Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families: 
Narratives of Children Reunited with their Mothers in Italy

Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini

Abstract: The article explores the experiences of separation and reunifi cation by 
children of migrant mothers in Italy by analysing 32 qualitative interviews conduct-
ed with adolescents who had rejoined their mothers at different points in their lives. 
We show that international migration causes children to face multiple shifts in the 
confi guration of their family ties due to the geographical dislocations and re-loca-
tions to which these ties are subject. The way in which children interpret and adjust 
to these changes depends on factors such as the timing of the family migration 
process and the frequency of transnational family practices, which are affected by 
more or less abrupt discontinuities in family life after their mothers’ and their own 
departure. 

Keywords: Transnational motherhood · Transnational childhood · 
Family reunifi cation · Female migration

1 Introduction

Globalisation and the intensifi ed fl ows of goods and people across national borders 
have prompted research on the role played by space in family and intimate life, 
especially in regard to care and parenting relationships (Carling et al. 2012;  Glick 
2010; Mazzucato/Schans 2011; Bonizzoni/Boccagni, forthcoming). As a signifi cant 
number of studies have shown, the migratory process often involves repeated and 
prolonged separations of the members of the extended family as well as of spouses, 
parents and children (Boccagni 2012; Dreby 2006; Fresnoza-Flot 2009; Hondagneu-
Sotelo/Avila 1997; Horton 2009; Parreñas 2005a; Whitehouse 2009). Transnational 
families therefore emerge as a new category of analysis, which further complicates 
the plurality of contemporary family forms while also confi rming the lack of cor-
relation between family and household addressed by most contemporary social 
research. 

Comparative Population Studies – Zeitschrift für Bevölkerungswissenschaft
Vol. 38, 2 (2013): 465-498 (Date of release: 19.06.2013)

© Federal Institute for Population Research 2013  URL: www.comparativepopulationstudies.de
DOI: 10.4232/10.CPoS-2013-01en   URN: urn:nbn:de:bib-cpos-2013-01en2



•    Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini466

As in the case of other important life course events, such as births, deaths, mar-
riages or divorces, migration triggers changes in the family confi gurations (Widmer 
2010) in terms of both household composition and the meanings and relevance of 
intimate ties (Mason/Tipper 2008). In this regard, particular attention has been paid 
to the spatial reorganisation of parenting and care (Baldassar et al. 2006) as well as 
to the strategies devised by families to maintain intimacy and affection as well as to 
exercise discipline and provide support across borders (Baldassar 2001; Gardner/ 
Grillo 2002; Mason 2004; Sutton 2004). Also, the risks that spatial separations may 
carry both for the well-being of the children in the country of origin and for their 
integration in that of arrival (Bernhard et al. 2009; Cortes 2007; Olwig 1999; Save 
the Children 2006; Suarez-Orozco et al. 2005) were the focus of several research 
studies.

International migration brings about changes in how family relations are under-
stood and practiced in space, but also in time (Bonizzoni/Boccagni forthcoming; 
Giralt/Bailey 2010). Separations can last for months or years; they may be lived at 
different “rhythms” (time spent home and away, frequency of visits and telephone 
calls etc.), by parents and children of very different ages, and who participate in the 
practices of transnational family life in different ways. 

An aspect often underestimated by transnational family research is that separa-
tion may only be a temporary phase followed by further geographical reconfi gura-
tions of family relations following upon reunifi cation in the home country or return 
to the foreign country. These patterns have recently been investigated by studies 
which, often adopting clinical or therapeutic approaches, investigate the effects of 
these repeated relocations of care relations, emphasising the negative impacts of 
family separations on the integration of children reunited with their parents (Mitrani 
et al. 2004; Pottinger 2005; Suarez-Orozco et al. 2005). 

Long-distance parenting and family reunifi cations are not historically new phe-
nomena: despite the so-called “guest-worker regime”, migrant families did not only 
use to live apart but also to reunite, even in the earlier waves of migration in Europe 
(Kraler 2009). Although migrant women have frequently played (and in some cases 
still play) the role of dependents in family reunifi cation fl ows, in Southern European 
countries women now constitute a large share of migrant workers, a fact that raises 
new issues in regard to both life at a distance and family reunifi cation. Migratory 
trajectories and long-distance care arrangements are in fact considered particularly 
critical when the migrants are women, given the greater responsibilities and obliga-
tions assigned to them in terms of care (Parreñas 2010). Female migration gives rise 
to a profound reorganisation in the management of care tasks and entails processes 
of more or less radical substitution which in most cases involve members of the 
extended family.

Female-led reunifi cations are an emerging phenomenon in Italy, where the de-
mand for low-skilled female labour in the domestic sector is increasing due to a 
growing need for (especially elderly) care, which cannot be satisfi ed by shrinking 
public resources and by women caught between competing work and care de-
mands (Ambrosini 2011). Even though domestic (and especially live-in) work may 
be so demanding in terms of work schedules as to be hardly compatible with one’s 



Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 467

“own” family life (Parreñas 2005a), several immigrant working women manage to 
put in place mobility strategies which enable them to start family reunifi cation proc-
esses.

On the basis of 32 in-depth interviews conducted with children reunited with 
their mothers who had migrated to fi nd work in Italy, we will investigate how mi-
grant children experience and actively engage in the changes of the geographical 
confi guration of their families. In fact, still little is known about how children par-
ticipate in negotiations of the family’s migratory path and about how those negotia-
tions are infl uenced by their own desired geographies of family life (Bushin 2009; 
Phoenix 2010)

As we shall show, international migration causes children to face multiple shifts 
in the confi guration of their family ties due to the geographical dislocations and 
re-locations to which these are subject. These changes can be seen not only in the 
household composition but also in the way family life is concretely practised (Silva/
Smart 1999), how tasks are performed by relatives and in the meanings that chil-
dren attach to their intimate ties (Mason/Tipper 2008).

2 Being cared for from afar

Since the pioneering work by Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila (1997), an increasing 
number of studies have investigated the consequences of female migration on fam-
ily relations. The literature emphasises that motherhood at a distance often requires 
a radical reorganisation of the everyday care given to the children, and that it is si-
multaneously based on new meanings and everyday practices (Åkesson et al. 2012; 
Parreñas 2005b; Raijman et al. 2003). 

The mother’s departure entails two different forms of family reorganisation. First 
of all, mother-child relationships are de-territorialised and simultaneously lived at a 
distance (Levitt/Schiller 2004) through the deployment of new practices and rituals 
of family life (Silva/Smart 1999). Telephone calls, visits, gifts and remittances are the 
most common means by which faraway mothers display (Finch 2007) their love and 
care. The mothers’ purpose is to maintain a sense of intimacy, to obtain information 
about the life-conditions of their children and to intervene actively in decisions that 
concern them. Even if advances in transport (low-cost fl ights etc.) and communi-
cation (mobile telephony, internet etc.) have undoubtedly made the international 
circulation of money, information and affection more reliable, economical and rapid, 
a certain number of studies have also reported limitations of and ambivalences in 
care strategies across borders and over long distances (Baldassar et al. 2006; Bern-
hard et al. 2009; Boccagni 2012; Fresnoza-Flot 2009; Horton 2009). Remittances 
undoubtedly ensure above-average living standards for migrant women’s children, 
giving them access to better schools, healthcare and housing (Save the Children 
2006; Scalabrini Migration Center 2004). However, it has also been pointed out that, 
although this infl ux of money “materialises” and makes “visible” the affection and 
care of the faraway mothers, it is necessary but not always suffi cient to guarantee 
the quality of the care received by the children in the home country. In fact, a great 



•    Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini468

deal depends on the skills and reliability of the caregivers, as well as on the mother’s 
capacity to organise control from afar (Tolstokorova 2010).

It has been shown that the children may suffer an acute sense of loss after the 
mother’s departure (Pottinger 2005), and that at the same time a sense of mutual 
estrangement may develop between parents and children which is only partly miti-
gated by the practices of family life at a distance (Bernhard et al. 2009; Parreñas 
2001). The ability of the children to take part in technology-mediated communica-
tive exchanges and to directly communicate their needs signifi cantly depends on 
their age (Bonizzoni 2012; Carling et al. 2012). Moreover, it may be extremely diffi -
cult for the parents to simultaneously invest in transnational practices (communica-
tions, remittances and journeys) intended to dampen the effects of separation on 
the one hand and, on the other, in integration processes (savings and investments 
for return or reunifi cation) intended to end family separation. The effi cacy of visits 
and communications in maintaining the bonds of knowledge, intimacy and affection 
between parents and children, as well as supervising how children are growing up, 
can by no means be taken for granted. Home visits, for instance, are often diffi cult 
to arrange for mothers in very distant countries, due to travel costs, but also to 
the frequently undocumented status of women in the fi rst phase of their migra-
tory paths during the fi rst period spent in Italy (Bonizzoni 2013; Fresnoza-Flot 2009; 
Schmalzbauer 2004).

