Identity: shifting and changing

It's been a great joy to be able to come back to Australia this month and interact with our kids in a different way, to start laying different memories and also to see them coping with day-to-day life as independent adults (one of the long-term goals, in the end, of parenting). Next week we'll also spend a few days with our eldest son and his wife, and we're really looking forward to that too.

Throw back to me in Singapore:
discovering I could do
tourism in a foreign country
on my own.

On Sunday I was talking to someone about these last 12 months and realised that kids leaving home is part of an ever changing journey with our identity. My friend has been a grandma almost as long as I've been a mum and related a story from just the previous week about her journey as a grandma. Her youngest grandchild is 10 and my friend realised that this young lady doesn't need her grandma in the same way as she used to, this realisation made her sad. Her role is changing again. 

My role is changing too, the years of having kids under my roof all the time has gone and it's been time to think again about who am I in this new season.

Change in roles is disorientating. Change of a role as intimate and lengthy as a mother is potentially even more so. I am not only my children's mother, but being a mum 24/7 for so many years (nearly half my life) means that my identity has somewhat become entwined with my kids. I expect that that's similar for anyone who cares for someone long-term. 

Last year I was talking with a single lady in her 60s and blurted out something like, "It's not as if I wasn't a person before I had kids." She thought that was a preposterous statement, but was kind enough not to point out who I was talking to (a non-person, if having kids makes you a person!). But sometimes it does feel that way, because that's how intertwined in your children's lives you become while raising them, even when the relationship is fairly healthy.

While pondering this topic I found this interesting article called "When caring changes or ends". It covers things like the feelings you might have at such a juncture, also reflecting, adjusting to new routines, and being gentle with yourself. Helpful stuff, even if it isn't especially about kids leaving home!

I really didn't expect to still be adjusting to this, more than a year after our children left home, but it seems I am. It's a new season, but not as simple as just turning a page into a new chapter, the stuff that's gone before is not forgotten.

Eight years ago, a year before my first born left home, I wrote this in a blog post:

For a time you may feel as though you've lost touch with who you were. But in the end you'll discover that actually, your old self is being changed into something new. If you're a Christian you can be sure that God will use this experience to make you more like him, if you're willing. (from here)

It's a good reminder that it's just another segment of our journey, I've gone through many changes thus far in my life that have changed me, and there are more to come. I've been changed by the journey and I can embrace that.

The struggle to feel useful

Recently I spent time editing three short articles by colleagues from my organisation. They all were about staying healthy on the mission field (our social media theme for November). They all talked about various personal struggles to stay healthy in Japan. Not just physically healthy, but mentally and spiritually healthy too. I identified strongly with many of the things they wrote about, but one common thing struck me: the desire to feel useful. 

And a fire photo from last week's camping,
because I needed an excuse to share one
more camping photo! :D

One of the articles was by a couple who’ve been in Japan less than two years. Their struggles to take care of themselves as well as their young daughter on top of learning Japanese and living in a place where they felt like toddlers themselves was all too familiar to me, even though it’s been 20 years since we were in a similar position. Another article was by someone who’s been here a while longer, but her struggles were not so dissimilar. 

They all are in Japan because they (and many around them) discerned that God called them to serve him here, but the struggle to feel useful is common to them all. I think it’s an innate human trait, and certain none of us came to Japan with the intent on being useless, though we feel that way more often than we’ve ever felt like that as adults in our home country.

I've seen this "need to feel useful" struggle in others too when I've worked with people who have been here for a short time. There's often a great deal of gratitude when they're given a task that they can actually do, a feeling of usefulness that helps them through the other parts of their lives. 

Feeling useless is tied to the struggle to learn Japanese and that is innately tied to learning the culture (you can’t really do the latter really well without the former). In my early years here I was told that I needed to get better Japanese otherwise I would hold my husband back. That cutting statement only added to my feelings of uselessness and, sadly, the statement still hurts (my tears are flowing as I write). I doubt the person who wrote it knew how deeply that cut. I felt it was saying my poor ability to learn Japanese affected my ability to be the wife God expected me to be to my husband, while trying to live and work in the land God had called us to.

