Crying for My Mother: A Missionary Kid Looks Back

By Philip Wik

Some childhoods are shaped by adventure. Others are shaped by absence. Crying for My Mother is a deeply personal memoir of growing up as a missionary kid in Malaysia and the United States during the 1960s and '70s-a time marked by privilege, loneliness, cultural richness, and emotional cost.

Crying for My Mother: A Missionary Kid Looks Back delves into the complicated and often painful reality of growing up as a missionary child-an MK-in the 1960s and '70s. It examines the emotional landscape beneath the surface: the longing, confusion, privilege, displacement, and quiet resilience that defined an entire generation of MKs.

The author's upbringing was a paradox-at once privileged and aberrant, filled with rich cultural experiences yet marked by emotional neglect. Life in Malaysia and the United States offered broad horizons, but also separation, isolation, and the expectation to be strong, adaptable, grateful, and obedient.

Not every missionary kid thrived under these conditions. Some carried scars that shaped the rest of their lives. With honesty and empathy, the book explores how entitlement, duty, faith, and abandonment intersected-and how the cost of the mission field often fell hardest on the children left behind.

Readers have called the memoir "moving" and "eye-opening," praising its unvarnished look at a world many know little about. It offers insight not only into the MK experience but into the universal questions of identity, belonging, forgiveness, and the complicated love between parents and children.

A story for MKs, for parents, for people of faith, and for anyone seeking to understand how childhood shapes a life.

Themes You'll ExploreGrowing up between culturesThe emotional impact of missionary boarding schoolsThe tension between faith, duty, and familyPrivilege and neglect in the missionary worldResilience, identity, and the long road to healingA haunting, honest look at childhood, identity, and the shadows of mission work.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1697205593
• ISBN13: 9781697205596
• Release Date: October 2019
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 154 Pages
• Weight: 0.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"