Soon after moving to Caracas, I learned about Third Culture Kids. I was excited to see that there was such an organized group dedicated to bi-cultural kids and it was also refreshing to learn that most of the issues my children would be confronting were already familiar to me. Even though there’s a plethora of information out there for them, there are a few points that I feel are crucial to them becoming happy people.

1) There is no right, wrong or best place to live. Live wherever you want. Wherever gives you warm and fuzzy feelings. Places that terrify you. Or those that make you feel protected.

2) You can have more than one home. While most people think of one place as home, it’s not a rule. It’s perfectly normal to feel attached to several places – even places that you’re visiting for the first time.

3) The quality of your life is strongly linked to your relationships. Living anywhere you want and/or having several homes will most likely mean that you’ll always be living far away from someone about whom you care. That means you’ll have to make an extra effort to maintain those relationships because otherwise you run the risk of turning the road less traveled into a lonely one. So, like plants, water them on a regular basis.

4) Your cultural identity is like your fingerprints. It’s unique to you. Although third-culture kids tend to have a lot in common, how you end up coalescing all the cultures you’ve been exposed to will be like no other. View this difference as you do your fingerprints, it just is. No need to measure it, qualify it or label it.

These four points are pretty broad-based, but I think they offer a good starting point to prevent common frustrations of bi-cultural kids. Can you think of any other advice?

While on a field trip with my little guy’s class a week ago, another mom asked me if I wanted more children. After I secretly gave her the side eye (don’t think Venezuelans understand this gesture), I said “Oh, no.” She has two girls of her own about 5 years apart like mine, but I figured I’d return the question. She said, “Yes, of course. You’re lucky you have one of each. I have two girls and I really want a boy.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve had this sort of conversation with a parent, but it really gets me. When I found out I was having my little guy and people kept saying to me that it’s a good thing because now I have one of each and can be done, I answered “Even if it were a girl, I’d be done.” If I initially planned on birthing more than 2 children, then of course I would’ve kept going. But, even when I dreamed of having kids, I was never stuck on gender. Yes, I wanted two and yes, it would be nice if one were a girl and one were a boy. However, I was not going to keep going until I filled the quota and here’s why: each child is different regardless of gender.

My mom had two girls – my sister and I are night and day. Growing up she was more girly, more responsible (bossy ) and subdued. I was a tomboy, played into the role of baby of the family and talkative. So, even though she had kids of the same gender, her parenting had to adjust drastically in raising the two of us. And that’s what having kids is about right – parenting? So, I think that’s why having a girl or a boy was not a huge deal. I knew that my desire was to simply raise a child – not raise a boy/girl. Am I making sense?

Is gender a big deal for you when it comes to parenting? If so, why?