Third Culture Kids and the Disaffected Mormon Underground

Today, in my international accounting class, my professor invited a couple as guest speakers. I was initially wary, because this couple is a team of long-time Christian missionaries to Papua New Guinea…and the only thing I’ve seen regarding missionaries to Papua New Guinea is this. They weren’t with the same group though; they didn’t focus on the same project, and the presentation, while still bearing religious experience, wasn’t a complete proselytizing recollection. Rather, I thought it bore some pretty interesting sociological differences between the Gapapaiwa people and us here. The speakers presented their background as Biblical translators in a way to show differences in business communications, as well as personal and religious communications.

When they said that they went to Papua New Guinea for something like 23 years and took their kids with them for the greater part (I still don’t have the details, because apparently, the kids got to see US high schools and the culture shock therein), I began to have a different “sense” about them. No longer did I “imagine” them to be envoys of something like New Tribes Missions, but I got a fuzzy reminder of the book The Poisonwood Bible.

Most of this sense was as a contrast. For example, the husband/father of the family didn’t seem anything like Nathan Price. The children and wife didn’t appear — from the wife’s telling of the story — to be reluctant co-missionaries like Orleanna and her children. But I wish I could have heard from the children themselves, just to hear from them what it was like to grow up in a completely different culture.

The mother/wife did say something pretty revealing. She remarked at how her children aren’t really American, culturally. When they came back to America, they had to be taught different customs and norms, and whereas she and her husband were primarily American, but “stumbled” around with the Gapapaiwa culture (for example, never getting the rhythm of the language great [although it sounded pretty good to me when they spoke, but then again, I don’t know]), her children were most fluent with the Gapapaiwa language and cultures, but only awkwardly “learned” American norms about looking others in the eyes, wearing jeans, etc.,

What the mother said that was the clincher though, was this. I’m paraphrasing, but…:

These children grow up to be Third Culture Kids, and there is a phenomenon of these Third Culture Kids from a variety of upbringings. What these Third Culture Kids must realize is that they do not belong. And they never will. They must learn to accept that they can’t be American, but they can’t be Gapapaiwa. They have to be something in the middle. Many Third Culture Kids, in fact, end up marrying others, because even if the particulars of their situations vary, they understand the phenomenon and each other.

That struck me. They do not belong. And they never will. Isn’t the desire to belong one of those huge human ones? And isn’t the goal that we find belonging? The woman actually said something else that was interesting…relating to herself. Again, paraphrasing:

It was important to feel called from God, because this was tough, and God provided the way. There were times when I thought, “I hate having to deny everything I am for this foreign life.” And I thought, “What am I even doing?” It was only when we came back with the finished Gapapaiwa New Testament — in their language, that they helped create — and so many people had tears because they were so happy, that I knew for sure it was all worth it.

Here, I see a similar struggle. A struggle to belong. And I particularly resonated with the comment that she had made: she felt the struggle of inauthenticity — of knowing what and who she was deep inside but feeling that her actions went against everything she was. She was *denying* herself.

But there’s a difference. She had something in the end to wrap everything up. The translated New Testament. What do her children have? Is there closure for Third Culture Kids? According to her, no. Give it up.

I find this interesting on several levels. I grew up in a military family (another situation prime for TCKdom). I didn’t learn fancy languages (I regret not paying attention when I had the chance!), but I understand the not-being-one-or-the-other and ultimately never being.

But I feel that being a missionary kid isn’t necessary. Being an army brat isn’t necessary. These things are just very visible examples. What about our very own Disaffected Mormon Underground (DAMU)? We are people who aren’t non-Mormon, but we aren’t Mormon. Whether we say ex-, post, former, new order, alumni, etc., we are in this “third culture.”

And the thing is…wherever we end up going, even if the particulars may vary, we are like the TCKs in that we will find one another. So, it reminds me of a post I wrote earlier (The problem with atheist communities), and a response to it (Networking for the no-Gods crowd). I pointed out the difference in atheists, and the responder suggested that I underestimated the commonality that we share from living in a theist-dominated society. While I still think things are a bit more nuanced than this (for example, living in a Mormon-dominated society is a bit different than living in an Evangelical-dominated society, which is a bit different than living in a society with liberal Protestants, or living in a Muslim-dominated society, even if these are all “theist-dominated.”)

But isn’t this just saying, “Though the particulars may vary, the third culture kids will gravitate toward one another because of the shared general experience”? So I guess that’s why atheists do have communities. We’re so secumenical like that.