New Faces in Washington

There's a great online article in The Daily Beast about Obama's cabinet and staff picks. Many of them are TCKs--Third Culture Kids. Since we've been living overseas, I'm convinced that people should spend time out of the country. It's been fascinating to be able to see our country from an outside perspective. I think that Americans tend be insulated and inward-looking when it comes to world events, thinking that many things just don't concern us or that we don't need to be bothered with them. Just picking up a newspaper or turning on CNN now and seeing how little space America occupies on the international news front is an eye-opener.

Being a TCK brings innumerable blessings and a lot of challenges. I've included some quotes from the article, but I encourage you to read the complete article at its site--and the comments, most of which are written by TCKs.

In this respect, I do believe that Barack Obama is the face of our present and future America. Hallelujah!

Barack Obama is the first modern American president to have spent some of his formative years outside the United States. It is a trait he shares with several appointees to the new administration: White House advisor Valerie Jarrett was a child in Tehran and London, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was raised in east Africa, India, Thailand, China and Japan as the son of a Ford Foundation executive, and National Security Advisor James L. Jones was raised in Paris.

According to a body of sociological literature devoted to children who spend a portion of their developmental years outside their “passport country,” the classic profile of a “TCK” is someone with a global perspective who is socially adaptable and intellectually flexible. He or she is quick to think outside the box and can appreciate and reconcile different points of view. Beyond whatever diversity in background or appearance a TCK may bring to the party, there is a diversity of thought as well.

And the characteristics derived from an expat childhood may be well suited to the challenges facing the new administration. The economic crisis, for one, demonstrates how interdependent world cultures have become, and its solution will undoubtedly require the unconventional thinking that comes more easily to a Third Culture Kid. Even though Tim Geithner is not an economist by training, he apparently demonstrated such a keen problem-solving skills in the financial arena that the stock market jumped 500 points on the news of his appointment. Returning to Japan as an adult and speaking the language he learned as a child have given him an unusually deep understanding of the global economy.