Here is Something Important to Me_ What About You?

Third Culture Kids

The term “third culture kids” was first coined by Ruth Useem in the 1960’s. She used it to refer to children who lived in a culture different from the one they were born into or the one their parents came from. Their first culture is their birth culture, or parents culture. The second culture is the culture they have moved to. The third culture is the one they create when they move to the new country. They tend to be more comfortable mixing with children who are also third culture kids than they do mixing with children from either their original culture or the culture in their new country. David Pollock, author of “Third Culture Kids”, writes:

[A third culture kid is] a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership of any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of a similar background.

Adaptability

Third culture kids (TCK’s) generally find it easier to adapt to new cultures and will be more likely to move often as adults. If they return to their home country they may experience reverse culture shock as they pine for the foreign country they have left behind. They are more likely to choose careers that lead them to live overseas or travel often, but may have more difficulty adjusting to long lasting relationships as they have been used to frequently saying goodbye to friends as children. Studies of adult TCK’s who have returned to their home country show that 90% of them feel “out of synch” with their peers who have never lived overseas.
Although they do not necessarily relate to their peer group in their home country there are many positives to growing up as a third culture kid. As adults, they tend to feel they can tackle any problem and adapt to any group. They usually maintain a strong interest in international issues and generally are comfortable making change in their lives when things are not going well rather than continuing with negative patterns and more than two thirds actively participate in their local communities on a voluntary basis.

Divided Loyalties

One thing that many TCK’s struggle with is the issue of divided loyalties. If their host country has a different approach to politics, religion or world issues than their home country, they can find it confusing when trying to deal with the different points of view. They are likely to have friends from a wide range of countries and some of those children’s home countries may have conflicts with other children’s home countries. All of this can be confusing for them as they try to understand the deeper issues related to cross cultural conflict. Talking to your children when these issues arise, especially if there are specific tensions in the world related to politics or religion, can help them to come to terms with understanding that the world is more grey than black and white.

Three Dimensional Reality of the World

TCK’s tend to have broader experience of the world than children who have not lived outside their home country. They may have holidays that include trekking on elephants, observing orangutans in the jungle and sleeping in longhouses. They are likely to be comfortable with long haul travel on planes and have an intimate understanding of the how the mini bar works in the hotel room! While most children in Western countries have read about volcanoes in their text books, Bali TCK’s are more likely to have climbed one and have seen them each day on their journey to school. All of their experiences give them a richer, deeper understanding of the world. This vivid reality can also be difficult for them to come to terms with. Seeing poverty firsthand can affect them emotionally. It can help to get them involved in giving back to their local community in some way, developing an understanding that we all have a role to play in eliminating poverty and making meaningful contributions to society.
While they may have a deep understanding of the country they live in and a broader understanding of the world as a whole than non-TCK’s, they may have less understanding of the culture, geography and history of their home country. British children will experience Nyepi and Galungan in Bali but are unlikely to experience Guy Fawkes in the way their peers back in the UK would do. If it is important for your children to learn about the history and culture of your home country you may have to focus on this yourself at home rather than having your children’s school address this need.
Recommended Reading: Third Culture Kids by David Pollock and Ruth van Reken
*I discovered this article on LivingInBali

Review for some; new considerations for others: How far have we actually come?

Woman must have her freedom —the fundamental freedom  of choosing whether or not she  shall be a mother and how  many children she will have. _Margaret Sanger    Sanger and Her Sons

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966).  Woman and the New Race.  1920.

The chronicle of Sanger’s decades-long battle to legalize and develop information on the prevention of venereal disease and then methods of birth control, during which she endured indictment, exile and prison.

