What about the kids?!
Steve & Laura Spinella
No news here these days, so I thought I would write you about something I think about.
I “grew up internationally.” People like me often come up with short ways to say this because the details are too complicated for social situations. My next elaboration might be, “I grew up in California, Texas, Costa Rica, and Venezuela.”
I know that this way of growing up is not the norm. Most people in the world grow up mainly in one place. If they do move, it typically does not involve airplanes and passports.
Because it is somewhat different, people have long debated whether growing up internationally like I did is good for the kids or not. There are strong opinions about this, both among those who have experienced it and those who have not. So, when I took a mathematical model building course in college, this seemed like a natural question to explore. It was a lot of fun, although I did not publish any ground-breaking research.
I had some wins, such as discovering and obtaining a microfiche (for you millennials, this is something like an online textual database) including someone’s year long effort to collect all the then-extant research on the subject, paid for by an interested non-profit. (Thank you, WBT and Steve VanRooy!) I also discovered some then cutting-edge research on randomized mathematical models, housed in my university, and was introduced to the researcher. This was great stuff, although it is no longer cutting-edge 40+ years later. Now there are whole branches of research in this domain.
I found some interesting challenges. First, growing up internationally does not define a normal population. (Some of you knew that, but in this case, I mean that there is no statistical norm around which the population clusters. Rather it is a collection of outliers.) Also, there is no clear population with which to compare. Perhaps the closest comparisons might be with children of similar parents who, for whatever reasons, did not grow up internationally, but of course every family is unique and there are lots of confounding variables. (Again, I mean that mathematically.) And even more, what is good for kids is open to a lot of discussion. If we base success on outcomes, do we talk about wealth, education, values, contributions and accomplishments, social status, health, happiness, or some combination of all of those?
To sum up what I found, growing up internationally neither assures success in all of life nor does it doom kids to poor outcomes. While it is an obvious difference, it is not the most important difference. In fact, no matter where you grow up, the two most important variables are the family that surrounds you and the person you happen to be. After that, everything that happens to you and all the relationships you have outside the family are also strong influences.
This is both relevant and informing to my work. I encourage those I care for to love those closest to them well, to respect, cherish, and nurture each child, grown up or not, in their uniqueness, and to provide safe, stimulating relationships and experiences as much as it is in our power to do so. Beyond that, I think we all need to pray a lot! As one of my favorite sayings goes, “Our parents disciplined us for a little while as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in God’s own holiness.”
In the one who keeps us, with love,
Steve and Laura
PS There are some outcomes that growing up internationally is associated with. Statistically, kids who grow up this way tend to be wealthier, have more education, and score better on standardized tests. They are also more likely to affirm their parents’ values. If you are curious about any of these, let me know and maybe I will write more about this in the future.