Third Culture Mom

Only a couple months ago, I found out I am a 'Third Culture Kid' , or as I prefer to call myself, 'Terminally Unique'. I was born in the U.S.A, but I moved to the Netherlands when I was 15 and became an adult in this country, which essentially means I don't feel really American... And even though I am now a Dutch citizen and have been living here for almost twenty years, I don't feel Dutch either. I'm a bit of both but neither one completely. It's confusing, I know, but that's what it's like to be 'terminally unique'. And it doesn't get any easier when you start raising kids.

But being a TCKid or 'Global Nomad' (as we're so lovingly nicknamed), is not just about feeling like you don't belong anywhere. If that were the case, we might as well be called 'Eternal Pre-Teens'. I've found there are three other especially tough things a TCKid has to cope with when raising children - there's the language issue, the cultural idiocincracies and the family dillema.

the language issue
Because my native language is English, but I live in a country where the first language is Dutch, my husband and I decided to raise our kids bilingually. It's a challenge, to say the least, since they both are taking a lot longer to get the hang of comunicating in general than other kids their age who are raised in a single-language environment. But, thanks to Holland and its wealth of government subsidies for bilingual kids, both Mia and Bram are benefiting from extra attention and speech therapy, so they'll be able to hold their own once they start school.

Besides raising my kids bilingually, I am also set on presenting mialeentje in two languages as well. Not only because I hope to reach the largest amount of potential customers by offering two languages, but also because I want to present my business just like I present myself. I just am both languages, in person and online. On my site, I label and describe everything in Dutch and English, and use little flags to make things clearer... I just don't know if that's helpful or utterly confusing.

the cultural idiocincracies
Dealing with a different culture is tough enough without kids, but once they come into the picture, it gets even more complicated. I'm talking, in particular, about the holidays. Just about every holiday is celebrated differently, named something different or involving different things in Holland, and ever since the kids were born, I've struggled with how to deal with this. I grew up with the American versions of these holidays, while my husband grew up with the Dutch versions. So which version do we go by? A perfect example is good ole Christmas versus the Dutch gift-giving holiday, Sinterklaas.

There are some fundamental differences: firstly, the man himself - in Holland, you've got Sinterklaas, and in the states, you've got Santa. Two completely different guys bearing gifts.  Secondly, the day - in Holland, Sinterklaas bangs on your front door and leaves behind a burlap bag of gifts on the doorstep on the evening of the 5th of December. Santie Claus, on the other hand, lands on the rooftop while everybody's sleeping and whips down the chimney on the 24th so that the Christmas tree is surrounded by presents on the morning of the 25th when everybody wakes up.

Then there's the issue of the good man's residence, his choice of vehicle and his helpers. Sinterklaas, who lives in Spain, journies to Holland by steam boat, accompanied by a few dozen acrobatic Zwarte Pieten (Black Petes) who apparently are instructed to bring back the naughty kids in the same burlap bag that held the presents. Santa leaves his home on the North Pole and his staff of handy elves behind to make his journey by a flying-red-nose-reindeer-drawn sled. Let me tell you, it is not easy to mesh these two into something the kids will comprehend, let alone buy.

For now, my husband and I have decided to wait till the kids are actually able to tell us what they want as gifts before we worry about explaining the differences between the two versions. Call it procrastination if you will, I call it good sense.

the family dillema
So what happens when your nomadic parents pick up and move from one country to another when you've barely got a handle on your zit problem, then pick up and move back ten years later? You've got a family dillema on your hands, is what happens.

When my parents moved back to the states, we didn't have Skype or Facebook or cheaper rates for our mobiles. We had a very poor internet connection and e-mails in which you couldn't send an attachment larger than 1.5mb without the whole system crashing. Thank the Scandinavians for inventing Skype so that I, for one, can let my kids get to know their grandparents via webcam, or 'be there' for my brother's wedding in Phuket! It's certainly no surrogate for the real thing, but it certainly makes online communication a lot more worthwhile. Last year wasn't my first Skype Christmas, and it will most certainly not be my last.

TCKids, Global Nomads and Terminally Unique Syndrome... Put together it makes for a steadily growing phenomenon, now that the borders of this world are diminishing and people are having babies all over the place. Take another look at the people you know, you just might know someone who is terminally unique too - in any case, you do now.

Viva La Social Media!

Social media. Without it, we'd be lost. I, for one, rely on Facebook to find out what my family and friends are up to, whether it's just acknowledging their status update or posting huge virtual hugs and kisses to my loved-ones (who all live in different hemispheres). It really is an ideal way to share banal information with each other, as if you were literally sitting in the same room together having a chat over a cup of joe.

But what is really so social about social media? According to my Facebook profile, I have something like 311 friends, which does not in any way whatsoever reflect my real social life. But it certainly gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside when I see how many friends I've accumulated since joining Facebook. When it was the rage to 'unfriend', I didn't 'unfriend' anybody. Why should I? I like all my friends! On what basis would I 'unfriend' someone? That they invited me to join a ridiculous group or install a pointless application? I couldn't warrant that as an excuse, since I've been guilty of doing the same myself. No, all my friends are staying right where they are, regardless of how much they've spammed me in the past.

