å Monday, November 13th, 2017

Many families are divided
because of migration. In countries like the Philippines, a child may define family as an extension of relative or extended family while a child in another country may define a family as nuclear. Hochschild explain in her article, “Global care crisis” that many women leave their children with extended family or kin in search of opportunity. Many college graduate women are unfortunate in seeking jobs in their competitive society. Furthermore, migration became a norm for families to live an abundant and fruitful live. Children of migrated parents are giving the opportunity to attend good schools; wear fashionable clothing and accessories than children of non-migrated women. On the other hand, children of migrated parents never experience the mother- child bond every child wishes. Children from migrated mothers suffer from depression and wonder what life would have been if their mom were around.

Due to the loss of their mothers, young children form bonds with their extended family. In contrast their mother’s bond with their new family as their nanny. Capitalism forces women to migrate to others countries for opportunity so they can send money back to their families oversea for their responsibility in taking care of their children. Family abroad often send money back to their country to build a home, in exchange that their brothers or relative to care for the elderly parents whom in turn care to their children.                                                         Capitalism forces women to travel to another country so that government officials can profit from their labor. For instance, when a person sends money through money gram or western union they are charge a fee and the recipient is also tax by the bank in their country. Migration becomes “the common” for women without means. Hochschild wants us to see the reason women migrate is, they do not have the means, and is  force to leave their homeland, to be exploited for their labor, thus  to care of their families. On the other hand, women with the means can remain with their children as good mothers do. For this reason, migrated mothers are stigmatize as bad mother and is therefore forever taboo as a bad mother. Migrated mothers can provide entire gifts to her abandon child but she will never be a hero to her community or child. Capitalism creates division among the rich and poor and the migration trends will always be a solution to having commodities. Without migration countries will not profit from cheap labor as wells as families of migrated women would not have the abundance of wealth/ money.

In Global Care Crisis, the authors discuss the reasons and effects of the south-north migration of people. Usually, women are the ones who migrate from their home countries in the south to countries like the United States in the north. These women come from countries like the Philippines, where they leave their own families behind. Even though they go to other countries to work for money to support their families, their families are forced to change along with it too. Care chains are made up of these mothers that come to northern countries to get jobs as nurses, housekeepers, and other care-giving positions that leave their families behind which are usually younger kids who still depend on the care of their mothers. But now that they are left behind without their mothers, the oldest girl of the group is usually forced to take care of the youngest ones, or even other older people in the family. creating this chain where the mothers go away to take care of somebody else fir money, meanwhile their kids are left back at their home countries getting taken care of by somebody else for free. But we also see how with capitalism, kids are the main ones that get affected by the absence of their mothers which just has an emotional effect on the kids. It would not be beneficial for capitalism if mothers were able to bring their kids along with them to these new countries while they work. As long as the families are kept apart, the mothers will keep being obligated to leave their countries to work somewhere else, which leads to more profits to those northern countries. As long as they keep things this way, the children will keep having emotional problems and the  mothers will be producing part for their kids and for these new countries.

The concept of the “ Commons” refers the give and take between community members. This concept is linked to “Global Care Chains”. According to Hochschild, these chains represent links between people across the world. Moreover, what is being discussed is how the migration of women has affected them and the children they leave behind. Migrate women leave their children in the care of family members, to go to another country to make money. According to Yeates, the foundation to the care chains is known as “the socio-emotional commons”. This refers to a way people pay back a favor not with money but by bartering favors and it also refers to the social resources that community members have in common.

According to the article, women are forced to migrate to other countries for reasons such as: collapse of their countries economies and political reasons. The concept of “commons” and “capital” is important to understand because women migrates are forced to leave their children behind and leave them in the care of other family members. This has caused what Devi has referred to as “empathetic rupture”. The children still miss their mothers. The caregivers cannot replace her. According to Devi, this causes the children of migrates to distrust, because their mothers have broken their emotional bond to their children by leaving them behind. Moreover, they never feels like part of the family members family. They may feel like a guest or like they are a burden to the caregiver.

“Social Capital “refers to the way that the women pay back their family members for taking care of their children. The act of caring for the child is seen as an enormous favor. In exchange, the woman may send gifts to her child and to the family member. She may also pay for the family members health care. In any event, the migration of women has caused shifts in the families they leave behind. The article cites how relationships are broken and that the mother is no longer the central figure in her child’s life.

The authors in, “Global Care Crisis: A Problem of Capital, Care Chains, or Commons?”, view how the concept of “the commons” impacts on the role of migration from the south to the north. This would lead to the influence of capital along with the connection within the child’s “relational world”.

There are multiple factors that influence people to migrate to stronger economic countries. However, there seems to more female migrants versus male ones (405-406). Also they tend to stay in the country they migrate to longer and this could be the result of simply providing financial support for their family. However, this can lead to problems. When female migrants take on the role of financial support they would fall into the two categories. They are either a family woman or economic woman (406). However, it is never both. This means that these female migrants are either mothers or helping themselves, which is often the case. They would resort to “the commons” in order to help their family because it is the easiest access to work with higher pay that they would not receive in their home country. “The commons” is a place where actually everyone relies on and holds a value because without it society would fall apart.

There are always consequences to every action made. When the women that are also mothers that migrant they risking losing the communication with their children. Children that fall into this scenario understand the circumstances. However, they feel a sense of loneliness along with the discouragement of not wanting to do anything better for themselves. This results in them not wanting to go to college even though is part of the reason why the female migrants sacrificed to contribute a brighter future their family. Sometimes, the more connected the parents are in their children’s lives the better they would perform.

Arlie Hochschild, Lise Widding Isaksen, and Sambasivan Uma Devi all go over on what the “the commons” are in understanding South-North migration in their article “Global Care Crisis: A Problem of Capital, Care Chains, or Commons?” They go into the global economic system that is created when women migrant from one country to another in search of jobs to support their families. These jobs that most migrants take would be care taking jobs such as nursing elderly and other peoples’ children and maids. In the South this takes a toll in what Hochschild and her coauthors call a brain and care drain on their home countries. Another concern made by the authors would be the struggles mothers have with the separation of their children and what the mothers themselves go through. Migrant mothers often are faced with the accusations of being a bad mother or materialistic because they had to leave. Devi notes that for migrant Kerala mothers it’s a taboo to talk about how their children are doing because of the anguish they already feel from the separation. This on top of the other problems they face such as the low pay, long hours, and sexual exploitation make the experience truly horrible. The child also faces problems, without their mother to care for them they lose a very important part of their life. This can cause problems with them and how they see their mothers due to them not being there. It can lead to a problem between how the relationship with a mother and her child is created and kept.