Secondly, mothers’ departures also imply a change in family confi gurations 
(Widmer 2010), in terms of household composition, activities performed by rela-
tives as well as the meanings attached to family ties, because mothers have to in-
volve trustworthy people in supervising their children during their absence. Foster 
caregivers are often other women (Åkesson et al. 2012; Hochschild 2000; Parreñas 
2010) who substitute for (or help) fathers who often remain engaged in paid work (at 
home or abroad). These shifts in care may be more or less drastic for the children: 
some children are left in the care of people with whom they had already established 
fond relationships before the mother’s departure; others may be forced to move 
into new households; yet others may even become caregivers themselves. Care 
arrangements can also change in time, because the children may be reluctant to ac-
cept the presence of caregivers and their disciplinary roles, but also because moth-
ers can be required to seek new and not always satisfactory arrangements following 
unforeseen events (death, illness, ageing, departure of the caregiver). 

Because of diffi culties in transnational caregiving and the pain of separation – 
but also because of the desire to secure better school and work prospects for their 
children – mothers invest heavily in integration projects (regularising, fi nding a sta-
ble job and proper housing) in order to meet the stringent requirements imposed 
by the immigration law on bringing their families to Italy (Bonizzoni 2009, 2011). This 
process is another major turning-point in the biographies of children’s families.



Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 469

3 Remaking intergenerational relationships abroad

Family reunifi cations have been of a certain interest to clinical or therapeutic stud-
ies, which have emphasised the negative impact of separations on the “new” family 
and social life in the host country (Adams 2000; Artico 2003; Bernhard et al. 2009; 
Falicov 2007; Landolt et al. 2005; Pottinger et al. 2008; Suarez-Orozco et al. 2005). 
Migrating children are forced to detach themselves from a more or less extensive 
and meaningful system of affective relations comprising kin, neighbours and peer 
groups. The sense of estrangement towards the parents abroad that may emerge 
over time must be confronted in a radically different socio-cultural context. The 
minors, often experiencing migration on their own, must fi nd ways to integrate into 
relational spheres – school, friendships, neighbour relationships – often entirely 
new to them. At family level, the children must once again live with their parents in 
a new environment, sometimes encountering family members (siblings born in Italy 
or new partners of their mothers) wholly unknown to them (Horton 2009; Phoenix 
2010). Regarding education, they must cope with the effects of interrupted school-
ing which may hold them back or channel them into the less prestigious circuits 
of the educational system (Phoenix 2009). The children must then develop all the 
linguistic and social skills required to establish new friendships in an often stigma-
tising environment (Smith et al. 2004). Many of these studies emphasise the role 
of age and the duration of separation as factors determining the extent to which 
migrant children adjust in the new country. Adolescence seems to be a particularly 
crucial phase, due to the desire for independence common among youths, but also 
because of the greater diffi culties of integration in terms of friendships and educa-
tion. The issue of the social integration of reunited children is important in terms of 
policies because some states (for instance Germany) have implemented restrictive 
immigration policies explicitly raising the issue of the supposed non-integrability of 
reunited teenagers (Kraler/Kofman 2009).

Few studies, however, pay attention to the role that migrant children actively play 
in determining the outcomes of reunifi cation and life at a distance, to the changed 
meanings that they attach to new family confi gurations and to how they adjust to 
changing family confi gurations over time (Bushin 2009; Orellana et al. 2001; Phoe-
nix 2010; Dreby 2006; Olwig 1999). Reunifi cations are not necessarily certain or per-
manent, and a long-period perspective (covering the time that the migrant children 
have spent in Italy) may prove useful, as we shall see, in understanding the extent to 
which these repeated experiences of shifts in care relations affect integration into 
the new country.

In what follows, we show that international migration causes children to face 
multiple shifts in the confi guration of their family ties due to the geographical dislo-
cations and re-locations to which these ties are subject. The way in which children 
interpret and adjust to these changes depends on factors such as the timing of the 
family migration process and the frequency of transnational family practices, which 
subject them to more or less abrupt discontinuities in their family confi gurations 
after their mothers’ and their own departure. Such experiences prove crucial for 



•    Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini470

understanding how the children would cope with migration and adaptation in the 
new country.

4 Methods

The following discussion is based on research carried out in Milan between 2006 
and 2008.1 It draws on 32 qualitative semi-structured interviews conducted with 
reunited teenagers (19 girls and 13 boys aged 14-20) who had experienced physi-
cal separation from their mothers due to international migration. Our intention was 
to select migrant children resident in Italy for a variable number of years who had 
experienced both separation and reunifi cation at different stages in their lives more 
or less recently. Interviewees were found with the help of schools2 and teachers: we 
asked teachers to signal to us cases of children whom they knew had arrived in Italy 
quite recently. We asked them to focus on children from those countries in which 
mothers are usually the fi rst in the family to leave (for instance: The Philippines, 
Peru, Ecuador, Moldova and Ukraine). Subsequently, we asked the children (and in 
some cases also their mothers3) if they were willing to be interviewed. Interviews 
were carried out in Italian and they lasted one and a half hours on average; they 
thoroughly investigated several critical points in the interviewees’ migratory experi-
ence: separation from their parents (i.e. if they remembered how they felt the day 
when their mothers left; if they knew where their mothers were going and why), the 
relationships they established with their substitute caregivers (we asked them to de-
scribe changes in their household composition and the relationships with their sub-
stitute caregivers); their participation in transnational family practices (what they 
remembered of their mothers’ phone calls, if they received any gifts or money i.a.), 
the extent to which they took part in negotiations about their own migratory path 
(how they evaluated the perspective of their own departure), the adjustment to rela-
tives in Italy (how it has been coming back living with their own mothers after the 
separation, if they felt at ease with her), the relationships that they maintained with 
the people left abroad (if they still kept in touch with their substitute caregivers), the 
issues of school and peers. The interview guideline was semi-structured: Accord-
ingly, every child was asked the same questions, but not in the same order because 

1 For a more detailed discussion of the data collected, see (Leonini/Rebughini 2010), Ambrosini, 
Bonizzoni, Caneva (2010), Ritrovarsi altrove: famiglie ricongiunte e adolescenti di origine strani-
era, Milano, Fondazione ISMU.

2 Especially technical and vocational schools, the ones at which children of foreign origin are 
most often enrolled.

3 Other studies have compared the mothers’ and children’s perspectives (see for instance Boniz-
zoni 2012).



Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 471

we preferred not to constrict the interaction too much.4 The interviews were record-
ed and transcribed. We then carried out a thematic analysis, identifying key themes, 
coding the interviews, extracting and clustering quotes: we subsequently selected 
the most insightful and exhaustive of them as the basis for this article.

The children interviewed came from the countries from which most migrant fe-
male workers come to Italy (the majority of mothers were or had been employed in 
the care and domestic sector): 12 were from Ecuador, 7 from Peru, 5 from the Do-
minican Republic, 4 from the Philippines, one from Bolivia, one from Colombia, and 
one Ukrainian and one from Moldova. Almost all of them were enrolled at schools: 
20 were in vocational training (shorter programmes for hairdressers, cooks, elec-
tricians etc.), 9 in long-term technical training (in subjects such as chemistry, ac-
counting etc.), one was still in compulsory schooling, one was at university, and the 
remaining 2 were working. 

Family confi gurations were extremely varied and complex because of the mul-
tiple intersections between life-cycle events (couple formations and dissolutions, 
births and deaths) and the family migration path. Fourteen children had both of 
their parents in Italy: 10 were the children of married couples, 4 of couples divorced 

Tab. 1: Children’s family confi gurations with respect to parents

Parents in Italy  
Both parents, mother and father 14 
Only the mother 18 

Parents’ marital status  
Married 10 
Separated/divorced, both parents are living in Italy 4 
Separated/divorced, father abroad, father unknown or dead 18 

- Father, living abroad 13 
- Father, place of residence unknown 3 
- Father dead 2 

Parents in a new relationship in Italy 11 
- Mother 9 
- Father 2 
- Mother or father with new Italian partner 7 

Source: own data

4 The interviews explored several sensitive and ticklish issues regarding the children’s intimate 
life: in most cases children actually proved to be quite eager (as it can be grasped by the quotes 
included in the paper) to openly express their (often ambivalent) feelings regarding their past 
and current family life. The low numbers of the children interviewed does not allow us to under-
stand whether “overly optimistic” accounts could be attributed to sampling strategies (having 
been introduced to us by their teachers and in a few cases by their mothers) or reticence to 
express negative feelings in respect to their parents’ choices due to cultural issues.



