Sometimes we need to view our passport culture through the eyes of another culture to see it as it really is. A few days ago I received an email from a United States citizen living in Asia, one who said that during the last few months she had been looking into local medicine and its effectiveness. She said she wasn't surprised to learn that urine was a "miracle drug" for the people where she lived, but she was surprised to learn that many areas in Europe still use urine medicinally. I wrote back:
You may not realize that refined urine has been a "miracle drug" for more than 50 years for women here in the USA. The refined urine most often swallowed (not applied to the skin by wrapping it around their heads) by many millions of women here is the urine of pregnant mares. It may even be that your "moms" here in the States take it. The women take it because they and their physicians believe it will make them feel better, help them remain young, keep their bones stronger, and protect them from heart attacks and strokes. During the last few years some have stopped taking it because they no longer believe it will protect them from circulatory problems (and may even increase such problems), but many millions still take it for the other reasons. Of course, it is not marketed here as urine, but as HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy), and the marketing is aimed at older women, those in their 50s or above. One of the best known is sold as PREMARIN (PREgnant MARe urINe). I just checked my Physicians Desk Reference for PREMARIN, and the PDR points out that it is "obtained from exclusively natural sources." PREMARIN INTRAVENOUS is also available for those who want to feed it more directly into their bloodstream, and PREMARIN CREAM is available for those women who want to apply it directly to their skin.
To introduce the material covered in this book, imagine that someone from a century or two (or a millennium or two) ago were to visit the contemporary United States of America. Following is what they might report:
We have just discovered a relatively new culture in the central part of the North American continent. Since we do not have space to report on all aspects of this culture, we have chosen to report about the teen years—years which contain some of the more bizarre customs. Rather than becoming full members of society when they mature, the young adults have to wait at least five or ten years before they do so. The culture has created a period between childhood and adulthood, a period which they call “adolescence.” Although the young adults have become adults, the society still treats them as children and calls them “boys and girls.”
We could find no logical reason for this prolonged period when young adults are in limbo. Talking with them, we find that they have the cognitive capacities of other adults. They can think logically and abstractly. The young adults are able to make the same types of judgments about right and wrong as other adults. However, they are much less responsible than our own young adults. In fact, when they commit crimes, the older adults do not hold them responsible, noting that they are “just children” going through a phase and will grow out of it. They can even commit murder and receive little punishment. In fact, when the young adults do wrong, the parents are often blamed for it.
They have no ceremonies that indicate clearly when persons become adults, or even what this culture calls adolescents. Young adults may be charged adult fees in one place and then next door be charged the children’s rate. Young adults have to pay adult rates to eat, but they are not allowed to drink alcoholic beverages until they are 21 years of age. They also seem to have no real place in their communities, no sense of belonging with the other adults there. Likewise, the young adults have little sense of identity from their church or family. Of course, all of this is because they are not treated as adults, so they do not really fit anywhere. About half of them leave home during their late teen years and live in large buildings they call “dormitories” at a place they call the university.
Rather than allowing young adults to marry when they reach puberty, this culture has passed laws that adolescents cannot marry until about five years later. Furthermore, their economic situation makes marriage impossible for most people until a decade or more after they are sexually mature. During this time they are not to engage in sexual activity; however, as you might expect, most do. After all, the young men are at the age of their greatest sexual desires. One would think that adolescents would be kept in groups or at least carefully supervised when interacting as couples. However, while “dating,” their custom for finding marriage partners, the male and female are usually alone with each other. As a part of their courtship they have developed the activity of “petting” in which they sexually arouse each other but are not to have intercourse. As one would expect, the majority do have intercourse before marriage.
Odd as it may seem, anyone who suggests that parents be involved in the choice of a spouse is simply ridiculed. Not only are parents not directly involved, but they are also not even present as mates are chosen. Most adolescents choose their own marriage partners after leaving home, and many “fall in love” without even meeting the family of their prospective spouse. Rather than looking at family background, ability to get along with others, a sense of responsibility, knowledge to manage a home, and so forth, the couple meet together for brief periods of recreation. As near as we can tell, their “love” is primarily sexual attraction.
Though the young adults are fully grown, they are not expected to work. In fact, laws forbid their working at many jobs until five or more years after they have reached full size. Even though they mature at 12-14 years of age, they are not allowed to work at many jobs until they are at least 18 years of age. Since the young adults are not allowed to work, the culture has passed laws that they must attend school until they are far past the age of puberty, most often until they are 18 and can work a full-time job. Many of the young adults do not like going to school and learn little while there.
As one would expect, often neither the young adults nor the parents like this whole system, but there is nothing they can do about it. Young adults have no sense of who they are so they are often consumed with trying to answer the question, “Who am I?” Many children are born to unmarried parents, and each year there is about one divorce for every two marriages. It is hard to understand why this culture ever developed the customs it has developed, and few people know what to do about it.
Now let us consider how western culture created adolescence, how two or more cultures create Third Culture Kids, and what TCK adolescents can do as they live out their own adolescence.