What is the best thing about being a TCK?
Having a unique perspective on life, and making friends in far-flung places — after you’ve grown up as a TCK, you can pretty much be sure you’ll run into someone you know at every airport around the world. Oh, and you can be sure you’ll have someone you can reach out to anywhere in the world too – I was two days away from a trip to Jordan with no idea where I was going to stay or what I was going to do, then I remembered a childhood friend from the Saudi days who was working there, and boom, the next thing I knew she was hosting us and helping us plan our whole itinerary!
What is the worst thing about being a TCK?
Hm… the flip side to making friends in far-flung places is HAVING friends in far-flung places – I haven’t seen many people I have fond childhood memories of in decades and I’m not sure when our paths might cross again. Facebook definitely makes staying connected easier than ever before, but it still would be nice to have a group of childhood friends I still see in one place from time to time.
What kind of impact do you see TCKs making in the future?
I think TCKs bring a really broad, open-minded perspective to other cultures and other people, and really make the world a much smaller place. Such worldly mindsets make TCKs natural leaders and visionaries who can bring people of various stripes together.