•    Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini472

in Italy. Therefore, a total of 22 children in the sample belonged to female-headed 
households. Eighteen children had only their mothers in Italy: 13 had their fathers 
in the country of origin, 3 had never known them and the fathers of the remaining 2 
had died. Eleven children had one parent engaged in another relationship started in 
Italy: in 7 cases, with a partner of Italian origin.

Also, family reunifi cation patterns showed signifi cant variations, with respect 
to both sequence (who migrates after whom) and timing (length of each separa-
tion). Worth mentioning is that in 19 cases, the family reunifi cation required more 
than one step and entailed repeated separations between family members (moth-
ers, fathers, siblings). As already mentioned, several fathers had not followed their 
children abroad (parents separated before migration). Only 2 children had migrated 
together with their fathers. Hence, 12 children had experienced the migration of 
both parents, who had migrated one after another (in 9 cases after a year or less). 
Twenty-one children had siblings: In 7 cases, siblings had been reunited at differ-
ent times, 5 had siblings born in Italy (4 of which were half-siblings) and living with 
them. Four children still had one brother or sister abroad: one was going to be re-
joined quite soon; two siblings had returned to their country of origin after spending 
a period in Italy; two of the children interviewed had also experienced some months 
abroad after migrating to Italy, and were lately rejoined again.

Table 2 summarises some background information regarding the timing of the 
children’s family reunifi cations with mothers, who had in all cases been the fi rst in 
the family to leave. The second and third columns of the upper part of the table in-
dicate the number of children left and reunited at the ages reported in column one; 
the second column of the lower part of the table indicates the number of children 

Tab. 2: Timing of children’s reunifi cation with their mothers

Age Number of children left at 
the age of… 

Number of children reunited 
at the age of… 

1-3 9 1 
4-8 12 5 
9-13 10 16 
14-17 1 10 

Total 32 32 

Years Number of children by length 
of separation in years … 

Number of children by years 
spent in Italy … 

1-3 13 15 
4-8 14 11 
9-13 5 6 
14-17 0 0 

Total 32 32 

Source: own data



Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 473

who had experienced separations, whose length (in terms of years) are reported in 
column one; the third column indicates the number of children who had spent the 
number of years reported in column one in Italy.

Furthermore, because of the diffi culties experienced by mothers in applying for 
family reunifi cation provisions, separations were quite long (4 years or more) in 
more than half of the cases. As a consequence, very few children had rejoined their 
mothers at an early age (just 6 of them before the age of 8). As we shall show, the 
duration of the separation, the time when it was experienced (early childhood, teen-
agehood) and the number of years passed since the event are all crucial factors in 
understanding the diffi culties and outcomes of long-distance family life and integra-
tion into the new country. For this reason, when building our sample, we decided 
to pay signifi cant attention to the timing of relocation processes, assuming that the 
abovementioned factors (age at which children were left and reunited, after a cer-
tain number of years of separation) could lead to shared experiences, despite their 
different countries of origins.

5 Children’s perspectives on transnational caregiving relationships

Our study confi rms the importance of female kinship networks in the management 
of childcare at a distance (Parreñas 2005a). In only two cases, children had been left 
with only their fathers; in 10 cases, fathers lived with their children, but they were 
supported by other female carers (in most cases grandmothers, in two cases paid 
careworkers, in one case a 16-year-old daughter). Fathers, in fact, continued to have 
an economic role in the family, either in the country of origin (no father had stopped 
working at the point of the mother’s departure) or by migrating themselves. Overall, 
maternal grandmothers were those most often enrolled as caregivers, followed by 
aunts; in a limited number of cases, children had remained in the care of their teen-
age sisters and paid careworkers. 

Children may experience this shift in family confi gurations as a more or less 
abrupt change. When the mothers had already been working full-time and were ac-
customed to managing care with other members of the extended family (as often in 
the case of female-headed households), this transition tended to be less abrupt. It 
is therefore evident that management of care relations prior to the mother’s depar-
ture (imputable to the family structure but also to particular cultural traditions in the 
country of origin) may be a crucial factor when evaluating the impact of separation 
(Åkesson et al. 2012; Coe 2008). Forms of previously established “extended” care 
management may make this change in the care situation less traumatic, but geo-
graphical distances and prolonged separations radically reduce the time devoted to 
face-to-face social interactions between mothers and children, as shown in the case 
of Elizabeth, from the Dominican Republic:5

5 All quotes are translated from the Italian originals and reproduced in the appendix.



•    Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini474

But you already knew your grandparents well, or was going to live 
with them a bit traumatic?
No. I was already living with them, and then my grandma has al-
ways been my mum, because when my mum was pregnant and my 
father left, it was my grandparents who brought me up, my mum 
has always worked, in the beginning, however, she worked close to 
home, she’s always been a domestic worker, so sometimes I could 
go and see her.
Elizabeth, Dominican. She had been left at the age of 10 and re-
joined her mother at 14.

My grandma took care of me, and I’m as close to her as I am to 
my mum, I grew really fond of her and I always clung to her. There 
were my cousins as well, because my uncle and aunt, my mum’s 
brother, had come to Italy in the meantime and left three children, 
my cousins. That period from two to fi ve was important for me, but I 
can say that I had another fi gure, my grandma, who took my mum’s 
place very well, perhaps even better, I don’t know, but I’ve always 
got along with her very well as well, especially with her. I love her 
loads, perhaps more than my mum. For her I’d do anything, for my 
grandma.
Clara, Ecuadorian. She had been left at the age of 2 and rejoined her 
parents at 5.

The words of Clara, a teenager of Ecuadorian origin placed in her grandmother’s 
care at the age of only two, show that affective bonds of this kind may still be strong 
many years after departure. Although Clara had by now spent more than ten years 
with her “real” mother in Italy (with whom she said she had an excellent relation-
ship), compared with the only three years spent with her grandmother, she recog-
nised the privileged nature of this bond because of its role in what she interprets to 
have been a delicate phase of her life. 

When family migratory chains involve several siblings, care may be managed 
collectively, so that the children experience new family confi gurations with respect 
not only to the caregivers but also to other members of the extended family (cous-
ins, for instance). The interviews often exhibited multiple shifts in the meanings that 
the children attributed to their intimate relationships (Mason/Tipper 2008): grand-
mothers and aunts who became like mothers, cousins who became like siblings, 
testifying to the profound reconfi gurations that the transnational management of 
care may engender, especially when it is for a longer time-period.

The children did not always have pleasant memories of the period following the 
mother’s departure. This was most frequently the case of children who, already 
grown, had established a primary bond with the mother, who could not always be 
successfully replaced by other relatives. Some children expressed their distress 
through problematic behaviour or acts of rebellion (for instance, refusing to go to 
school or to do their homework) which the substitute caregivers were not always 

(b)

(a)



Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 475

able to handle because of resistance against their disciplinary role. This could seri-
ously jeopardise the parents’ plans, forcing them to look for new arrangements, or 
to reconsider their migratory project.

When I was living with my grandma I stopped going to school 
because my parents were not there and I didn’t feel like going to 
school. So my aunt got really angry with us and she brought us to 
her house with my brother… Then we started quarrelling with her 
and we moved in with her family in another city. Then my brother 
started fainting, he was feeling very bad, we were worried, they told 
us it was because he missed my parents… In fact when we came 
here he stopped having those problems. 
Eulale, Bolivian. She had been left at the age of 14 and rejoined her 
parents at 15.

And how did your life change after your mum left?
Well.... on the one hand I felt a bit lonely, with my sister. Because... 
then my father took off...
Did he work away from home a lot?
Yes he worked... and then he didn’t give a toss... as long as I went 
to school.
So if I’ve understood correctly, your relationship with your mum 
was a bit different from the one with your dad...
Yes, in fact I got lower grades at school...
Was that because there was nobody... to take care of you, or be-
cause you felt freer, even not to do your homework...
Well, yes.
Was there anyone else besides your sister and your dad?
Yes, there was my grandma, she’d come to live with us after my 
mum left, my dad’s mother.
And what was this grandma like?
Well... she wasn’t strict. Maybe she complained to my father when 
we did something... she wasn’t bad. I didn’t like the way she cooked. 
So my sister and I always went out and about to eat...
And how did you fi nd living with your grandma?
It didn’t bother me much...
You did not appreciate her?
No, not really.
So after your mum left, you had more freedom, for example to go 
out?
Yes, much more. 
Because the person who controlled you was …
Let’s say my father, to not let us feel lonely, right? There was this 
part of liberation which... how can I put it... then we became too 

(c)

(d)



•    Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini476

free, and my father couldn’t keep hold of us anymore. But... he still 
didn’t care.
And… about your departure, did you have time to get used to the 
idea of leaving? I don’t know, did they tell you about it some months 
beforehand, or was it something sudden?
No, they told me three days before.
Ah, so close...
Yes, because... I had a showdown with my father. Because he was 
always out, he never came home... so we quarrelled with him.
You and your sister?
Yes, and also my grandpa, my mother’s father, he rang my mum, 
and she said all right, send them here. And I’d always wanted to be 
with my mum...
Vicente, Ecuadorian. He had been left at the age of 11 and rejoined 
his mother at 14.

