– Children can become stronger and more independent, says sociologist Oksana Shmulyar Gréen.
Aftenposten last week told a number stories of European children who live without their parent because these jobs abroad. Sunday we told you about 16 year old Mihaela Cucuta in Moldova who has lived without parents since she was three years and now has moved to themselves. At least half a million children in Europe have one or two parents who work abroad.
How many immigrant workers to Scandinavia who have children at home, no one knows. The system treats migrants as free individuals, not as people with families.
The sociologist Oksana Shmulyar Gréen working at the University of Gothenburg, where they just started a major research project on how so-called “transnational” families cope . She is concerned that we not only need to be concerned dramatic fate of individuals, where children are left to themselves.
– Not bad parents
– In historical perspective, it is nothing new Parents traveling from their children, just think of seafarers. This is something parents do because they have to, and it is important that we do not see them as bad parents that reason, points Shmulyar Gréen.
– If your children are involved in the decision, one can often see that they develop greater independence and becomes stronger. That parents send money home can give kids better food, better health care and better clothes.
She emphasizes that how children cope parental absence is dependent on many factors, such as age and who else has around itself. – The small shows perhaps missed clearer, and also need more physical closeness. Older children hold more back, and they may feel responsible burden very heavy, especially if they also have to take care of younger siblings. The positive consequences equalizes probably not the negative, but this is something many simply must. That’s how life is, says Shmulyar Gréen.
20 percent of Polish children
A recent report from Poland shows that 20 percent of children between 10 and 19 years have at least one parent who jobs abroad. Bartlomiej Walczak from the University of Warsaw is one of the report authors, and told Aftenposten that there are differences between children with and without parents abroad. – Some children with mother or father abroad more often late for school, others truant more. There are also slightly higher score on what we call “risk behavior”, he said.
But the differences are small, and Walczak is keen to normalize the situation. When his first inquiry came a few years ago, broke out “moral panic” in Poland, he says. – But this is more about that families live in new ways than that there is something destructive.
– What were you most surprised?
– that 39 percent of Polish children want to move abroad. Here scorer children with parents abroad higher, he said.
A new type family
Research on such transnational families are first emerged in the last 10-15 years. When people move to another country, cutter not their roots, but belong in different ways in different places – it’s not just physical closeness that binds together a family.
– The ties maintained by that people send gifts and money home, talking on Skype and visit each other, says Oksana Shmulyar Gréen.
New technology has made it considerably easier to maintain such distance relationship, not least because you can also see each other.
The knowledge that exists on the topic comes primarily from the United States and is about including migrants from Mexico and the Philippines. Also in Spain, Italy, UK and Ireland researched part, but in Scandinavia, this has been a white field. This should a fresh research project at the University of Gothenburg remedy. They will study the situation of migrant workers from Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria in Sweden.
Who is responsible?
– The lack of facts and figures is due to internal EU not registered migration necessarily anywhere. Parents do not advertise that they travel, and perhaps discovered it first if it goes bad with kids, says Shmulyar Gréen.
The sociologist believes that both the sending and receiving countries have responsibility for migrants difficult family situation and that migrants should have a right to be able to work without sacrificing family. The challenge is that this is about national policy within the overall EU system.
– Then it is also difficult to place responsibility on each employer, she says – and points out that it obviously has great importance of labor contract allows the employee may take vacation, and if people live so that it is possible to accommodate children visiting.
In the documentary “I am Cuba” puts director Åse Svenheim Drivenes spotlight on a dark side of modern family life in Europe. When parents do not get to work in Poland, they must go from the country. Home sits Kuba and little brother alone. Watch video: “Do not tell the teacher that you are alone”
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