Sustaining Families across Transnational Spaces: Vietnamese Migrant Parents and their Left-Behind Children

Children's agency and its contradictions in the context of transnational labour migration from Vietnam

“…The seemingly unfettered ability to communicate is a much celebrated feature of contemporary transnational migration, leading some scholars to develop notions of 'absent presence' (Pertierra 2006) and 'co-presence' (Baldassar 2008) 1 respectively. This implies that ICTs can eliminate the sense of physical separation, a position that more recent studies, including ours (Hoang and Yeoh 2012), have nevertheless challenged.…”

“…With increasingly restrictive migration policies in receiving countries worldwide keeping migrant families separated longer and family reunification more difficult (Carling et al 2012: 199), transnational communication has become the most important channel of engagement and bonding for separated family members (Dreby 2006;Hoang and Yeoh 2012;Parreñas 2001;Schmalzbauer 2004). Communication allows migrant parents and their children to exchange information and it serves to affirm the social meaning of long-distance relationships.…”

“…However, in places where there is a 'culture of migration', as in the Philippines (Parreñas 2005a) or the Caribbean (Olwig 1999), neither children nor adults © 2014 The Author(s) necessarily see parent-child separation as traumatic. Regular transnational communication, as well support from the extended family, might offset the emotional ramifications on the children, particularly when their mothers are away (Hoang and Yeoh 2012;Hoang et al forthcoming;Parreñas 2005a).…”

“…Communication allows migrant parents and their children to exchange information and it serves to affirm the social meaning of long-distance relationships. However, research has demonstrated that access to ICTs is not uniform across contexts and the inability to stay in touch regularly might generate imperfections and gaps of information, often to the detriment of family relationships (Carling 2008;Hoang and Yeoh 2012;Mahler 2001). Honduran children in Schmalzbauer's (2008: 339) study, for example, have little knowledge of their migrant parents' lives and often assume that they are doing well while in reality their parents are struggling, partly because parents 'relativize' their communication with family back home.…”

Growing Up with Distant Parents: Socialization and Alienation of “Left-Behind” Children in Rural China

“…In migrant families characterized by physical separation between family members, parent-child relations are often maintained by means of long-distance communication, typically phone calls, which turn out not as effective as expected in providing emotional exchange and linking the migrant parents and left-behind children (Hoang & Yeoh, 2012). As the above discussion demonstrated, when the Chinese left-behind children were upset, they were not inclined to vent their emotions over the phone and let their parents know their true feelings for fear that they would worry for them.…”