So social media has been blooming for years, and it's just now dawned on me, that it's not only the perfect way to reconnect and stay connected with friends and loved-ones (or perfect strangers, or old classmates I had crushes on), it's also the perfect way to spread the word about mialeentje! I'm also finding out that just about every entrepreneur who's anybody knew this already. (I am a bit defiant when it comes to online trends...) And it's all connected, thanks to the magic of internet feeds. Now I can write something on one site, share it onto another, follow it on a third and post it via a fourth. It's an automatic, instantaneous media offensive! I love it!

Lately, I've been following reactions on a Facebook discussion forum regarding blogs. I only just recently breathed life into my own little blog after having neglected it completely the past couple years (having another baby kind of got in the way...), and now that I've given it a new purpose and an extreme template make-over, I'm finding it to be a wonderful way to vent frustrations and share ideas and anecdotes in the hopes of inspiring like-minded souls. Literally minutes after posting, I got a few positive reactions and even some new followers! I've been 'liked'! And I like it.

I know now that if I want my webshop to succeed on the net, I need to dive into it and take full advantage of all it has to offer. The only problem is that, in my opinion, it has too much to offer. Let's take Twitter, for example. I have never, nor am I likely to ever, tweet anything. I blame my inferior mobile internet connection (with a connection speed that was considered fast in the 1980's), but in reality I am a little apprehensive about heaving yet another portion of social media on my already heaping plate. When I Googled 'mialeentje' recently, I found that I'd been tweeted about, which is even better. Someone found my little business interesting enough to tweet, and it wasn't even me! I see that as a compliment, as well as a relief that I didn't have to do it myself...

Social media is wonderfully time-consuming but it does pay off! Like everything else in entrepreneurship, it's all about investing time, and money. And since I don't have a cent, I turn to what I have plenty of: time... Well, when the kids are asleep, that is.

This Little Business Went to Market.

The most important thing I've discovered about being an entrepreneur isn't the product I'm trying to sell, it's finding people to buy it.

When I began my online business last summer, I made the naive assumption that word would get around and that my target group would simply find their way through the virtual jungle of the internet to my webshop. As familiar as I am with the utter vastness of the internet, I underestimated its virtually limitless virtual borders. There are exactly five zillion webshops specialized in kidswear all over the world wide web, and another zillion are being launched a day. These days, you need a virtual machete to hack your way through advertisements, spam and penis-enlarging products to get to what you're looking for. How on earth would I get the right people to my shop?

Like any beginning entrepreneur set on success, I wrote a business plan and executed various marketing research techniques to determine my target group. (Essentially this meant I went out with a questionnaire and a clip-board and asked people on the street how they felt about children's clothes.) Upon gathering my data, it was clear that my target group consisted of people exactly like me: 30-something 'green' parents.

So now that I knew who was most likely going to buy my products, I had to somehow pave a path on the internet for them to reach me. Then it occurred to me: I had to step outside the box and turn my virtual product into a tangible one. The way to do that was to set up shop. And since I don't actually have a shop to set up shop in, I figured I'd do the next best thing: go to market.

There are various market possibilities in Holland, most of which impossible for me to participate in. The weekly market, a sacred and protected phenomenon in this country, is made up of a select group of regulars and I'd need all sorts of permits and some influential friends to get into one. Then there are flea markets scattered throughout the country in large wharehouses that smell of urine, where anyone and everyone can set up a stall and sell the contents of their garages for next to nothing. I've tried to sell my products at a flea market like this with very little success. Sure, people liked my stuff, but one of my handmade dresses was outrageously expensive for flea market standards. Especially when customers could buy ten dresses for the same price at another stall... Needless to say, my first attempt at a flea market was also my last.

Last summer, while visiting my parents on beautiful Orcas Island, I set up a stall at the local farmer's market. It was an amazing experience! Not only was there an inspiring positive vibe among the other vendors, my target group was all around me and walking right into my stall! People were able to touch, feel, examine, take a closer look at and even sniff my products, which I am sure worked towards their ultimate decision to purchase something. After the summer was gone, I was sad to leave the island, and my target group, behind.

Then I found out about specialized markets for handmade goods in and around Holland. Apparently, there are lots of creative folks around here like me who set up at these markets to sell their crafts; slowly but surely, I was finding out about them. Unfortunately, as soon as I found them, I hit some obstacles. First of all, most of these markets are few and far between. Either they're located at the other end of the country, or they take place so sporadically, it's difficult to apply for one on time. Some of them are affordable, some are absurdly overpriced. I finally found a handmade market that was affordable (that is to say, I was 99% sure I'd earn back my investment) and took place relatively nearby. I packed up my kit and kaboodle and set up shop among a wonderful variety of artisan vendors. I was thrilled to bits - it semeed I had finally found a nitch!

Although I only sold seven items that day, I consider it to be the most successful market I've participated in to date in this country. Although the advantage of having an online business that can reach the far corners of the world pretty much speaks for itself, being able to offer my products in 'real time' and in real life to the right people has more advantages in the long run. But turning my virtual product into a tangible one had one chrystal clear advantage: it sells. Yep, this little business will be returning to market for sure.