Did anyone else have an Ex pat upbringing, moving alot&now feel like they don't quite fit in ANYWHERE?

[peasoup]

I moved countries every three years or so my whole childhood till age 18 when I came back to UK. Have moved about abit since then and lived abroad a bit, but can never quite shake the feeling that I don't quite belong anywhere. People I meet seem to have alot of shared history that bonds them, even if they didn't know each other growing up they shared the same type of school system, school experiences, culture, kids TV shows, childhood games and food as they all grew up in the U.K. whereas I can't quite relate to them as I had a bit of this and a bit of that but don't "come" from anywhere,so didn't have a solid background of one particular culture that can link me to one particular "tribe". Always feel a bit of a wierdo. I'm such a mix that there's noone with the same experiences as me that I can bond with. Do others with expat upbringings feel this way? I do feel closer to others who have had this same sort of itinerant childhood, but I don't really meet many grown ups who had an expat childhood. And we weren't in the military or the diplomatic service so don't have a common bond with those who had that upbringing though I'm sure we could relate to some of the same types of feelings. Any other Brits out there who spent much of their life being moved around? How has it affected you do you think? Has it made you want to move around lots with your own famlies or try and create a "hometown" for yourself?

I have done the expat bit where you are expected to condense your whole childhool into two or three weeks so that you can become a fully functioning adult.

Not really possible.

But it is fun to take the best parts of all your experience into your new life.

Maveta- You're right; the prob is that folks want to "put you in a box" and they can't with me so i confuse them i think.
IvanaK I am hoping to be able to send my DS to an international school here in London. I think I do gravitate to folks with similar mixed childhoods, but it is only just recently that I realised that's what I was doing. I spent a lot of time wondering why I couldn't click with folks, but, now I think I've realised it's to do woth my mixed upbringing, I think i'll be able to relax a bit more about it and be happy when i do find others of a similar ilk. I think "trying to fit in" and make friends wherever I went had just become a life long habit through always moving, and TBH it can be quite exhausting. i think i'm tierd of trying now. Now I'm older I can really just relax about it and think "Sod it, if they can't accept me it's their tough luck as there will be plenty of others who can". I think I'm old enough now to stop worrying about "fitting in" LOL

I was with an old friend last nite who I'd met when i went to a uk school age 14. I was talking to her about this. She told me she'd spent her whole childhood up to age 13 running around in the desert in various Arab countries being home schooled and moving every three years! I didn't even realise that or had forgotten! I always thought of her as my very British friend. No wonder we clicked! She says folks have trouble "getting" her as well. They bill her as this "posh bird"; she's blond, yummy mummy looking, Boden/Monsoon outfits, upper middle class accent; then she comes out with all these off the wall opinions (in their eyes) that just don't tally with their image of her; so they back away as they can't process it. I had a good think and realised almost all the girls I click with are of this Ex-Ex-pat ilk. We should run a club!
Squeakypop What do you mean by condensing your childhood so U can become a functioning adult? After all that talk of "getting" others with similar backgrounds, i totally can't understand your post LOL!!!

bum p

I've been a life-long expat (as were my parents) and find I get itchy feet to move again after a few years in one place (unless something happens, like a change of job, having a baby or getting busy with a project). I really enjoy living in different countries, experiencing different cultures and meeting new friends; both local and expat. I've also found it's the people that make a place, more than the place itself and now I have friends all over the world as people are posted to different countries again or move back to their home countries. (This makes for great holiday destinations as well!)

There's a good website for expat women (www.expatwomen.com) that has lots of interesting articles and news, as well as country listings. They also cover the so-called "Third Culture Kid" subject.

I'm not sure I'm ready to settle anywhere just yet. My parents have sort-of settled back to the UK but they still travel a lot around the world, visiting us, my brothers and their expat friends. I suppose it'll be the same for us at some point and perhaps our children, who knows... As a fellow expat once used to quote: "variety is the spice of life!"

yes

we moved house every 12-18 months, had 2 big country changes and had a fair amount of diff schools.

I get itchy feet all the time. Find it hard to stay in one place because I got very used to screwing up then moving away and not having to resolve it. Actually, it's a very dangerous lesson to live your life by and took me decades to address it!

(and we have settled in london. Dh very much a stay in one place sort of bloke and both our jobs tied to being here. But there is a little part inside me that is screaming 'mooooooooooooooooooooooooove'!).

Good morning! Hadn't seen any action on this thread for ages, so a nice surprise to hear from you both.
Louise- Yes it certainly makes for lots of good holidays! In fact it's a very rare thing that we would go on holiday somewhere where we don't have friends eiher to stay with or to meet up with. I am very happy that I experienced so many countries and I still am moving around a bit. Have been in London off and on since DS (age 3) was born and just started to notice that I find it so much easier to click with folks who've had that upbringing. When I sat and thought about my very close old friends they all had that type of childhood. I'll look at Expatwoman website. I thought I had checked out that site, and it was all Dubai based expats?? Fox yes I find it very hard to think that i will stay in the UK forever, though I can't think where I'd like to go. My DH would like to stay in one place though he doesn't really want that to be the UK, but I don't want to stay in one place- I want t keep moving!!!!

