Transnational Mothering - Transnational mothering occurs when a mother leaves her family in search of a job abroad to provide for a better life for her children. She leaves her children in her home country and must mother them from a distance. The mother usually is unable to bring her children with her as it is difficult to get a job as a live in caregiver if you have children. Mothers send back money and gifts are sent back to help provide for her children. They parent their children while also providing care for their employer’s child (Parrenas, 2001).
I chose this term because it addresses the struggles that migrant caregivers have to go through when they leave their child at home. These women are everyday women who are mothering from a distance to provide a better life for their children. This term is relevant to transnational feminism because it is about the challenges mothers who parent their children beyond borders. It explains the reality some mothers face when they have to parent far from home. I believe it is a helpful term because it it shines a light on the issues of migrant mothers and transnational caregiving.
Academic Source: http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/ps/i.do?p=ITBC&u=uvictoria&id=GALE|A78392718&v=2.1&it=r&sid=summon
Keywords: Chain of love, caregiving, migrant workers Author: Lily Kim
The concept of transnational mothering is very important to keep at the forefront of conversation in regards to issues surrounding transnational feminism. Not only are these women suffering at the hands of capitalism in their own countries alone, but the combination of effects of their lives as women and immigrants and mothers means that they have to navigate the experience of being a transnational mother from multiple positions of oppression. The fact that they have to immigrate to a foreign country to care for children in order to support their own children shows the devastating effects that capitalism has on families around the world. While one family has the privilege to receive child care and benefits hugely from being abl…