The case of Vicente demonstrates that the father’s presence is not by itself able 
to ensure the success of caregiving, especially in the case of conjugal confl ict. En-
trusted to his grandmother, for whom he felt no particular affection, Vicente reacted 
to his mother’s departure with a sense of “liberation” which led him to neglect his 
schoolwork and to spend most of his time outside of his home with his sister. Both 
Eulale and Vicente were soon reunited with their mothers because of problems of 
this kind, and both of them willingly accepted the idea of leaving to rejoin a mother 
whose absence they felt strongly. As will be discussed in section 7, the more the 
children adjusted positively to the “new” family life in the home country, establish-
ing signifi cant relationships with the caregivers, the more the prospect of departure 
caused suffering and resistance, and the more “care substitution” processes be-
came evident. Practices of distance parenting, in fact, are not entirely able to repli-
cate the mother’s position in the family, as discussed in the next section.

6 The participation of children in transnational family practices

During the period of separation, the mothers relied on a series of rituals (Gardner/
Grillo 2002) to maintain relationships with their children from a distance. Commu-
nication (mainly telephone calls, to a lesser extent emails and video calls), visits 
(although not more than one a year on average), and remittances were the forms in 
which the mothers expressed interest, concern as well as affection and monitored 
the caring process from afar. However, it became apparent from the interviews that 
these strategies had a limited effect on keeping the quality of the relationship un-
changed over time, and they should be read in light of the age of the children, as well 
as the length of the separation.

Telephone calls and visits appeared more effective in preserving memories of 
the mothers abroad when the children had already been able to establish mean-
ingful relationships with their mothers beforehand. But they proved unsuitable for 



Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 477

developing close relationships with children who had not spent a suffi cient number 
of years with the mother. This is demonstrated by the case of Felicitas, left in her 
grandmother’s care when she was only a few years old.

Well, when I was a child I didn’t even know I had my mum. Because 
I talked to my aunts, with my grandma, who’s almost my mum… 
When I went to school I discovered I had a mum.
But didn’t you talk by phone?
Yes, but I didn’t know that it was my mum, because I was so small 
when she left me. She also came back every year but I went to 
school so we didn’t have much time to spend together…
Felicitas, Filipina. She had been left at the age of 2 and rejoined her 
mother at 12. 

In these cases, the care shifting process was particularly drastic. Felicitas had 
never felt the lack of a mother, who, in fact, she only got to know for the fi rst time 
in Italy. For these children, therefore, it was not so much the delegation of care 
that was potentially traumatic but the process of reunifi cation with their mothers 
abroad.

This does not mean, however, that the attitude of children towards their mothers 
was one of a lack of recognition. As shown by the words of Martin, who had also 
been left in the care of his grandmother for a long period of time when very young, 
his mother’s concern for his well-being, expressed through the constant sending 
of remittances and gifts, created a sense of obligation and gratitude which laid the 
basis for a recognition of motherhood which extended beyond the emotional and 
relational aspect of the care conventionally associated with it (Hondagneu-Sotelo/
Avila 1997).

I mean, my mum is always my mum… she left me when I was one 
year old, but that was because there was poverty in my village, but 
she supported me, every month she sent money for me, for school... 
so that I could eat... then she sent me presents...
Martin, Dominican. He had been left at the age of 1 and rejoined his 
mother at 13.

In addition, thanks to the level of well-being ensured by the remittances, and 
to the fact that the absence of the mother was compensated by the presence of 
signifi cant others, the experiences of transnational care recounted by many of the 
children were not always marked by the loneliness and sense of abandonment re-
ported by some studies. However, a great deal depended on the timing of the family 
migration process (age at which the child was left and rejoined), on the frequency 
of transnational family practices and on the way children experienced the change in 
family confi gurations and shifts in care, as recounted in the previous section. The 
type of transnational experience therefore infl uenced the way in which the children 
evaluated the prospect of leaving abroad and negotiation about the migratory path; 

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•    Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini478

negotiation which, as we will discuss in the next session, could be more or less 
confl ictual. Whilst for some children rejoining their mothers was a desirable option 
because it matched their expectations in terms of care, for others it represented a 
major change which required radical adjustments in their inner lives – adjustments 
that sometimes were even more diffi cult than those experienced after the mother’s 
departure.

7 Negotiating the children’s departure

At the time of their departures, for the majority of mothers the purpose of their mi-
gration was to accumulate money with the prospect of eventually returning home. It 
was only over the course of time that the conditions necessary for stable settlement 
came about, and the children therefore realised that it was not their mothers who 
would return, but they themselves who would have to leave. The children did not 
always participate fully in negotiations about their migratory path, especially when 
they were still too young to do so (Bushin 2009). However, as they grew, their moth-
ers tended to see them as active subjects and negotiated with them on the matter.

When did you realise that it was you who’d have to leave?
Ah… that was tough, because I had to leave everything, my grand-
parents, my cousins... And when I left, I remember I felt sad … even 
sadder than when my mum had left! And my grandma started cry-
ing... it was really awful.
So how did you feel about leaving, were you happy?
Yes, I was even enthusiastic about getting to know another country, 
learning another language... The nostalgia, the pain at leaving my 
grandparents, came later, but just before I left... I was happy. 
There was never a moment when your mum told you to come and 
you said no?
No, never, even before leaving I remember that she asked me if I 
was sure that I wanted to come… And then when we were here, she 
asked me if I regretted it… Do you want to go back, do you want to 
return... but I’ve never returned.
Mariana, Ecuadorean. She had been left at the age of 10 and re-
joined her mother at 13.

Mariana’s words highlight the ambiguity of feelings which many children ex-
pressed at the prospect of leaving: on the one hand, the enthusiasm about discov-
ering a new country and the desire to be with their mothers again; on the other, the 
necessity to leave behind a system of social and affective relationships established 
over time. The children’s departure entailed separation not only from their relatives 
but also from friends, school environments and their cities. It was not rare for some 
of them, especially the teenagers, to resist this prospect of radical change.

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Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 479

I didn’t want to come here, nor did my sister. It was October, the 
9th of October 2006, at around eight, I’d gone dancing at a bar with 
some friends. When I came home I went to bed and I didn’t see any-
thing. In the morning I saw all the suitcases ready and off we went, 
because she [the mother] knew that if she had told me beforehand, 
I’d have run away to my father.
So she didn’t tell you?
No, then she got my aunt, her aunt to come from the USA to con-
vince us to come.
Carolina, Dominican. She had been left at the age of 11 and rejoined 
her mother at 14.

And then coming here, what was it like?
Ah (laughs)... bad, bad...
What was it that...
Ah, fi rst the fact that it was lies that got me here... my mum and dad 
told me that they’d brought me here for a holiday, but then I’d go 
back, so I came thinking I’d be here for only a short while...
And if they’d immediately told you that you had come to stay, what 
do you think you’d have said?
Ah... I certainly wouldn’t have wanted it... but I’d have done it any-
way. I’d have done it anyway because it’s what they say that counts, 
not what I say.
Lorena, Ecuadorean. She had been left at the age of 9 and rejoined 
her parents at 13.

Resistance by children was diffi cult to handle for the parents, who sometimes 
resorted to “half truths” or “negotiated” the departure on certain conditions. For 
example, some children gained the “concession” that they could complete their 
schooling in the home country; others were offered a holiday as a sort of “trial pe-
riod”, on conclusion of which they would be free to choose whether to stay or not. 
Family reunifi cation, therefore, was not a straightforward process. Although almost 
all of the children interviewed had accepted the prospect of settling permanently in 
Italy, some of them had siblings who had refused to leave or who had returned to the 
home country after some time in Italy. These processes should be viewed in light 
of the adjustments that the children had been obliged to make in both the country 
of origin and Italy; adjustments which differed greatly according to age, particular 
experiences of transnational family life and the relations that the children had been 
able to maintain, but also to recreate over time, with their mother abroad.

(h)

(i)



•    Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini480

8 Family and intimate relations in Italy: discontinuities and new 
beginnings

The migrating children were forced to cope with radical changes in all spheres of 
their everyday lives, from family to friendships, to school. 