XVIII. The Goal

WHAT is the goal of woman’s upward struggle? Is it voluntary motherhood? Is it general freedom? Or is it the birth of a new race? For freedom is not fruitless, but prolific of higher things. Being the most sacred aspect of woman’s freedom, voluntary motherhood is motherhood in its highest and holiest form. It is motherhood unchained—motherhood ready to obey its own urge to remake the world.	1
Voluntary motherhood implies a new morality—a vigorous, constructive, liberated morality. That morality will, first of all, prevent the submergence of womanhood into motherhood. It will set its face against the conversion of women into mechanical maternity and toward the creation of a new race.	2
Woman’s rôle has been that of an incubator and little more. She has given birth to an incubated race. She has given to her children what little she was permitted to give, but of herself, of her personality, almost nothing. In the mass, she has brought forth quantity, not quality. The requirement of a male dominated civilization has been numbers. She has met that requirement.	3
It is the essential function of voluntary motherhood to choose its own mate, to determine the time of childbearing and to regulate strictly the number of offspring. Natural affection upon her part, instead of selection dictated by social or economic advantage, will give her a better fatherhood for her children. The exercise of her right to decide how many children she will have and when she shall have them will procure for her the time necessary to the development of other faculties than that of reproduction. She will give play to her tastes, her talents and her ambitions. She will become a full-rounded human being.	4
Thus and only thus will woman be able to transmit to her offspring those qualities which make for a greater race.	5
The importance of developing these qualities in the mothers for transmission to the children is apparent when we recall certain well-established principles of biology. In all of the animal species below the human, motherhood has a clearly discernible superiority over fatherhood. It is the first pulse of organic life. Fatherhood is the fertilizing element. Its development, compared to that of the mother cell, is comparatively new. Likewise, its influence upon the progeny is comparatively small. There are weighty authorities who assert that through the female alone comes those modifications of form, capacity and ability which constitute evolutionary progress. It was the mothers who first developed cunning in chase, ingenuity in escaping enemies, skill in obtaining food, and adaptability. It was they also who attained unfailing discretion in leadership, adaptation to environment and boldness in attack. When the animal kingdom as a whole is surveyed, these stand out as distinctly feminine traits. They stand out also as the characteristics by which the progress of species is measured.	6
Why is all this true of the lower species yet not true of human beings? The secret is revealed by one significant fact—the female’s functions in these animal species are not limited to motherhood alone. Every organ and faculty is fully employed and perfected. Through the development of the individual mother, better and higher types of animals are produced and carried forward. In a word, natural law makes the female the expression and the conveyor of racial efficiency.	7
Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives. So, in compliance with nature’s working plan, we must permit womanhood its full development before we can expect of it efficient motherhood. If we are to make racial progress, this development of womanhood must precede motherhood in every individual woman. Then and then only can the mother cease to be an incubator and be a mother indeed. Then only can she transmit to her sons and daughters the qualities which make strong individuals and, collectively, a strong race.	8
Voluntary motherhood also implies the right of marriage without maternity. Two utterly different functions are developed in the two relationships. In order to give the mate relationship its full and free play, it is necessary that no woman should be a mother against her will. There are other reasons, of course—reasons more frequently emphasized—but the reason just mentioned should never be overlooked. It is as important to the race as to the woman, for through it is developed that high love impulse which, conveyed to the child, attunes and perfects its being.	9
Marriage, quite aside from parentage, also gives two people invaluable experience. When parentage follows in its proper time, it is a better parentage because of the mutual adjustment and development—because of the knowledge thus gained. Few couples are fitted to understand the sacred mystery of child life until they have solved some of the problems arising out of their own love lives.	10
Maternal love, which usually follows upon a happy, satisfying mate love, becomes a strong and urgent craving. It then exists for two powerful, creative functions. First, for its own sake, and then for the sake of further enriching the conjugal relationship. It is from such soil that the new life should spring. It is the inherent right of the new life to have its inception in such physical ground, in such spiritual atmosphere. The child thus born is indeed a flower of love and tremendous joy. It has within it the seeds of courage and of power. This child will have the greatest strength to surmount hardships, to withstand tyrannies, to set still higher the mark of human achievement.	11
Shall we pause here to speak again of the rights of womanhood, in itself and of itself, to be absolutely free? We have talked of this right so much in these pages, only to learn that in the end, a free womanhood turns of its own desire to a free and happy motherhood, a motherhood which does not submerge the woman, but which is enriched because she is unsubmerged. When we voice, then, the necessity of setting the feminine spirit utterly and absolutely free, thought turns naturally not to rights of the woman, nor indeed of the mother, but to the rights of the child—of all children in the world. For this is the miracle of free womanhood, that in its freedom it becomes the race mother and opens its heart in fruitful affection for humanity.	12
How narrow, how pitifully puny has become motherhood in its chains! The modern motherhood enfolds one or two adoring children of its own blood, and cherishes, protects and loves them. It does not reach out to all children. When motherhood is a high privilege, not a sordid, slavish requirement, it will encircle all. Its deep, passionate intensity will overflow the limits of blood relationship. Its beauty will shine upon all, for its beauty is of the soul, whose power of enfoldment is unbounded.	13
When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become the foundation of a new race. There will be no killing of babies in the womb by abortion, nor through neglect in foundling homes, nor will there be infanticide. Neither will children die by inches in mills and factories. No man will dare to break a child’s life upon the wheel of toil.	14
Voluntary motherhood will not be passive, resigned, or weak. Out of its craving will come forth a fierceness of love for its fruits that will make such men as remain unawakened stand aghast at its fury when offended. The tigress is less terrible in defense of her offspring than will be the human mother. The daughters of such women will not be given over to injustice and to prostitution; the sons will not perish in industry nor upon the battle field. Nor could they meet these all too common fates if an undaunted motherhood were there to defend. Childhood and youth will be too valuable in the eyes of society to waste them in the murderous mills of blind greed and hate.	15
This is the dawn. Womanhood shakes off its bondage. It asserts its right to be free. In its freedom, its thoughts turn to the race. Like begets like. We gather perfect fruit from perfect trees. The race is but the amplification of its mother body, the multiplication of flesh habitations—beautified and perfected for souls akin to the mother soul.	16
The relentless efforts of reactionary authority to suppress the message of birth control and of voluntary motherhood are futile. The powers of reaction cannot now prevent the feminine spirit from breaking its bonds. When the last fetter falls the evils that have resulted from the suppression of woman’s will to freedom, will pass. Child slavery, prostitution, feeblemindedness, physical deterioration, hunger, oppression and war will disappear from the earth.	17
In their subjection women have not been brave enough, strong enough, pure enough to bring forth great sons and daughters. Abused soil brings forth stunted growths. An abused motherhood has brought forth a low order of humanity. Great beings come forth at the call of high desire. Fearless motherhood goes out in love and passion for justice to all mankind. It brings forth fruits after its own kind. When the womb becomes fruitful through the desire of an aspiring love, another Newton will come forth to unlock further the secrets of the earth and the stars. There will come a Plato who will be understood, a Socrates who will drink no hemlock, and a Jesus who will not die upon the cross. These and the race that is to be in America await upon a motherhood that is to be sacred because it is free. *This article & the entire contents of this information, can be found in its original form on this website: http://www.bartleby.com/1013/18.html *One great resource: http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/

