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The article examines whether parental migration is changing the dynamics of power within families. It is based on in-depth interviews with young people between 14 and 20 years who experience parental migration from Romania. It is argued that despite factors that may facilitate less authoritarian relations in transnational families, migration does not neutralize pre-existing power relations. In different stages of the migration cycle, different levels of authority and freedom occur. The article advises that parents' migration is simultaneously empowering and burdensome for young people. It increases their ability to negotiate, but may also create discriminatory dynamics of roles among siblings.The article is interested in whether parental migration is in any way changing the internal family dynamics of power, as perceived by young people. Do older children/ young people experience changes in authority relations in the context of parental migration? To what extent is migration enabling more autonomy for young people and an increased negotiation power inside families? The article will follow the criteria that define the democratization of family relations along the different stages of the migration process. It will analyze to what extent young people's experiences in transnational families are intersecting any criteria of democratization.It is argued that despite several factors that may facilitate less authoritarian relations in transnational families (e.g., fewer possibilities for parents to exert direct control, and a resulting reliance on trust, and parents' exposure to more liberal societies), migration does not neutralize/balance the power relations in these families.

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To cite this article: Maria-Carmen Pantea (2012) 'I have a child and a garden': young people's experiences of care giving in transnational families, Journal of Youth Studies, 15:2, 241-256,