Over the years in Japan I’ve felt more useful in certain ways, but still feel very limited here. One of the areas I’ve felt most useful outside of my editing work, is maintaining a home for my husband and kids—doing my best to make sure they had good food and a clean, comfortable place to live. I think part of the big adjustment I’ve had this time is that I no longer have that way to be useful in Japan (to my kids). And so it’s felt more difficult in Japan to deal with that loss than it was in Australia where I am overall more capable.

However, I’m re-reading a book that always gives me a good readjustment to my thinking—Awe by Paul David Tripp. He defines awe as the desire of every human being to be amazed, blown away, moved, and satisfied, and clarifies that it actually is a universal craving to see God face-to-face. You've got to read this book!

In a recent portion I read, he wrote about how we humans try to place our identity in the wrong places. We try to be useful, we tie our identity to our relationships (kids, partner, friend, daughter/son), we identify ourselves by our jobs, by how much we earn or own, by our citizenship, by what we’re good at, what we’ve achieved, what our kids or parents have achieved. 

The grace that has connected me to [God] has also freed me from looking for identity anywhere else. I am what I am because of who he is for me by grace. In his awesome glory, I really do find everything I need. . . . I do not have to hunt elsewhere for meaning and purpose for my life. I do not have to look elsewhere to define who I am. I do not have to look elsewhere to measure my potential. I do not have to look elsewhere to find that inner sense of peace and well-being. Why? Because I have found all those things in him. Awe of him liberates me from a life-distorting bondage to awe of anything else. Remember, you and I tend to be in awe of what we are convinced will give us life (identity, meaning, purpose, pleasure, etc.). (All quotes from Chapter 13 of Awe, Paul David Tripp). 

This is in a chapter about work. He goes on to say:

Because work is such a huge and significant dimension of our lives, it becomes very tempting for us to look for our identity there. And when you look to work for your identity, you will find it very hard to resists challenges, demands, and promises of reward.

So we have this label "missionaries" or "cross-cultural workers" and we feel like that's our identity and that we have to "succeed" or at the very least "be useful" at that to have any worth. That's obviously a big mistake, especially in a place where it is rare for English-speakers born elsewhere to become native-level fluent in the language and culture.

But Tripp points out that it's a mistake for any human:

When I don't let awe of God give my heart rest and define me as his child, I will seek identity in things like success and achievement, power and control, and possessions and affluence, and I will work like crazy to get them, leaving a trail of relational and spiritual destruction behind me.

One of the articles I edited this week talked about a new missionary's temptation to overcommit to things that they felt they might be useful at, but also to overextend themselves in language study in an effort to get to the level where they can be useful.

Only when your heart is satisfied in [God] can you be freed from looking for spiritual satisfaction in the fleeting pleasures of the physical world. When you're satisfied in him, you will be liberated form working constantly in order to possess more of what you hope will give you identity. 

So the bottom line: my identity is not tied to my kids, my job title, my usefulness or output, or how busy my schedule is. This isn't really news to me, and yet why do I have so much trouble remembering it. So much trouble lining up my emotions to fit it?

What does a young man who grew up in Japan look like?

Our eldest son mentioned to me that he's had some interesting reactions to people in Australia finding out where he grew up. Mostly people don't guess that he grew up outside Australia. For one person, however, it went the other way—she'd been told about him and that he was "from Japan", perhaps even "a missionary kid from Japan", but was surprised to find that he was Australian. I'm not sure what she expected, or for that matter, what anyone expects.

Sometimes when we're in Australia it feels like we're a zoo exhibit. "Come and look at this rare species: the missionary family from Japan." My kids have never said that, but I wonder. People wonder what kind of weird we'll be, they invite their kids over to meet the missionary kids. I've had people wonder why I don't have an accent (to which I point out that I do . . . if I'm speaking Japanese words known to Australians, like "kimono", "karate", or "Kyoto").