Bombard Apple

In the wake of the Java breach that is among those attack viruses that are (shall we say continually) making Apple computers (more) vulnerable, I recently read this sentiment on the web:  

Unfortunately if you are running Leopard (OSX 10.5) or earlier, you must manually disable or remove Java, because Apple no longer supports those older versions. It would be good if Apple issued an update for these older versions, because many people still use them.

I say let's do something about that!

In the USA, here is Apple's Software Upgrade Center telephone number: (888) 840-8433

Call them repeatedly to say how much those of us with the older versions, also need our computers to function up-to-date. Because, if we only accept things without registering preference, then there is no choice! Customer feedback makes quality in the marketplace run also! How do you want your experiences in the market to run, for you or excluding you?

I will buy my next Mac, when I have the money_ NOT when a corporation squeezes me into conforming my decision-making according to its sales reports schedule! 

Call Apple_ tell THEM what YOU want_ & you don't have to be scared, or insecure or yell at anybody to make this turn around for our benefit. We are loyal Apple customers who deserve to have our operating systems reasonably taken care of!

In North America, call: (888) 840-8433_ tell Apple what your OS needs to run secure!

Top 5 Regrets of the Dying

Bronnie Ware, Writer, Songwriter

*This article was found on April 7, 2012 on Huff Post, Good News_ The Blog: 
For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last 3 to 12 weeks of their lives.
People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.
It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.
By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.
We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.
It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.
When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.
Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

This post was originally published on Inspiration and Chai.
 
Bronnie Ware is a writer and songwriter from Australia who spent several years caring for dying people in their homes. She has recently released a full-length book titled 'The Top Five Regrets of the Dying - A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing'. It is a memoir of her own life and how it was transformed through the regrets of the dying people she cared for. For more information, please visit Bronnie's official website at www.bronnieware.com or her blog at www.inspirationandchai.com.