Session Title: This Messy Mobile Life: Raising Third Culture Kids

Session Date: 22nd of September 2022 at TASIS Portugal, 7:00 – 8:30 pm

Session Description:
Do your family dinners happen in more than one language?
Do you celebrate Christmas and Eid? Chinese New Year and
Hannukah?
Do you and your family feel at home in more than one country?
If so, then you may be a ‘MOLA’ Family raising Third Culture
Kids (TCKs) abroad and yes, this multicultural, multilingual,
mobile life can feel a little ‘messy’ sometimes.
In this parent education talk, Mariam will explore a key aspect of
living abroad: raising Third Culture Kids (TCKs) and what every
parent needs to know about supporting their family when they
move to a new country. Based on research and writing from her book, Mariam will introduce her
signature ‘MOLA toolbox’ for globally mobile families to help them understand transition, how
to care for their TCKs, how to start important conversations within their family, and to navigate
their international lives confidently.
Biography: Pakistan-born, raised-around-the-world Mariam Ottimofiore is an adult TCK herself
who has lived in Bahrain, US, Pakistan, UK, Germany, Denmark, Singapore, UAE, Ghana and
Portugal. Her husband is half German and half Italian, and their expat life includes a 40 ft
container, a jumble of international adapters to make their morning coffee and three children
born in three different countries. Mariam is an economist, researcher, author, and writer at And
Then We Moved To in which she explores expat life, raising multicultural and multilingual
children, while always forgetting her new address and phone number and getting lost in every
new country she calls home. She has also served on the Board of Directors for the US-based
organization ‘Families in Global Transition’ (2019-2021) and is a regular speaker at mobility
conferences around the world. Her book This Messy Mobile Life; How a MOLA can help
globally mobile families create a life by design (Summertime Publishing, 2019) helps to equip
international families to embrace their journey abroad and is a well-known resource in TCK
literature. You can follow her work on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Signed copies of ‘This
Messy Mobile Life’ will also be available for purchase at the talk for a discounted price of 10
Euros (cash or MBway) specially for TASIS Portugal parents.