Third Culture Kids

”Ohh, what breed is she?” The lady in our neighborhood park asked me. 

On the end of the leash was my newly-arrived dog, Sasha. Nervous of her unfamiliar surroundings, Sasha twitched with excitement at every new smell and sound. 

After a 41-hour, two-plane journey from my parent’s home in South Delhi, India, Sasha was finally on the ground in Evanston, Illinois enjoying a calm, albeit chilly, walk in the park. 

With Sasha’s arrival, our family of four was finally complete again. 

It has taken us three years to get here.

‘Time to go home’

Our move back to the U.S. began in June 2019. My wife Kristine had been working as the head of communications at an Indian firm in the satellite city of Gurgaon. While geographically not very far from our home, Gurgaon was a nightmare to get to thanks to Delhi’s traffic conditions — and that evening, Kristine’s Uber driver had fallen asleep at the wheel.

That scare, as well as her mother’s deteriorating health back in Illinois, prompted her decision to finally repatriate, 21 years after first leaving Chicago to join me in Asia.

Kristine and I had met in the dorms of Columbia University, where she was earning a master’s degree in public policy and I was studying at the Graduate School of Journalism. My reporting career then took us to Singapore, which in those days had limited nonprofit ecosystem opportunities for an experienced professional; Kris switched her skills and focus to communications.

Seven years later, with baby boy Keiran in tow, Reuters transferred me to its London headquarters. In the decade that followed, new journalism opportunities moved us to Mumbai, then Delhi.

Kris and I had a good run as an adventurous expat couple. When we lived in Singapore, we traveled easily to Thailand, Vietnam, mainland China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Laos and Cambodia; in London, we were only able to make it to Paris on my not-so-brilliant Reuters salary, but our son went to a lovely nursery school and we spent a lot of time exploring one of the world’s greatest cities.

In Delhi, the bond between our son and my parents blossomed. He also got a solid foundation, academically, socially and emotionally, during his nine years at the American Embassy School (AES). He made friends from all over the world, in a community that celebrated diversity.

My career advanced and our family life thrived , but Kristine’s professional life suffered a setback with every new city.

Like the Delhi summer heat, the discussion about whether to move back to the U.S. had been simmering for what felt like forever — and suddenly, in June 2019, it boiled over and Kristine’s mind was made up.

With just one year of high school completed, the move would not overly disrupt our teenager’s education, but we gave him a choice: Go with Mom to the U.S. and enroll in a new high school in a new place, or stay in Delhi with Dad for three more years and graduate with your friends at AES, his school since the first grade.

Keiran chose adventure and the unknown. There is lots of literature about the resilience of ‘Third Culture Kids’ that may explain his choice and his ability to adjust so well. He has made good friends at his high school in Evanston, become passionate about powerlifting, and excelled in his studies. America and Evanston fit him like a glove.

History also repeats itself. Growing up as the child of an Indian diplomat, travel and moving have always felt natural for for me. The New York snow, Portuguese forests and the bare Peruvian Andes? All familiar. By the time I went to St. Stephen’s College in Delhi, I had hardly lived in India; by the time Keiran moved to the U.S. as a high school junior, he had never actually lived in the country of his passport. 

My boy is a U.S. citizen, born in Singapore, who began speaking English with a slight British accent, and will be heading to an American university with only three years of experience attending U.S. schools. And he is better for it! 

Covid killed my job

I had chosen to stay behind because I loved my job as a journalism professor at Ashoka University, which is just over an hour outside of New Delhi. Teaching a trade that had given me so much to smart students on a beautiful campus seemed hard to give up. And with the job’s generous academic holidays, it seemed feasible to fly between Delhi and Chicago multiple times a year, splitting my time between my aging parents in India and wife and son in the Midwest.

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic put a screeching halt to my best laid plans for a global two-homes lifestyle. My campus access was gone overnight, shut down in March 2020 due to India’s national lockdown. My classroom moved onto Zoom, where I struggled to teach a subject that requires in-person field reporting. But worst of all, international travel and relocations suddenly became incredibly difficult — even worse than what we had experienced in the months after 9/11.

Time to consolidate and choose the best place to be. For me, it was with Kristine and Keiran — just in time to experience nuclear family life again and one last Father’s Day together before his departure for college.

Starting a new chapter

In Evanston, I’ve found work with a fellow ex-Reuters colleague doing media research. Part of me misses exploring new cities, new food, and local brews, but there’s no place like home.

Keiran has graduated high school and looks forward to his new adventure as a college freshman in Minnesota. My parents were even able to travel from Delhi to Evanston to be with us for Keiran’s high school graduation last month, as COVID-19 travel restrictions have finally eased. 

Importing our nine-year-old Sasha to the U.S. took the better part of eight months, however. Navigating Indian government protocols and the more laborious scrutiny of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), then finding an airline that would take unaccompanied live animals… the total cost ended up coming close to a first-class ticket!

Reunited with her humans and fully recovered from her long journey, Sasha is a busy gal, and doing a fine job as an ambassador of Desi rescue dogs to our neighborhood. She has made friends with my mother-in-law’s golden retriever Rosie, and is fascinated by all the bunny rabbits and squirrels, which are twice the size as Indian ones.

And when the famous Chicago winter hits us … she will experience snow!

Got a relocation story of your own to share? Contact us at hello@trailing-spouse.com.