I found this at a homeware store yesterday.
We've always said, when we're travelling,
that "home is where your toothbrush is".
But home is especially where
those you love are. This, of course,
is messy when your loved ones are
scattered about.

"From Japan" is a funny label that we get slapped with. Because, just like "home", where we are "from" is complex. Our youngest was introduced as "from Japan" when he first went to kindergarten in Australia. No other parents talked to us for months until he finally got an invite to a party and we had opportunity to explain what "from Japan" meant in our case. They thought that their four-year-olds were telling weird stories and they didn't know what to do with our obviously non-Asian faces.

But it has been interesting to watch our eldest son try to figure out what home means. Up until he left home to go to university last February, it was pretty simple. Home was where we were, though that got stretched a little whenever we were in Australia on home assignment. 

Last year, when we were in Australia for six months, he didn't spend as much time with us as we'd anticipated. The house we were living in didn't represent home to him, but later in the year he realised that "home" was really more about the people he felt most at home with rather than the place. And that even though the context was unfamiliar, he felt more at home with us than anywhere else.

Then he visited us in Japan a few weeks ago. Back in the house and context where he'd lived from 2010 to 2018. That really felt like home. Back in his old bed, old routines. Though there were some key things missing, like most of his friends from those years.

So yes, it's messy. Our lives are messy, if you view them through certain monocultural lenses. But we're actually pretty comfortable with our oddities. Perhaps in Japan it is just normal to be odd, as an expat. It's in Australia that we feel more uncomfortable, especially as we have to go around talking about the oddities of what our lives look like.

Are they Asian?

We had an interesting conversation at lunch today. Someone mentioned that there were a large number of new kids in sixth grade. One boy commented that "they're all Asian".

A rock we found on the west coast of Japan these holidays, a grand
thing for a boy to climb and contemplate the sea.

I asked "Are they Asian on the inside?" 

This brought some confusion, but led to an interesting discussion that included such tit bits as: 

Me: "What about our friends, the X family, they look part-Asian on the outside, but are quite American on the inside." (This family has one Japanese parent and one American parent.)
Boy: "But they don't look Asian at all!"
Me: "Oh yes they do."
Someone thought out loud: "They're probably considered American in Japan and Japanese in America." Ah, yes.

Another boy: "I was once called Japanese at school in Australia." 

To which we all laughed. This boy has dark blonde hair, grey-green eyes, and an abundance of freckles on his fair skin. He also has a modified American accent. (What a confusion my kids must cause in other people's heads!)

I love to hear my kids' impressions of the international world and hear how it differs to what I think I thought as a mono-cultural kid. They really have different perspectives, but they don't realise that they do. I'm guessing that it won't be until they try to live as young adults in their passport country that they'll realise how different their thoughts are. 

Like any parent raising third culture kids, I hope that they are able to find their way, find a community where they are known and valued for the complex perspective that they have, and find a place that they are happy to occupy.

Missionary Identity

Here's another thing that I did early in the summer—write three guest blog posts for our UK office about different aspects of identity that missionaries struggle with. 

The OMF office in the UK follows my blog and asked me to write a post on this topic for them. But when I sat down to write, I found there was way too much to say to fit into just one post, so I asked if I could write a series of three, and they agreed. 

These were published over three weeks in July:

Missionary: what's that?

Identity crisis

Where's home?

Struggles missionaries have with identity Part 1

I'm a guest blogger on our OMF UK blog today (and the next two Saturdays). I've written three posts about the challenges missionaries have with identity. Here is the first one.

My Mother's Day

We kept Mother's Day very simple here. No presents (for me, we sent presents to our mums in Australia), just a ride to a fancy coffee shop for morning tea after church.

I've tended to keep my expectations low in recent years. Not because my family doesn't love me, but because, well, unmet expectations just leads to disappointment. I found a more positive way of looking at Mother's Day (and my birthday) in this article I saw on FB yesterday. 

It talks about how Mother's Day shouldn't be a day when we expect to be compensated for all the sacrificing we do all the other days of the year, it's not a day for payback. "If our identity is tied to how well we're appreciated, we're setting ourselves up for disappointment."

