My Experiences with Norms and Social Capital. (Or lack thereof.)

I’ve never lived in one house for longer than 6 years. I’ve moved around the US when younger, and the UK when older. I attended a very small international school with loads of kids moving in and out of it, usually only staying for 2-3 years at a time. So, my house changed, my surroundings changed, my friends changed, my school changed, people changed; norms were all up in the air. Because I lead this uncommon transitory life, most of the people I interacted with outside of school or family had different norms when it came to how they were living in one place with people they’d known for ages. 

I guess I’m trying to comment on the idea of shifting between norms frequently and how that affects a person in terms of their personal norms. For me, I feel I have a deeper appreciation for what many more stationary people have. The word ‘home’ has a meaning. They’ve known people for long stretches of time and can observe how they change and evolve, and more importantly, they can develop a trusting relationship with many people. Basically, the only real investment in social capital I have is with the people who have travelled with me, my parents, or people who have managed to keep in touch along the way. 

The name people in similar or more extreme situations compared to mine are called Third Culture Kids. The idea is that you are born in one country (1^st culture), you live/grow up in another (2^nd culture) and you live your life as an amalgamation of the two. More like in the middle of a venn diagram.  

But the idea I was headed towards was that for highly transitory people like third culture kids, we have many weak ties, which we have clearly found there to be strength in, but we have very small amounts of social capital in any one place. Additionally, the sense of 'norms' can range quite drastically. From the International School I grew up in, I know some people who will travel all over and act the exact same way in the many years I’ve kept in touch with them, and others who you can observe which parts they’ve picked up from which places, and others who will drastically change over a short period of time. So, really the idea of norms is extremely relative.