Consequently, the fi rst period spent abroad was particularly diffi cult, even for 
those children who had wanted to leave most. Not always fully aware of what await-
ed them, the children had to familiarise themselves with a new reality while at the 
same time coping with the loss of what they had left behind – a loss that take on 
different connotations according to the particular experience of separation. 

For the children left in the care of other relatives at a very young age or for a 
longer period of time, living with the mother sometimes was an entirely new experi-
ence because they had no memories of the period prior to her departure (Phoenix 
2010).

When I came here I was quite happy because she was my mum… 
but I also felt I didn’t know who she was, she was like a stranger 
to me. When we talk she tells me that some things had happened 
which were quite painful for her. At the beginning we were a bit 
distant, I drew back when she wanted to hug me… then, step by 
step, we have partly overcome that, but at that time for me it was 
something instinctive, I held back from doing some things because 
it was a long time since we had been together. Now they see us in 
the street and they tell us we look like sisters, we have a beautiful 
relationship. We’ve needed some time.
Jenny, Ecuadorian. She had been left at the age of 6 and rejoined 
her mother at 13.

At the beginning, I was really happy because I could see my mum 
again after all those years… but then... I expected my mum to be 
different... as time passed I saw that she was not like I had imag-
ined... and then I don’t call my mum “mum”, I call her by her name. 
I imagined I’d fi nd... but then… life here is monotonous, she always 
has to go to work, even on Saturdays and Sundays... I see the moth-
ers of my schoolmates… the mum of my friend is a real mum... 
because she worries about her daughter, she helps her, she calls 
her every day to hear how she is…my mum calls me hardly twice a 
week. When she gets home from work, we never talk… because in 
the evenings she still has to work as a cleaner in a garage … so we 
don’t communicate much… we’re not on the same wavelength.
Marisol, Peruvian. She had been left at the age of 7 and rejoined her 
mother at 15.

The children were very often unclear about the rhythms and lifestyles of their 
mothers, as from abroad, the latter did not always involve them in these aspects of 

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Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 481

their lives. Girls like Marisol expressed high care expectations following their past 
experiences but also on what they observed around them; expectations unlikely to 
be satisfi ed in this migratory context.

However, the accounts of the children about how intimacy had been regained 
with their mothers varied greatly in terms of times and outcomes. Girls like Kimberly 
and Carolina, who had rejoined their mothers at a relatively advanced age after a 
period of rather brief separation, did not remember the transition as particularly 
problematic: Their mothers had already been signifi cant fi gures for them before 
departure. And over time, they were able to prevent estrangement with intense and 
active involvement in distance communication.

When you arrived here, what was it like living with your mum again 
after not seeing each other for such a long time?
Ah… at the beginning it was a bit diffi cult, right. But then we got 
used to it...
Do you remember any confl icts or embarrassment?
Well, perhaps some embarrassment at the beginning, yes, but it 
didn’t last very long...
So you don’t remember it as particularly diffi cult?
No, no.
Kimberly, Colombian. She had been left at the age of 9 and rejoined 
her mother at 12.

And what was it like, living with your mum again?
Ah... seeing her again was wonderful... although everything was 
completely different because, as I told you, my mum has always 
worked, and so it was never my mum who told me “do this”, “do 
that”, it was my grandma who cooked. It was completely different. 
It was her who told me to get up, make the bed, and then we’d eat 
together, it was really... it was wonderful.
Carolina, Dominican. She had been left at the age of 11 and re-
joined her mother at 14.

In other cases, the process was more complicated and required greater effort 
and more time. Nadia, for instance, had been separated from her mother for fi ve 
years, and after rejoining her (at the age of 12) had felt a lack of knowledge and 
trust in her which she said had harmed their family life for a certain period. The care 
needs of the children, therefore, were relative not only concerning the time that the 
mothers spent with them but also concerning the quality of communication and the 
level of trust and mutual knowledge, which was partly affected by distance. Accord-
ing to Nadia, the telephone calls between her mother and her had not been enough 
to maintain a “real” relationship, which therefore had to be revived in Italy.

She left fi rst and came here, and left us there, right? So it’s not that 
we had a relationship... I mean, I couldn’t remember the things that 

(m)

(n)

(l)



•    Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini482

we did when we were there, because I was too little. And the whole 
time she was here, on her own, we didn’t have a relationship, right? 
So the thing is... the result is, that we can’t really talk, tell each other 
things. For instance if I like someone, I fi nd it diffi cult, fi rst more, 
now it’s getting better, also my sister ... 
But were you (your sister and you) a little bit angry because she had 
left you behind, or…?
No, no, it wasn’t like that, we didn’t feel hurt because she had left 
us, no, it wasn’t like that, she’d gone because she had to. Then it’s 
not that she had gone away and forgotten us, that she didn’t speak 
to us, that she didn’t call us, no. In fact, if we’re here, if we’re still 
studying, and if we studied there, it’s because of my mum, so I don’t 
feel resentful… it was only a habit, because I didn’t have much con-
fi dence in her, I couldn’t do it… but now it’s getting better.
Nadia, Ecuadorian. She had been left at the age of 7 and rejoined 
her mother at 12.

As Nadia’s words show, transnational practices (telephone calls and remittances, 
for instance) were useful for averting the risk that the mother’s departure might be 
interpreted as “abandonment” (in fact, none of the children felt that they had been 
“abandoned” by their mothers). But they were insuffi cient in maintaining the bond 
of intimacy between mothers and children, and this “gap” in intimacy and reciprocal 
knowledge tended to become evident when the children migrated abroad. 

In some cases, even after many years in Italy, the children continued to identify 
the caregiver left behind in the home country as their principal affective referent, 
with whom they continued to maintain extremely signifi cant bonds at a distance. 
For Antonio, a Dominican boy who had experienced early and long separation from 
his “second mother”, she was still his main affective referent. He felt his aunt was 
the one who knew him best, who knew best how to support him, and with whom he 
felt a bond equivalent to a “true” maternal relationship. This does not mean that An-
tonio’s biological mother was irrelevant to him: Quite contrary, he held her in high 
regard and respected her. He was deeply grateful for the efforts that she had made 
for him, but it was evident that the two fi gures were not replaceable, but rather com-
plementary, in that they could offer different things.

I call her (the aunt living in the Dominican Republic) even two or 
three times a week, sometimes I’m cheerful, really cheerful, oth-
er times I try to be cheerful but can’t manage it, and so she says 
“what’s the problem?”. I don’t tell her anything, I don’t tell her, but 
as soon as she gives me two or three words of advice, I feel better. 
Like my mum here, I love her, I love her very much. When my mum 
here, my real mum, gives me some advice I take it… but it doesn’t 
raise my spirits like the advice from the one down there. It’s a com-
pletely different thing. I slept in the same bed with the one in Santo 
Domingo until I was seven. I don’t have the same intimacy with the 

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Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 483

one here, even if I don’t see the one in Santo Domingo every day, 
I’ve seen her only for four months when I went back after I’d been 
here for fi ve years, but for me it was the same as when I was little, 
and still now it’s the same thing when I go back. Instead, I don’t 
have the same confi dence in my real mum here, neither in speaking 
nor reacting. At the beginning, I felt sad because I couldn’t see my 
mum in Santo Domingo every day, my mum here helped me to get 
over it, she did everything so that I felt better, she gave me so very, 
very, very much. She did everything to let me have what I wanted 
if it wasn’t something that was too much of a hassle to get for me. 
If it was something that she thought I shouldn’t do, that I shouldn’t 
have, she said no.
Antonio, Dominican. He had been left at the age of 1 and rejoined 
his mother at 9.

However, the accounts of the children often wavered ambivalently between 
gratitude towards their mothers for their efforts (in paying for their studies or giving 
them the chance to migrate) and accusations of an inadequate emotional “perform-
ance” more or less irreparably compromised by distance (Parreñas 2010). This ac-
cusation tended to be used in situations of confl ict, as if only intimacy could legiti-
mate the exercise of authority.

At the beginning I was quite angry towards her (the mother) be-
cause she was criticising me for the things I did, for the way I grew 
up… For instance, I was unable to do household chores because my 
grandma did everything, and my mum was saying “but didn’t your 
grandma teach you anything?” But she can’t criticise my grandma, 
because she was the one who brought me up while my mum didn’t 
see me in my childhood and my teenage years. […] On the one hand 
I think that I would have died without the money she sent, but on the 
other hand I also think that she can’t criticise me because she has 
never been with me.
Marisol, Peruvian. She was left at the age of 7 and rejoined her 
mother at 15.

