5 Assignment 10

Hoshchild, Isaksen and Devi argue that “the commons” are eroded as women migrate outside their countries producing what they term as a “care drain.” This “care drain” is the movement of women from their native countries into first world countries to secure jobs in nursing or as domestic workers. Following the assumption laid out that women are the main care givers in these cultures it follows that as women leave their own families to care for those of their employers in the north their own children suffer the loss of their primary caregiver. While the term “common” was previously used to describe communal lands in 15^th century Europe, they have added on to this term to bring about the idea of a “social-emotional commons” (407). This social- emotional commons relies on the trading of services and goods within a society. These “global care chains” exist in order to move capital from the south to the north through care labor but also from the north to the south in the form of money and presents. This money and gifts sent to relatives and their children are what supply the commons with more material capital. Through understanding how the commons work and how capital is moved we can better understand why migration is seen as “eroding the commons”. For children left behind the absence of mothers which are seen to be the pillars of culture and care caused grief. Many children and adults expressed dissatisfaction at having their mothers leave and the bonds that were unable to form because of this. Some even felt resentment towards their mothers and insisted that the material wealth created through migrating were not worth the destabilization of their family lives and childhoods. Through these accounts we see that while migration serves as a way to bring capital to third- world countries it causes what the authors believe to be a break down in the commons and in family structures in these countries. While economic capital is brought in care capital is exported leaving generations of children raised by aunts, and grandparents. I believe it’s important to be critical of these conclusions. Would children feel this amount of grief if women were seen differently in their societies? Can women ever be both economic women and caring mothers?

In the reading, “Global Care Crisis: A Problem of Capital, Care Chains, or Commons?”, the authors goes on to discuss about the increase migration of female workers to other countries in search of work. Parrenas gives the example of a Filipina mother whom left her home country in search of work to support her children. Often times when these workers leave their counties to find work, they’re hired as nannies or caretakers of other people’s children. The author in a way wants us to think of the idea that one leaves their child and home behind to take care of another person’s child in order to support their own child. From the view of many, people naturally assume that these mothers are “bad mothers” or irresponsible; even the kids aren’t very pleased with the absence of their mom during their childhood. Many don’t understand the sacrifice these mothers have made all for the purpose of giving their child a better opportunity. These mothers have to enter a new country working hard to take care of other people’s children instead of their own, not knowing anything with the mindset that in the end her kid will get a better opportunity. The kids more often than not don’t see it as the mothers do, they disregard the remittance and/or gifts the mothers sent to them and over time start to resent them. The kids just want to be with their moms like the other kids around them, growing up they’re unable to see their moms or have a strong parental figure they can go to for support. The authors also bring economy into this talking about the shortage of workers in first world countries or more wealthy ones needing to ship caretakers from less developed countries. In all of this, its really the kids that suffer, they effect deeply psychology that may impact over the years.

One of the main focuses is of the “Commons” and how they affect migrational patterns, specifically amongst women. The reason it primarily affects women is that they are incentivized to move because of the fact that the responsibility of caring for children falls on their shoulders. Naturally, the migrational pattern is from poor to stable; and it’s also noted that they stay in these countries for longer. Though this does financially benefit the family that the woman is working to take care of, there are natural consequences to this nomadic parenting lifestyle that these women are forced to take up. One of the main issues being that their is a lack of nuclear parentalship happening that grossly affects the children at play here. Since the mother isn’t there to probably attach the children to her, the children lose a lot of emotional growth because of this. And this is an issue, as it creates a varied problem amongst the younger generation as they grow older. Though they understand why their mother had to leave to another country for work, this doesn’t discount the fact that their emotional needs either weren’t met or they had to be met by someone else. This is detrimental to effectively establishing a proper and nurturing relationship with the mother and her child. It also leads to a lack of proper decision making amongst the children and sometimes nullifies a lot of the sacrifice the mother made as they lose encouragement to reaching into higher education because of this lack of emotional nurturing that they would have had if their mothers didn’t leave for more financially prosperous countries as opposed to staying home and caring for their children. Ultimately, though there is a economic incentive to move the consequences intimately affect the mothers who partake in this trend.

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.

In Global Care Crisis: A Problem of Capital, Care Chain or Commons? authors Lise Widding Isaksen, Sambasivan Uma Devi and Arlie Russel Hochschild  discuss the driving force of South to North migration. This South to North migration primarily refers to women. Women take on roles of maids, nannies, nurse aides, nurses and doctors (2008:405) in their home countries which are usually third world countries with weak economies. They then use their skill to tend to families within a country with a stronger economy, this country usually being the United States. This migration is a direct result of capitalism. These women are often mothers who leave behind their children and partners for financial reasons. This then leads to the concept of global care chain. Global care chains are links among people based on paid and unpaid care.  Often times the migrating woman leaves her own children behind in their home countries which requires a relative to look after and care for her children. This relative could be the migrating woman’s mother or her eldest daughter regardless this is often unpaid care. The woman then migrates to obtain the paid labor of caring for the children of others. The care chain has a tremendous effect on the third world country child. This child is able to obtain the benefits that money is able to provide but the child does not have the opportunity to grow alongside their mother. Thus, the child is emotionally and mentally deprived of nurture that a mother is able to provide. Global care chains are linked to commons. Commons are essentially anything that is shared within a community. In order for there to be an exchange or share there must first be a community. The formation of a community is negatively effected when the mother must leave to financially provide for a better life.

For us to better understand why there was migration among the South and North, we must focus on the concept of “the commons”. Arlie Hochschild, Lise Widding Isaksen, and Sambasivan Uma Devi deliberate on the philosophies that are affected by migration are care chains, commons and the problem of capital. In “Global Care Crisis: A Problem of Capital, Care Chain, or Commons”, the authors mainly converse about the migration that mothers from Southern countries make to the United States. The authors remark on what is the concept of care chain, which is essentially the eldest daughter in the poor family would take care of her siblings in her mother’s place while the mother works as a nanny caring for the children whose mothers migrated to take care of the children of rich family.  The care chain can cause both positive and negative effect on the family. Certainly, the child life has been improved due to the payments send to them, but, they are missing a key part of their development where they grow with a stable, union family. The communities where the families live in are referred to as the common in this article. In the care chain, everyone is dependent on each other for support and survival. To make enough money to support their family, these mothers migrated to the United States. Theses mothers would earn about five times more money than what they would have made in their native country. In many of these circumstances, the migrant mothers would choose to leave their children with family members or even their eldest child for them to be able to go to the United States. Once they arrived in the United States, they would find jobs as either nurses, housekeepers, and caregivers. Many people regard migrant mothers to be selfish, materialistic and bad moms for the reason that they choose to be separated from their children. Even though when the reason they’re separated from their children was to help provide for them.  The money these mothers sent back to their native countries, permits the chance to improve the lives of the children that were left behind.  The money sent back to these countries in forms of payments also help to contribute to the nation economic development.