If our identity is bound up with our to-do list, then appreciation will help for a bit, but not in the long run. Our identity is more stable if we remember it's not about who we are and what we do, but about who Jesus is. It's easier to have an incredible Mother's Day if we "stand in awe of the One who made [us] a mother." 

So today I've just been simply grateful for the blessings I've been given. 

I know that many desire to be a mother, but aren't able. I'm thankful I have kids, even though that too is often a painful, difficult job. 

I know that many have had kids that they no longer have the privilege of still having with them today (be they not on this earth any more, or they've lost contact with their kids for whatever reason etc.). I'm thankful my kids are all living and here with me for now. Next year I won't have all my kids at home anymore, one will be in Australia, Lord willing.

I know that many, many are missing their own mums today. While my own mum is now with me today, she is still alive and I'm looking forward to seeing her in just nine days!

But most of all I'm thankful that God is faithful (and this is the third main point of the article I've linked to above), he is faithful in providing me with the energy and wisdom each day to be a mum to these intelligent, active, not-perfect boys. He's kept me (and them) alive thus far. He's given me a husband to help me be the best mum I can be and he's also still with me. And, even—God's with me every day. 

So it doesn't matter that there was grumbling about the length of the ride to the coffee shop. That there were complaints about how little food we got for our money (fancy coffee shop!). It doesn't matter that I did most of the chores I usually do. I had a good Mother's Day and it didn't depend on the people I share my life with.

A question of identity

Sometimes I've felt like a shadow of my
former self, like all substance has been
taken from who I am.

When we first arrived in Japan I felt like I'd lost my identity. It was like my past had been wiped clean. No one knew my past, I felt like I was back in kindergarten. Completely dependent for tasks even as small as reading my mail, buying milk, and going to the doctor. 

I read a blog post yesterday by a new OMFer who talked about the struggles of going with her young daughter to a "Snow camp". She wrote: "It’s hard, exhausting and discouraging to be the only one who has no idea – ALL the time." Those kinds of experiences will change you, will change your identity, but not take your identity from you.

I like this post called "Dear Life Abroad—I'll keep my identity thanks." It is based on the common idea that life overseas will result in a loss of identity. However the author counters the idea, saying that rather life overseas has shaped his identity, much like life at college does, or any significant experience does, really.

I remember struggling to fit back into my university life after a short five weeks away in Indonesia when I was 20. I toured the country with a group of other keen Christians, learning about the religions of the country and missionary life. Returning to Brisbane and my old life was very difficult. Even in that short time, I had changed, as had the people I'd left (for example, my best friend at church had begun a relationship with someone who later damaged her). 

But the main change, in that short time, was in me. I'd experienced intense Christian fellowship under, at times, trying circumstances. The spiritual experience was closer to heaven than I'd ever had the privilege of being a part of. I just couldn't slip back down easily into mediocre church-going. I had trouble relating to pretty much everyone at church. Oh, I also had a serious crisis in my uni course, which didn't help my state of mind. But overall, it was a difficult period.

However, my pain wasn't related to a loss of identity, but rather that in my new understanding of myself and the world, or my new identity, I struggled to relate to those who my former self had related to. Mind you that wasn't everyone in my life. Some precious friends who I lived with were a mainstay at this time. I often came home after church and ended up in tears on their shoulders.

And again, when we came back to Australia in 2004, after four years in Japan. Everyone had changed. Everyone had moved on in their lives, most not leaving a space for us to fit into again. But I think the bigger changes were probably in us. Our identities had changed. Four years in a completely different culture, being reduced to child-like dependency, learning to function in a completely new language, and doing a job you never felt qualified to do, does that to you. We were humbled, even crushed (or at least I was).

My identity now, after 16 years of living this life overseas (or in Australia temporarily, but talking about our life overseas), it definitely irrevocably changed. Japan will always be a part of who I am, no matter how many years I live somewhere else. These days I generally relate best to those who have similar identities: ones who were born in one country, but have lived in another for many years. I do always struggle when I go back to Australia, to fit in. To not be the person who always says, "Well, in Japan they..." or "There was that time that we were driving through Tokyo when..." And to patiently answer all the questions about Japan and our family's lives. Or to sit impatiently through conversations where the speaker clearly has forgotten where we've spent most of our lives.