She sometimes says that we never listen to her, and I go nuts. I tell 
her I never saw her for four years and I’m used to doing it this way. 
And she comes and starts yelling “do this”, “do that” … but then in 
the end I do what she tells me….
And what does she say?
That it’s not her fault because she did it for our own good... that if 
you want one thing you must sacrifi ce another...
And do you think she did it for you? 

(p)

(q)



•    Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini484

Yes, in the end here I have more things… also there I had my friends 
but there was no possibility to go to work, at sixteen you can do 
nothing … while here I can do all the things.
Loris, Ukrainian. He was left at the age of 8 and rejoined his mother 
at 12.

As the case of Loris shows, even the children who recognised the advantages 
of migrating abroad, and who therefore did not regret leaving the home country, 
sometimes still blamed their mothers for having been “absent”. Tensions of this kind 
obviously tended to be more complex when the children did not (yet) appreciate the 
outcomes of their migration. Just like the adaptation to the mother, the adjustment 
to the new country also followed a largely common pattern, with an initial desire to 
return to the home country followed by the acceptance of the migratory path. It was 
a pattern, however, whose timing varied greatly from case to case.

9 From the desire to return to the desire to stay: changes in the 
migratory path in the eyes of the children

The majority of the children interviewed remembered the early period spent in Italy 
as marked by a more or less intense desire to return. This desire was stronger, the 
greater the disappointment with Italian reality, and the more intense the bonds with 
those left behind in the home country.

In two cases, the parents had decided to give in to their children and let them go 
back to the home country for some months. But then the children returned to Italy 
(once and for all, they said). In both cases, these were children whose experience of 
separation from their caregivers had been rather traumatic, and in both cases the 
return followed a crisis (educational and relational) shortly after arrival in the new 
country. In both cases, the purpose of these processes of “transnational disciplin-
ing” (Orellana et al. 2001) was to develop the children’s greater awareness of the 
opportunities available in the two countries, and thus gain their agreement with the 
parent’s choice.

I soon quit school, when I’d fi nished middle school, because I’d re-
turned to Santo Domingo and didn’t want to come back [to Italy]. I 
mean, at the beginning I didn’t want to go, I went there and I didn’t 
want to return [to Italy], but after not even three or four months I 
did want to return, I couldn’t stand it there any longer. Because life 
there is different from what it is here. During the fi rst months you 
are fi ne, you see your friends again, I went here and there, but after 
a while I said to myself this isn’t the life that I want, I could never 
fi nd a job here like I could in Italy. So I came back here, and as soon 
as I was back I started to work, I mean, at the age of fi fteen I started 
working. Now that I’m here I’m happy to be here. To tell the truth, I’d 
only go to Santo Domingo for holidays, because by now I’ve spent 

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Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 485

most of my life here. I spent nine years in Santo Domingo but I’ve 
been here for ten. I preferred to come here to make a future and 
only go there for holidays.
Antonio, Dominican. He was left at the age of 1 and rejoined his 
mother at 9.

As the case of Antonio shows, this maturing process, centred around a project of 
emancipation and growth, may begin at a very early age. Acceptance of migration 
as an ambivalent process which takes time and is described in terms of maturing or 
inner growth, and therefore of improvement, is a feature that emerged from numer-
ous other interviews as well. This was evidently a strategy that the children adopted 
to make sense of the many and often painful losses which migration entails. In fact, 
only one of the girls interviewed (who had rejoined her mother less than one year 
previously) declared that she wanted to return to her country of origin because she 
was disappointed with her experience of life in Italy. In all the other cases, therefore, 
the children had been able to develop positive forms of adaptation to their new 
reality. 

10 Conclusions

In this article we have sought to provide an interpretation of how children who rejoin 
their mothers abroad experience the diverse family geographical confi gurations 
produced by international migration. And we have tried to highlight the active role 
that they play in this process. It has often been claimed that transnational mother-
hood is based on new meanings and practices (such as phone calls, home visits, 
remittances…), although to date these have predominantly been investigated from 
the standpoint of the mother. Yet, the voices of the children are crucial for under-
standing not only the effectiveness of transnational family practices in reproducing 
intimacy at a distance but also how the family migration process impacts on the 
meanings that children attach to changed family geographies and belongings.

The study has shown that migration is a crucial process that induces families 
to change their confi gurations (Widmer 2010) in terms of household composition, 
chores performed by family members, responsibilities assigned to relatives, and 
the meanings that individuals attribute to their intimate ties (Mason/Tipper 2008). 
Female work migration heightens the importance of extended family ties because 
fostering care arrangements are needed for sometimes very long periods of time 
and on wide geographical scales.

The changing geographies of family life can be experienced more or less trau-
matically by children, depending on a range of factors. In particular, the age at which 
the children were left behind and reunited, the duration of separations and the in-
volvement of extended family ties prior to the mothers’ departure are critical for 
understanding the different experiences that the children interviewed recalled in 
terms of both transnational caregiving and family reunifi cation abroad. Transnation-
al family practices seem more effi cient in the case of brief separations experienced 



•    Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini486

by children who had already been able to establish solid relationships with their 
mothers prior to departure. On the contrary, children left at a very early age in the 
care of other relatives soon tend to develop a sense of estrangement which cannot 
effectively be countered by telephone calls and temporary visits. 

Whilst some children (especially the older ones, almost exclusively cared for 
by their mothers in infancy and left with people of little signifi cance to them) had 
indeed experienced the separation as marked by a care defi cit, others (especially 
those left behind when very young and/or for long periods of time with signifi cant 
family fi gures) had developed relationships with their caregivers entirely compara-
ble to those with a mother. This type of experience proved crucial for understanding 
how the children would cope with migration and adaptation in the new country. Far 
from being some sort of “baggage” (children whose migratory paths are predeter-
mined by the will of their parents, Orellana et al. 2001), children express specifi c 
orientations and desires in terms of geographical family confi gurations. These can 
be more or less coincidental with those of their caregivers, and they should be 
understood in light of family confi gurations which have been more or less radically 
altered by the migration process.

The children who had suffered most from the separation from their mothers 
and from temporary transfer to the care by people with little signifi cance to them, 
tended to consider the prospect of departure as less problematic than did those 
who had been cared for by truly “second mothers”. The latter children remembered 
the experience of separation from their caregivers as the most traumatic loss in 
their migratory path, and they tended to express stronger opposition to the idea 
of departure. However, this does not mean that the fi gure of the biological mother 
was irrelevant to these children. Also children with radical experiences of estrange-
ment held their mothers in high regard and felt a profound sense of gratitude to-
wards them for their support from both afar and in Italy, even though they did not 
play the role of their most relevant affective referents. Consequently, it would be 
wrong to claim that experiences of transnational motherhood are accompanied by 
a break in family relationships, by a lack of recognition of maternal fi gures and by 
a loss of solidarity and cohesion. Rather, they can be characterised by a changed 
conception of motherhood founded more on providing than on emotional intimacy 
and by a complementarity set of more maternal fi gures. However, the experience 
of such a different kind of motherhood is somewhat ambivalent, as evidenced by 
the accusations of inadequacy sometimes made by several children against their 
biological mothers. These accusations tended to be made in situations of confl ict as 
strategies intended to delegitimise the authority exercised by biological mothers in 
Italy. Interestingly, they were made by children from very different countries – from 
Peru to Ukraine – and even by children who declared that they had actually received 
good care while their mothers were abroad. Normative constructs of motherhood 
that emphasise the weight of “being there” could therefore furnish symbolic ma-
terial on which the children could draw to handle confl icts, which are quite often 
driven by the diffi cult experiences of integration experienced in Italy, as well as by 
the pain that most of them suffered in leaving loved ones behind. Inevitably, once 
children are in Italy, they compare their experiences of care and being “mothered” 



Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 487

with those received from their caregivers as well as with the experiences of the chil-
dren around them – something which induced some of them to express criticisms 
in this regard. 

A long-period approach which considers the time that mothers and children had 
spent apart, but also together in the new country, gives a new perspective on the 
impact of separations on the adaptation by children when they rejoin their moth-
ers (Phoenix 2010). Over time, many of the children studied had been able to (re)
build a sense of mutual knowledge, trust and affection with their mothers and to 
establish the intimacy which transnational practices had failed to maintain. Even for 
the children whose principal affective referents continued to be the caregivers left 
in the home country, the prospect of experiencing a shared migratory path, as well 
as their integration prospects (in terms of schooling, work and willingness to reside 
Italy), were not thwarted. However, for all the children interviewed (even those most 
eager to leave), reunifi cation was initially a moment fraught with challenges and 
ambivalences, between desires to stay or to return which were more or less radi-
cal according to the type of separation experienced. The fact that the majority of 
the interviewees did not regret their departure, but instead interpreted it in light of 
a maturing process founded on an increasing capacity to appreciate the best (es-
sentially economic) opportunities available in Italy, should be interpreted in terms 
of the different meanings that care relationships assume over the life course. For 
these children, the choice between remaining in Italy or returning to the country of 
origin was not determined solely by the desire to be close to those considered their 
principal caregivers. It was also determined by a desire to gain emancipation and 
independence, to take responsibility for one’s own fate and to create concrete op-
portunities for the future.

