Migration means leaving things behind. It moves you into a disoriented world which doesn’t add up in the way you were used to. You have to start putting things together in a new way.
Ruth Padel, The Mara Crossing
My name is Stephen Black, and I grew up in the bush in Nigeria.
I had a rich childhood, full of excitement and adventure and a fair share of grief and loss as well. I grew up in farm country where I had the freedom and safety to be a kid in a way that I’ve never seen again. And I gained the ability to learn languages, cultures, and people which has served me well time and again in my adult life. To be real, I lost more friendships, endured more stress, and encountered more violence than a child ever should. And I wouldn’t trade it.
I have found that sentiment to be a common theme among TCK’s – that there were difficult, painful aspects of their mobile, multicultural lives, yet that the experience as a whole has shaped their identity and their culture. It’s given them skills, strengths, and an awareness that they never would have found otherwise.
So I talk to people about what it means to be a TCK and how to care for a TCK, taking advantage of those benefits and processing the losses and the grief. I have begun collecting those stories, strategies, and supportive conversations in the form of a podcast: TCK Care.
Stephen now works as a TCK Care Worker, and uses his podcast to discuss and share TCK stories and experiences, connecting with a range of people who have grown up abroad, and those who have researched these themes. He describes it as ‘a podcast for those with a multicultural childhood, past or present.’
Tertiary 