Third-Culture Childhood
Stories about belonging, language, school, friendship, and identity when home has more than one country.
A parenting notebook from Beijing to America
I thought I was raising my kids. They have been raising me.
Reflections on raising boy-girl twins, third-culture teenagers, and a family life stretched lovingly between China and the United States.
Raising Twins
Notes on parenting two teenagers who share a birthday but move through the world in very different ways.
Parent Growth
Honest essays about bias, privilege, softness, courage, and the ways children ask adults to become larger.
Featured Essay
Too Chinese there, too American here.
My daughter once told me she feels too Chinese in America and too American in Beijing. I did not know how to answer at first. That sentence became the beginning of many deeper conversations about belonging, fairness, and what our children carry that we cannot always see.
Browse reflections
Recent Notes
Stories from our living room
Essays for parents, grandparents, educators, and friends who care about children growing up between languages, expectations, and worlds.
First Time, Every Time
I had one of those aha moments recently. Not the glamorous kind where everything clicks and you suddenly feel brilliant. More like the kind…
Read this essayThemes
A blog for the questions that do not fit in one culture.
This is not expert parenting advice. It is a thoughtful record of what happens when motherhood, migration, adolescence, and identity all sit at the same kitchen table.
Home can be more than one place
How teenagers build roots when their memories, accents, and friendships cross borders.
Hard conversations, softer answers
Talking with kids about bias, privilege, race, language, and the moments adults are tempted to simplify.
First time, again and again
Every age brings a new child, a new problem, and a new version of the parent you are becoming.
About Vicki
Chinese mom, twin mom, and student of my own children.
I am Vicki, a Chinese mother of boy-girl twins who grew up between Beijing and the United States. My husband and I have lived and worked abroad for many years, and our children have learned to notice the invisible rules of more than one world.
I write to remember what they teach me: how identity forms, how belonging can ache, and how parenting can make an adult more honest, more humble, and more awake.
Stay in Touch
Quiet essays, sent when a story feels ready.
For now, this can be a simple invitation for readers, friends, teachers, and other parents to reach out.
Email Vicki