In summary, our study shows that a mother’s migration can radically challenge 
the correlation of family and household even in regard to the members of the nucle-
ar family. International migration is a process that induces family confi gurations to 
change in terms of both household composition and the meanings of the ties and 
tasks assigned to relatives. The need to share the children’s care with other female 
relatives heightens the importance of the extended family, giving rise to multiple 
ways of being mothered and cared for which can be better appreciated drawing on 
children’s views as they change in time and space. 

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Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 491

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guration von Migrantenfamilien: Narrationen von Kindern nach der Zusammenführung mit ihren 
Müttern in Italien”, DOI 10.4232/10.CPoS-2013-01de or URN urn:nbn:de:bib-cpos-2013-01de4, at 
http://www.comparativepopulationstudies.de.

Date of submission: 08.09.2011  Date of Acceptance: 21.05.2012

Paola Bonizzoni ( ). Università degli Studi di Milano, Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali e
Politiche. Milano, Italy. E-Mail: paola.bonizzoni@gmail.com
URL: http://unimi.academia.edu/paolabonizzoni

Luisa Leonini. Università degli Studi di Milano, Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali e 
Politiche. Milano, Italy. E-Mail: luisa.leonini@unimi.it
URL: http://www.socpol.unimi.it/persone.php?idp=49&lang=ita&st=sta&idq=20



•    Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini492

Appendix

Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families: Narratives of Children 
Reunited with their Mothers in Italy

Invece i tuoi nonni tu già li conoscevi bene, o è stato un po’ trauma-
tico andare a vivere da loro?
No… io già vivevo lì con loro e poi mia nonna è sempre stata mia 
madre, perché quando mia mamma è rimasta incinta e mio padre 
se ne è andato quelli che mi hanno fatto crescere a me sono stati i 
miei nonni, mia mamma ha sempre lavorato, prima lavorava però 
vicino a casa mia, mia mamma è sempre stata una domestica, così 
io qualche volta andavo a trovarla…

Mia nonna mi ha tenuto ed io mi sono legata a lei come fosse mia 
mamma, mi sono affezionata tantissimo e le stavo sempre attacca-
ta, c’erano anche i miei cuginetti perché anche i miei zii, il fratello di 
mia mamma, erano venuti in Italia nel frattempo ed avevano lascia-
to tre cugini i tre loro fi gli. Quel periodo da 2 a 5 anni è importante 
comunque, però posso dire che ho avuto un’altra fi gura che è quella 
di mia nonna che ha saputo sostituirla molto bene, anche meglio 
forse non lo so, però sono stata molto bene anche con lei, cioè so-
prattutto con lei, io le voglio un casino di bene, forse più bene che a 
mia mamma. Per lei farei di tutto, per mia nonna.

Quando stavo con mia nonna non andavo più a scuola, perché non 
c’erano i miei genitori e non avevo più voglia di andare a scuola. 
Così mia zia si è arrabbiata e mi ha portato da lei con mio fratello. 
Poi mia zia ha incominciato ad arrabbiarsi e mi ha portato in un’altra 
città dove viveva con la famiglia. Lì mio fratello cominciava a sve-
nire, stava male, ci ha fatto preoccupare, la mancanza dei genitori, 
ci hanno detto… una volta che siamo arrivati qua non ha avuto più 
problemi.

E com’è che è cambiata la tua vita, dopo la partenza di tua mam-
ma?
Mah... da un lato mi sentivo un po’ solo, con mia sorella. Perchè... 
mio padre poi prendeva e se ne andava...
Lavorava tanto fuori casa?
Sì lavorava... e poi non gliene fregava tanto, cioè... a lui bastava che 
io andavo a scuola.
Quindi il rapporto che avevi con tua mamma mi pare di capire che 
era un po’ diverso da quello che avevi con tuo papà...
Sì, infatti i voti mi si sono abbassati...

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(b)

(c)

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Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 493

Ma perchè, perchè non c’era più nessuno che ti... curasse, perchè ti 
sentivi più libero, magari di non fare i compiti...
Eh sì.
Quindi oltre a tua sorella e a tuo papà c’era qualcun altro?
Sì, c’era mia nonna, era venuta a vivere lì dopo che mia mamma era 
partita, la mamma di mio papà.
E com’era questa nonna?
Mah... non era severa. Magari si lamentava con mio padre quando 
facevamo qualcosa però... non era cattiva. Non mi piaceva come 
cucinava. Per quello anche io e mia sorella eravamo sempre in giro, 
a mangiare fuori...
E come è stato ritrovarsi a vivere con tua nonna...
Non è che me ne fregava molto...
Non la consideravi granchè?
No, non proprio.
Ma dopo che tua mamma è partita il tuo grado di libertà, ad esem-
pio nell’uscire, così, è aumentato?
Sì, molto.
Perchè quindi quella che vi controllava era...
Diciamo che mio padre per non farci sentire soli, no? C’era quella 
parte di liberazione che... che noi l’abbiamo, come ti posso dire... 
che poi siamo diventati troppo liberi, e mio padre non ce la faceva 
più a tenerci. Però lui... continuava a fregarsene.
E... per quanto riguarda la tua partenza, hai avuto modo di prepa-
rarti all’idea di partire, non so, te lo hanno anticipato qualche mese 
prima o è stata una cosa improvvisa?
No, me lo hanno detto tre giorni prima.
Ah, così rapidamente...
Sì, perchè... praticamente è successo un casino con mio padre. 
Dato che era sempre fuori, non tornava mai a casa... allora abbiamo 
litigato con lui.
Tu e tua sorella?
Sì, e anche mio nonno, il padre di mia madre, ha telefonato a mia 
madre e così lei ha detto va bene, allora mandali di qua. E anch’io 
ho sempre voluto stare con mia madre...

Beh, io quando ero piccola non sapevo che avevo mia madre. Per-
ché io comunque parlavo sempre con le mie zie, con mia nonna, 
mia nonna è quasi mia madre... Poi quando sono andata a scuola, 
ho scoperto che avevo una madre.
Ma quindi non la sentivi neanche per telefono?
Si, però non sapevo che era mia madre perché ero tanto piccola 
quando mi ha lasciata, poi ogni anno tornava, però io andavo a scuo-
la e quindi, cioè il tempo per stare insieme non ce lo avevamo.

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•    Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini494

Cioè, mia mamma è sempre mia mamma… mi ha lasciato quando 
avevo 1 anno ma perché c’era povertà al mio paese, mi manteneva, 
mi mandava tutti i mesi i soldi per me, per la scuola… per mangia-
re… poi mi mandava i regali…

E quando invece hai capito che saresti stata tu a dover partire?
Eh... questo è stato più duro, perchè ho dovuto lasciare tutto, i miei 
nonni, i miei cugini... E quando io poi sono partita mi ricordo che 
sentivo la tristezza... di più di quando è partita mia madre! E mia 
nonna si è messa a piangere.. è stato brutto, veramente.
E quindi come te la vivevi la faccenda di partire, eri felice?
Sì, ero anche entusiasta, di conoscere un altro paese, di imparare 
un’altra lingua... La nostalgia, il dolore di lasciare i miei nonni, così 
è venuto dopo, appena prima di partire, però... ero felice.
Quindi non c’è stato mai un momento in cui quando tua mamma ha 
detto vieni tu hai detto no...
No, assolutamente, anche prima di partite mi ricordo che me lo ave-
va chiesto sei sicura se ti va di venire... E ancora poi quando erava-
mo qua, mi chiedeva se mi ero pentita... Vuoi tornare, vuoi tornare... 
ma io non sono mai tornata.

Io qui non ci volevo venire e neanche mia sorella… Era ottobre, il 9 
ottobre 2006, praticamente alle otto io sono andata a ballare ad un 
pub con alcuni amici, quando sono tornata a casa mi sono messa a 
letto e non ho visto niente, al mattino ho visto tutte le valigie pronte 
e sono partita, perché lo sapeva che se me lo diceva io scappavo 
da mio padre.
Quindi non te lo ha detto?
No, ha fatto venire mia zia, sua zia, dagli Usa per farci convincere 
a venire.

