The Winner of the Book "Home Keeps Moving" by Heidi Sand-Hart

Flowers remind me of Africa

Last week it was my blog's first birthday and to celebrate that there was an interview with third culture kid, and author Heidi Sand-Hart and there was a possibility to win a free signed copy of Heidi's book: Home Keeps Moving. I like the book because it is a nice first hand account of the life of a third culture kid and of the challenges that can be faced. I promised that I would let you know who has won the copy of the book. By the way I believe that if you promise something then you have to do what you promised, so here comes:

The winner of the signed copy of the book Home Keeps Moving is: Julia Munroe Martin!
Congratulations Julia, I hope you enjoy the reading the book, it will be coming your way soon.

I "met" Julia online through twitter. I really enjoyed the first article I read by Julia. It's called: Word-by-word, scene-by-scene, chapter-by chapter a guest post on Emma Pass's blog. What it's like being a Third Culture Kid? Julia is American, she was born in France and grew up in Kenya, Africa. I am impressed because there were so many comments on this guest post.

You should read this post by Julia too: The Stories a Picture Can't Tell. I'm so glad that there are more writers and bloggers out there writing about being a third culture kid. Raising the awareness, you know it excites me.

I have just discovered this guest post on Milliver's Travels by Julia: Summer vacations at my grandma's house, Poland, Ohio. Moving around frequently as a child, she had no place she could call home. The closest she ever felt home was with her grandmother at her house in Poland, Ohio, on the banks of the Yellow Creek. Julia paints pictures with her words and there are lovely photo's there too. I encourage you to read the post. Just like Julia the family farm where my grandparent's lived in Friesland, the Netherlands feels a little like home to me. It has been a place I can always come back to. So even though grandparents may live many miles away they can still be of great importance to children growing up globally. I recently posted a guest blog by Libby Stephen's on: Grandparenting over the Seas.

By the way I have to confess that to choose the winner I did it the old fashioned way. My daughter had fun drawing a name out of a hat. She was excited about that. Thank you all for adding comments and joining in the competition. Thank you all for reading my blog, I am so happy that there are people reading what I write. Thank you Heidi for donating the book. As Heidi said if you did not win a signed copy you can buy a copy of the book and she will sign it for you! So the book written by adult third culture kid Heidi has been won by another author who is an adult third culture kid too! What fun. Lets keep on writing and telling the world the hidden stories within us.

Related Posts:

• Great third Culture Kid information on the web.
• Cultural Identity Confusion and third culture kids
• Third Culture Kids Learning to be Themselves

Are you raising messed up kids?

The internet and twitter are very useful tools for finding new information. Today I was searching the web and I arrived on a blog written by a third culture kid. The words I read stayed with me all day and I just have to share them with you. I have written about my 10 disadvantages of growing up abroad and I have written a blog on the downside of growing up abroad as a third culture kid.  You know it's true, children are flexible and they can easily adapt to transitions but there is a cost we pay. Please parents do think ahead and consider what effect multiple moves will have on kids. Here are the words I read:

"Dear everyone who has kids: If you want to mess up their heads and damn them to loneliness, raise them in a place radically foreign from what you know and love.  It works every time.

Growing up, I was the poster child for third culture kids.  I didn't fit in anywhere.  Even when I was well liked, I didn't really fit in anywhere."

There are real challenges for third culture kids, children growing up in multiple countries, continents, and communities. There is an "identity issue". Where do I belong? Where's home? Who am I? Where do I fit in? I have written about cultural identity confusion and third culture kids before. When I was growing up in Africa I cannot really remember having any real identity issues. During primary school I attended an International school so there were kids from many different nationalities. We were all different, there was no problem there. The community was constantly changing. We were saying "hello" and "goodbye" regularly. It was a way of life. To me it was a normal way of life. During secondary school in Zimbabwe I remember being called "the foreigner", but even that I could accept.

The identity issue became a real issue when I went to university in the Netherlands (my passport country).  My whole life I had said that I was Dutch. I spoke Dutch, I had a Dutch passport, nearly all my family lived in the Netherlands and yet suddenly I did not feel Dutch. I discovered that there were many things about normal Dutch life that I did not know. It is so hard to explain, it is not only about knowing things but also about feeling different.

Through twitter I came across a blog post written by Julia Munroe Martin. She was a third culture kid (TCK). She grew up in France, Belize, Kenya and Uganda. She writes about "always feeling and being different in every culture, never fitting in anywhere..."

Related posts:

• Third culture kids: learning to be themselves
• Third culture kids learning their mother tongue
• Global Nomads on the move: part 2
• How do transitions effect children?

Image thanks to Jusben Morguefile