Thought I'd give this old thread a bump as I've been thinking about this alot lately.
If anyone is feeling thias sort of "Third Culture Kid" wierdness (see Buda's link below) then I'd love to hear from you. I know I'm in London and it should be very international,but where I live just feels very British, and the Mums I meet are very British. I think Brits who've had an ex pat upbringing along with bits of time in the UK are what I'm hoping to find.

Hi,

I haven't read the whole thread but will come back to this.

I had an expat upbringing moving every few years. Even when we came back to the UK we went to the French Lycee.

Although I feel huge benefits from our varied upbringing -speaking several languages,etc- I did find it very unsettling.

I have rebelled and gone completely the other way. I am completely settled in what my parents perceive as a boring life. I am an accountant. My children go to the local sate school and we just speak English.

My sisters live overseas -France and Singapore- and speak "interesting" languages (Arabic/ Russian). So I am the dull one...

peasoup, great thread, I can really identify with this... I lived in the UK until I was 8 and then moved to Brazil, but we kept up cultural links with England (local Brit community) though I went to Brazilian schools. I went back to the UK for Uni and for a while had a rather intense "am I a black bear with white spots or a white bear with black spots" moment (Panda's Puzzle - fave book when I was a kid, wonder why??!!). But eventually I realized that of course, it doesn't really matter, you don't really have to belong to a determined place, just to the moment (as in 'live the moment'). Does any of this make sense?

Of course, having sworn to myself before having kids that I would never move country with DCs I now find myself with a major case of itchy feet!

FYI, there are various books available for those of you affected by this..

eg. Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds by D Pollock

I didn't move around much, but grew up in Hong Kong with visits back to 'home' in Wales every Summer, finally moving back here for University and then staying on. I still regularly start questions to DP with "In Britain, do you...?" because there are whole swathes of things I find very different to what was the 'norm' when I was growing up. I also feel that I have to keep making reference to my upbringing to explain my viewpoint/attitude to people as there's no visual or aural clues to my background (I have a non-descript English accent), but I have no shared ground with regard to school systems (I went to a German Swiss International School!?)/TV programmes/music/fashion and the like. On the other hand, wouldn't go back to Hong Kong now, and don't feel I would ever feel at 'home' there again, so definitely feel that I'm a Third Culture child, creating my own cultural traditions from British/Chinese/German influences. On the upside, my office now celebrate Chinese New Year!

I can identify with a lot of what you're all saying - although I had a very stable childhood and pretty much lived in one place.

Then moved to London (from another country) and stayed for 18 years. Now back in original country and feel very displaced.

London was home - but the UK was not. I felt a great affinity with a lot of people who lived there, and as soon as went anywhere else in the UK I'd feel foreign.
Now I feel foreign again in my own country and it makes me a bit sad.
I think I have to try hard to see it as a positive thing.

this is a very interesting thread. i feel a bit related eventhough my history is different. completely opposite even.
i was born and grew up in a typical czech family and had a typical life in a /post/ communist country until i was 21. then i went to work as an aupair to the uk and keep coming back for the summer holidays ever since. the weird thing is that when i first came to the uk, i always compared people, how they behave in different situations, how things are done.obviously thinking that the czech way is better. then i came back home and realised that this comparing is going on. just the sides changed.now i know that i sometimes prefer the british way and sometimes the czech one. snd when i am at home , i miss my life in the uk and cant wait for the holidays and when i am in the uk, i miss my life in cz. so i feel i sort of have two home countries which is weird, espacially when i live in different places in the uk each time.

Yes, I know exactly what you all mean. My father was a tropical forester, drafted into the colonial service immediately after the war. I was born in Sabah (before it was Sabah) and lived there, West Malaysia and Iran through my childhood and teens. We had 2 years in the UK when I was 7-9 (and all hated it) and I came came back to boarding school at 15. That was a shock. The UK was always referred to as 'home' though I never quite understood why!

I have been based in the UK since I graduated, but had a series of short term jobs which took me all over the country and then joined a company with offices all over the world, for whom I travel widely. One younger sister works for the UN (and travels) the other has emigrated to Australia.

Ironically, because my parents left the UK just after the war I have a very old fashioned RP accent. My American colleagues see me as a quintessential Englishwoman, and have real difficulty understanding that the accent is completely misleading.

Well well well I didn't know that I was a recognised 'group' that actually had a name! I'm a third culture kid and proud.
My upbringing was military, moving every three years or less until aged 16.I remember going to one school for only one day.
I also get the how to explain to people when they ask where I'm from.
I am now living in a small town with my dcs )am divorced but that's another story)and trying to recreate a childhood I didn't have and it's great, but at the same time I can't really see me living here for the rest of my life though.
Love the idea of a meet up, Peasoup are you on the case?

oops sorry forgot to say that I have never met anyone in my past that I have been at school with. Have no connections or affiliations to any 'old school' so would love to see who turned up at these meetups because I might come across someone from my past and then it would prove I happened.