Identity. It's an important topic and something that is unique to an individual. But don't be afraid you'll lose it as you encounter a difficult situation (like having children, or changing jobs or cities) or consider moving overseas. You'll be changed, for sure. For a time you may feel as though you've lost touch with who you were. But in the end you'll discover that actually, your old self is being changed into something new. If you're a Christian you can be sure that God will use this experience to make you more like him, if you're willing. 

We have long lists of people we pray for. Most of whom, for which, we don't know what's going on in their lives. So sometimes I pull out this passage by Paul and pray it for them:

 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. (Colossians 1:9-12, NIVUK) 

It's great to be reminded that God gives us his spirit that grows us in a way that pleases him.

And James 1:2-4 gives us encouragement that in the midst of challenging circumstances we grow: 

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (NIVUK)

So let us not be afraid that we're going to lose (or have lost) our identity here on earth. In fact, if you are a child of God, that is your ultimate identity (Romans 8:14).

________________________________________________
Here are some other times I've written about identity:
Mixing up role and identity
Your experience of culture shock
The struggle for identity

The struggle for identity

I've written before about how I struggle on how to introduce myself. Or, how do I fill out the form, say, at the doctor/physio: "Occupation?"

Usually at churches we're introduced as "The Marshalls from Japan" or "The Marshalls who serve in Japan".

When I went to the writer's conference in November, I ended up with the name tag on the right, primarily because I couldn't decide which place to write for "where are you from".

I say, when I need to, "I'm living in Ipswich/Brisbane but usually live in Japan."

There is an element of identity in this. Without context, it is hard to have much beyond a cashier-type conversation with people. It can get complicated fast if I refuse to tell people a bit more of the story. I'm a simple person: straight truth is the easiest manner of conversation. And if that means I admit that I've lived a weird life, well so be it.

The matter of identity is more complex for our kids. I can get away with saying, "I was born in Toowoomba and went to uni in Brisbane." It's only after that that things get more complicated.

My kids, however, have been labelled most of their lives with "missionary kids (or MKs)" or "from Japan". They feel strongly Australian, but when in Australia know for sure that they aren't the same as other Australian kids.

In Japan we're also labelled. No matter how long we stay there, our appearance states out front that we're not insiders. We don't belong. That's a factor of the Japanese culture, where belonging is strongly tied to "sameness" and genetics. We're not genetically Japanese, so we'll never be truly Japanese (even if we become citizens).

The labels help with communication, but sometimes they hinder. With labels comes stereotypes. 

Our labels produce questions like these in Australia:

"Oh, you like sushi?"

 "You're fluent in Japanese?"

"You must like living there!"

Or, in Japan:

"Ah, beer drinking Aussie who carries a large knife!" (Just kidding, no one has ever said that to me.)

"Why aren't you tanned, don't all Aussies swim and get brown?" (Truly, I've had this from Japanese people.)

"Of course you're a Christian, you come from Australia where everyone is Christians."

People, even Christians, often feel uncomfortable at the label "missionary", which is why I often avoid using it first up. Just the other day I wrote "editor" on the form at the physio. I later told her I was a missionary, but it wasn't at the start of our conversation. 

So I can totally understand this young man's reluctance to be introduced as "an MK from Japan." By all means find that out, but start with finding out about me, not my label.

Many people have this struggle, people with disabilities, for example, or even people who are extraordinarily beautiful, talented, or famous. There is a barrier to getting to know the real person and most people don't get past the barrier.

If you go to the link above (this young man), you'll find some great suggestions for non-MKs, including this:

On Behalf of all MKs everywhere, please, treat us like normal people. True, we may be strange, socially-awkward, and not have the best fashion sense but all we want is to have a fair chance to be your friend. The reason we are weird is because our life is weird.