Social Orphans and Care at a Distance: Popular Representations of Childhood in Ukrainian Transnational Families

Abstract

International labour migration creates new relational, emotional and social challenges for migrating parents and the children staying behind. In Ukraine, children who grow up in a transnational household are not only a concern for the individual family, however, but also a phenomenon that is thoroughly discussed in the public sphere. In this article the author analyses Ukrainian media, as well as popular and individual 'texts' on transnational childhood and child care at a distance, and argues that there are two diverging models of care that underlie personal narrative texts and public texts: care as fulfilment of a child's material needs, and care that necessitates physical closeness and constant face-toface interaction. He also identifies diverging perspectives in the various texts on what are considered adequate alternative carers, and on what the relational and social consequences are of the separation of migrating parents from their children.

“He crecido aquí, es diferente”. Experiencias y trayectorias vitales de los/as descendientes de migrantes chinos en España

“…En esta misma línea, encontramos la práctica comúnmente denominada como 'niños/as dejados atrás' (left-behind children), en alusión a aquellos/as menores que permanecen en el país de origen mientras sus progenitores emprenden el proyecto migratorio. Pese a que abundan los estudios sobre el tema en lo relacionado con la emigración interna en China (Biao, 2007;Chang, Dong y MacPhail, 2011;Guang et al, 2017;Lei, Liu y Hill, 2017;Lu, 2012;Wen y Li, 2012) y en otros contextos transnacionales (Antman, 2012;Pantea, 2011;Parreñas, 2005;Perreira y Ornelas, 2011;Suárez-Orozco, Bang y Ha, 2012;Tienda y Haskins, 2011;Tymczuk, 2011), en los cuales prima el discurso del abandono y la familia disfuncional (Pantea, 2011), apenas existe información sobre aquellos/as menores que permanecen en China mientras sus progenitores emigran a otros países (Morooka y Liang, 2009). Pantea (2011) critica la falta de estudios centrados en adolescentes y jóvenes en comparación con el número creciente de investigaciones sobre menores de corta edad.…”

The morality of transnationalism: children of Ukrainian labor migrants write about migration, homeland and abroad

“…It is in such textual disruptions, where diverging moral discourses converge, that the larger social contexts of how migration is understood become tangible. In the official Ukrainian discourse, labor migration is mainly portrayed as a negative phenomenon, with negative consequences for families, children and the society at large (Tymczuk 2011), and this discourse does indeed constitute the framework within which these texts are produced. This explains the general negativity towards and moral condemnation of migration in the texts.…”

“…Empirical studies of transnational familyhood have thus shown how parent -child separation is not necessarily experienced as traumatic by the children, as long as the culture-specific expectations of parental obligations are fulfilled (Olwig 1999;Coe 2011;Rae-Espinoza 2011;Å kesson, Carling, and Drotbohm 2012). In the case of children of Ukrainian migrants, I have argued that there are two conflicting expectations of parental obligations that create ambiguous experiences of separation from one's parents (Tymczuk 2011). At one level, expectations of proper child care in contemporary Ukraine necessitate parents' physical presence in their children's lives, and in such a context children experience separation from their parents as emotionally difficult.…”

“…Five percent of the children left behind were under the age of seven years, while 67% were between 7 and 22 years (Chymalo 2005). Further, the majority of Ukrainian labor migrants state that their migration is temporary, and relatively few choose to apply for a family reunion in the country of destination, even if they are legally entitled to do so (Tymczuk 2011;Leifsen and Tymczuk 2012). It is thus reasonable to assume that a relatively large number of Ukrainian children and youth live in transnational households with one or both parents living temporarily abroad.…”

“…Central to the discussions on migration from Ukraine are the economic and social consequences of the migratory outflow and especially the real or presumed negative consequences for children of labor migrants (Tymczuk 2011). However, such discussions on negative consequences for children left behind have not been paralleled by public or academic efforts to understand the children's point of view on migration.…”