E poi per te venire di qui com’è stato?
Eh (ride)... brutto, brutto...
Cos’è che...
Eh, intanto il fatto che io sono arrivata qui con le bugie... mia ma-
dre e mio padre mi hanno detto che mi portavano qui per fare una 
vacanza, ma che sarei ritornata, io venivo qui pensando che sarei 
rimasta per poco...
E se ti avessero detto subito che venivi per rimanere che cosa pensi 
che avresti detto?
Eh... non avrei voluto, sicuramente... però l’avrei fatto lo stesso. 
L’avrei fatto lo stesso perchè comunque è quello che dicono loro 
che conta, mica quello che dico io.

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Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 495

Quando sono arrivata un po’ ero felice perché era mia mamma… 
ma un po’ sentivo di non riconoscerla, mi sembrava una persona 
strana. Quando parliamo lei mi dice che sono successe cose che 
le hanno fatto un po’ male. Quando sono arrivata eravamo un po’ 
distanti, io mi tiravo indietro dai suoi abbracci… Poi a poco a poco 
abbiamo recuperato, ma era istintivo, mi trattenevo da fare certe 
cose, perché era tanto che non stavo con lei. Adesso ci vedono per 
strada e dicono che sembriamo sorelle, abbiamo una bellissima re-
lazione. C’è voluto tempo.

All’inizio ero felicissima perché dopo tutti questi anni potevo vedere 
mia madre… ma poi… mi aspettavo che mia madre fosse diversa… 
con il passare del tempo ho visto che non era come mi immagina-
vo… e poi la mia mamma non la chiamo proprio mamma la chiamo 
con il suo nome. Io mi immaginavo di trovare… ma poi la vita qua è 
monotona deve sempre andare al lavoro, anche al sabato e alla do-
menica…io vedo anche le mamma delle mie compagne di scuola…
la mamma della mia amica è proprio la mamma per me…perché 
si preoccupa della fi glia, l’aiuta, tutti i giorni la chiama per sapere 
come sta… Mia mamma mi chiama a malapena due volte alla set-
timana, quando arriva a casa dal lavoro allora non parliamo mai. 
Alla sera deve lavorare ancora in un offi cina a pulire e quindi non 
abbiamo molta comunicazione, non c’è molta sintonia.

Quando poi sei arrivata qua, com’è stato tornare a vivere con tua 
mamma dopo tanto tempo che non vi vedevate?
Eh… all’inizio è stato un po’ diffi cile, no? Però poi ci siamo abitua-
te…
Ti ricordi confl itti, o imbarazzo?
Mah, forse un po’ di imbarazzo all’inizio sì, però non è durato tan-
to…
Quindi non te la ricordi come una cosa diffi cile?
No, no…

E come è stato quindi tornare a vivere con tua mamma?
E… rivederla è stato bellissimo… anche se poi era tutto diverso, 
perché mia mamma come ti ho detto ha sempre lavorato, e quindi 
mai è capitato che era mia mamma che mi diceva fai questo fai 
quello, era mia nonna che cucinava. Era tutto diverso. Era lei che 
mi diceva alzati, devi sistemare il letto, e poi si mangiava tutti e due 
insieme era proprio… era bellissimo.

Lei è partita per prima ed è venuta qua e ci ha lasciato di là no? 
Quindi non è che avevamo un rapporto… cioè io non mi ricordavo 
delle cose che facevamo quando eravamo di là, perché ero picco-

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(k)

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(m)

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•    Paola Bonizzoni, Luisa Leonini496

la… E tutto il tempo che lei è stata qua, da sola, non avevamo un 
rapporto, no? E quindi, questa cosa… i frutti sono questi, cioè che 
non riusciamo proprio magari a parlare, a raccontarsi, ad esempio 
se a me piace qualcuno, trovo diffi coltà, prima di più, ora già un po’ 
meglio, anche mia sorella… 
Ma eravate magari un po’ arrabbiate con lei per il fatto che vi aveva 
lasciati, o…
No, no, non era quello, non perché eravamo ferite del fatto che ci 
aveva lasciato, no, non era questo, lei era andata perché c’era biso-
gno, poi non è che era andata via e ci aveva dimenticato, che non 
ci parlava, che non ci chiamava, no… Anzi, se noi siamo qua, se noi 
stiamo ancora studiando, e se noi studiavamo là era per mia madre, 
quindi io non ho rancore… Era solo un’abitudine, perché non avevo 
tanta fi ducia con lei, non riuscivo…però adesso va meglio.

Io la chiamo 2-3 volte la settimana, alcune volte sorridente, con un 
sorriso vero, altre volte tento di farlo ma non riesco e lei mi dice “che 
problema hai?”. Non le dico niente, non glielo dico, però appena mi 
da due o tre consiglietti, due o tre parole e mi rianima. Altrettanto 
la mia mamma che sta qua, io le voglio bene, tanto bene. Quando 
la mia mamma che sta qua, la mia vera mamma, mi da dei consigli 
io li prendo… però non mi rianima come mi rianima quella che sta 
giù. È tutta un’altra cosa. Io con quella che sta a Santo Domingo ho 
dormito fi no ai 7 anni. Io con quella che sta qua non ho la stessa 
confi denza, anche se quella di Santo Domingo non la vedo tutti i 
giorni, l’ho visto solo quei 4 mesi che sono tornato giù a Santo Do-
mingo dopo 5 anni, ma per me era la stessa cosa come quando ero 
piccolo e anche adesso se ritorno è la stessa cosa. Invece con la mia 
vera mamma che sta qua non ho la stessa confi denza né di parlare, 
né di reagire. Quando all’inizio stavo male perché non vedevo tutti 
i giorni mia mamma che sta a Santo Domingo, però quella che sta 
qua mi ha appoggiato a non star male, ha fatto tutto perché io stia 
bene, mi ha dato tanto, tanto, tanto. Qualunque cosa volessi faceva 
di tutto per farmela avere, se non era una cosa che era un casino 
per lei farmi avere; se era una cosa che per lei io non dovevo fare, 
non dovevo avere mi diceva questo no.

Prima ero un po’ arrabbiata con lei (la madre) perché mi criticava su 
tutto quello che facevo, su come sono cresciuta… Per esempio non 
ero capace proprio sulle faccende domestiche perché a casa face-
va tutto mia nonna e su questo mia mamma diceva “ma la nonna 
non ti ha insegnato niente?” Ma lei non può criticare la mia nonna 
perché è lei che mi ha cresciuta mentre mia mamma non ha vissuto 
tutta la mia infanzia la mia adolescenza. […] Da una parte se non 

(o)

(p)



Shifting Geographical Confi gurations in Migrant Families    • 497

mi mandava i soldi morivo però dall’altra penso che lei non mi può 
criticare perché non è stata mai con me.

A volte lei dice che noi non l’ascoltiamo mai e io inizio a sclerare. Io 
le dico che per 4 anni non l’ho più vista e che sono abituato così. E 
lei invece arriva e si mette a urlare fai quello, fai quello… ma poi alla 
fi ne io faccio quello che mi dice…
E lei cosa dice?
Che non è colpa sua e che l’ha fatto per il nostro bene… che se vuoi 
una cosa devi sacrifi carne un’altra…
E tu pensi che lei l’abbia fatto per voi? 
Si alla fi ne qua ho più cose… anche là avevo gli amici ma non c’è 
possibilità di andare a lavorare, a 16 anni non puoi fare niente… 
mentre qua posso fare tutte le cose…

Dopo un poco io la scuola l’ho lasciata, fi nite le medie perché sono 
tornato a Santo Domingo e non volevo più tornare. Cioè, all’inizio 
non volevo andare, sono tornato là e non volevo più tornare, dopo 
neanche 3-4 mesi volevo ritornare, non ce la facevo più di là. Perché 
la vita là è diversa da qua. Stai benissimo i primi mesi, rivedi i tuoi 
amici, io giravo di qua e di là, ma dopo un po’ mi sono detto questa 
non è la vita che io voglio, io qua un lavoro non me lo potrei trova-
re come lo potrei trovare in Italia. Così sono tornato qua e appena 
tornato ho cominciato a lavorare, cioè io a 15 anni ho cominciato a 
lavorare. Adesso che sono qua sono contentissimo di essere qua. 
Se ti devo dire la verità io a Santo Domingo ci andrei solo per le 
vacanze, perché ormai ho passato la maggior parte della mia vita 
qua. Nove anni li ho passati a Santo Domingo ma ormai qua sono 
dieci. Ho preferito venire qua farmi un futuro e andare là solo per 
le vacanze.

(q)

(r)



© Federal Institute for Population Research 2013 – All rights reserved

Published by / Herausgegeben von
Prof. Dr. Norbert F. Schneider

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