call it the BX.  Only then Navy says NEX.  No one knows what the Marines call it.  Compromise, and call it The Exchange.

7.  An Air Force base without airplanes is still an Air Force base, and is nicer than any Navy base I have ever been on.

8.  Intra-branch competitiveness is very alive and real.  Just walk down the street and count branch flags....

9.  Base yardsale pages have AMAZING deals on a whole lot of luxury items.  I still can't afford them at yardsale prices.

10. It seems like Air Force uniform policies are less-strictly enforced than almost any other branch.

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Observations of a Southerner living in Massachusetts

1. I don't belong here.  I am reminded of this every day.  Not only by everything that is different and foreign, but by people who tell me this, or ask me where I'm from.

2.  There are a few redeeming factors of living here, particularly of being in Massachusetts.  First, July and August.  South Carolina prepared me for living in hell....the heat, not the people.  July and August in South Carolina are miserable.  In Massachusetts, July and August feel like March and April in the Southeast.  Beautiful and green, with temperatures resembling spring in the rest of the country.  Second, the schools are amazing...arguably the best in the country.

3. The drivers are terrible, and are proud of their status of being the worst.  It is mind-boggling.  This is NOT just my observation.  For three years in a row, the insurance companies have proven that statistically Massachusetts drivers, and those from Boston in particular, have THE WORST driving records in the country.  And these terrible drivers wear their titles of "Massholes" with pride.  I don't understand it.

4. If you don't eat seafood, there is very little in the way of foods distinctive to the area.

5. EVERYTHING is expensive.  Not just a little expensive, but really freaking horribly expensive.

6. If you don't have ALL THE EXCESS MONEY to spend, you are looked-down upon or pitied.

7. There is a HUGE divide between the HAVES and the HAVE-NOTs.  When houses range from $600,000 and up in one town, and two towns over the majority of people struggle to pay $200-$300 in rent per month, there is something really, REALLY wrong.

8. White male privilege is very visible here.

9. Corruption in the police forces.

10. NO ONE drives the speed limit, or even close-to the speed limit.  Average highway speed is close to 20 MPH over the speed limit.