The effects of trans-nationalism on infant development:

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• The effects of trans-nationalism on infant
  development
• are we meeting the mental health needs of our
  youngest victims of globalization?
• Yvonne Bohr
• La Marsh Research Centre, York University ,
  Toronto, Canada
• Presented at Transcultural mental health in a
  changing world Building a global response
• Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 29 31, 2007.

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Acknowledgments

• The parents who shared their stories
• York University lab
• Natasha Mullen
• Jessica Chan
• At Aisling Discoveries Child Family Centre
• Connie Tse
• Sadie Kwong
• The La Marsh Research Centre

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Context

• Primary relationships can be disrupted by
  population mobility
• In an era of intensifying globalization, even
  very young children are facing increasingly
  complex challenges due to this mobility

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The stories

• On the second Thursday in July, the woman, Xiu,
  finally did it. Wrapping a tiny gold bracelet
  around his wrist, she placed her son in the arms
  of a friend of a friend, who, for 1,000, agreed
  to take him to China. Xiu's parent is raising him
  there now, along with the 10-year-old daughter
  left behind last year when Xiu joined her husband
  in New York. She plans to bring Henry back when
  he reaches school age. But until then, she
  remains here, waiting to be a parent to her
  child.

Sengupta, 1999, p.1
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Context

• Trans-nationalism the development by expatriates
  or immigrants of multi-stranded social relations
  that link together their societies of origin and
  settlement
• Trans-nationalism has changed peoples relations
  to space particularly by creating social fields
  that connect and position some actors in more
  than one country.

• Basch, Glick Schiller, Blanc-Szanton , 1994

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Context

• Geographical and cultural duality are adding a
  layer of complexity to understanding immigrant
  families who live a trans-national life
• Practices and cultural meanings derived from
  specific geographical and historical points of
  origin have been transferred and re-grounded in
  new cultural settings¹

¹Vertovec, 1999
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Satellite babies

• Some new immigrant parents engage in the practice
  of sending infants back to their country of
  origin, to be raised by members of their extended
  family.
• This custom is particularly prevalent amongst
  Chinese immigrants to the United States and
  Canada
• satellite children¹

• ¹Waters, 2002

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Satellite babies

• The children return to their parents in time to
  begin schooling, having endured multiple
  separations
• Does this have serious repercussions for
  social-emotional development?

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When infants are separated from their families

• Studies deal primarily with adolescents' or young
  adults' perceptions and feelings about earlier
  separations from their parents
• Few studies available are mostly retrospective
• We know little about outcomes for younger,
  children exposed to serial separations

Glasgow Ghouse-Sheese,1995 Smith, Lalonde
Johnson, 2004
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When infants are separated from their families

• Many potential problems are associated with major
  disruptions and losses in the caregiver-baby
  relationship
• Greatest concern is threat to the bilateral
  attachment relationship

Bowlby, 1951/1969 Cassidy, 1999 Karen, 1994
Kobak, 1999 Miranda, Siddique, Der-Martirosian
Belin, 2005 Smith et al., 2004 Suarez-Orozco
Suarez-Orozco, 2001
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When infants are separated from their families

• The problem
• Models of child mental health are based on First
  World, Western research¹

¹Liu Clay, 2002 Sue, Casas, Fouad, 1998
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Attachment across cultures

• Infants are certainly able to engage in multiple,
  functional attachment relationships¹
• Alternative attachment styles, e.g., avoidance,
  may in fact maximize survival in less
  supportive contexts²
• Numerous examples of infants having to fit into
  the culture at the expense of comfort and
  happiness of both child and mother³

¹ van Ijzendoorn, Sagi Lambermon, 1992 ²Main,
1990 ³Hinde, 1991
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Attachment studies from the Chinese community

• Concept of attachment very applicable to this
  cultural context¹
• Attachment classifications has been remarkably
  similar to the global distribution²
• indifferent attachment³
• Chinese youngsters are more apprehensive or
  inhibited towards strangers than European
  American children?

¹Posada, 1995 ²van Ijzendoorn Kroonenberg,
1988 ³Hu Meng,1996 ?Hsu, 1985
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Objectives of this study

• To study infants and their parents who are
  entangled in the complexities of a transnational
  lifestyle, and are subjected to multiple
  separations
• To generate useful information for mental health
  clinicians

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Objectives of the study

• To explore the cultural, socio-economic, and
  individual factors that contribute to new
  immigrant parents decision to send their child
  overseas to be cared for by relatives, in the
  face of strong bio-evolutionary drives that would
  dictate proximity
• To describe parents decision-making process and
  propose a culturally sensitive decision-making
  model

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Method

• Qualitative study
• Recruitment through a childrens mental health
  center in Toronto
• Semi-structured interviews with 12 mothers (5 of
  whom were joined by their husbands), who had
  expressed an interest in, or were attending, a
  parenting group for Chinese Canadian families.
• All were struggling with the decision of whether
  or not to send their infants back to their home
  country, to be raised by relatives.
• All participants were recent (6 months- 3 years)
  immigrants from mainland China, and ranged in age
  from 24 to 36 (mean26).
• All were university educated.
• 1-1½ hour in home interview.
• Individual interviews modified grounded theory
  approach.

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Ambivalence
Decision-Making Process
Opposition to SEPARATION
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Ambivalence
Decision-Making Process
Opposition to SEPARATION
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Ambivalence

• I have been thinking about sending my child to
  China to live with grandparents... I havent made
  up my mind yet, so my child is still here. I have
  to spend quite a lot of time on the child. I
  still havent made the decisionwe are having the
  strong feeling of keeping the child here (Li
  Wen)

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Ambivalence
Decision-Making Process
Opposition to SEPARATION
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Cultural and Economic value of career

• Because of the family financial situation, we
  need to send her back to China for parents to
  take care of her I have to send my child back to
  China. At least for a couple of years. (Lee)

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Cultural and Economic value of career

• I've been here for three years, I want to have
  my own career I had a good job in China but I am
  starting over, hereI feel like I have to start
  all over because of the baby I can't go back to
  workI want to work harder to get a houseis hard
  to afford the most important factor is
  financial It's bad to rent an apartment with the
  baby, so we can have a house when the baby comes
  back home, so the baby will have her own room for
  studying that she doesn't have to share with
  anyone else. (Monica)

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Ambivalence
Decision-Making Process
Opposition to SEPARATION
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Preservation of Cultural traditions My
grandparents took care of me

• My parents they also want us to send the baby
  back, they also want to play with the grandchild
  in China grandparents are taking care of the baby
  (Lee)

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Preservation of Cultural traditions

• There are different cultures for China Canada.
  If my baby grows up here and he just picks up the
  Canadian culture maybe he will have so many
  different ideas than us. I don't want my child
  just to grow up in Canada and just talk Canadian
  (Connie)

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Preservation of Cultural traditions

• He will not be able to understand Chinese.
  That is a big problem. He will not be able to
  speak Chinese or read or write any Chinese. He
  will not be able to understand his Chinese
  name (Lynn)

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Ambivalence
Decision-Making Process
Opposition to SEPARATION
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Extended family systems needsFor the good of
the family

• For the child herself I dont think theres any
  advantage for her, but just for the consideration
  of the family, for the whole family, (we) have to
  think of it as an advantage (Lee)

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Extended family systems needs

• But the relationship with relatives and friends,
  they are in Bejing, so child will feel more the
  family ties, that is what's most important

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Ambivalence
Decision-Making Process
Opposition to SEPARATION
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Affectively charged attachment schemas

• My baby is now 9 months, I'm afraid that baby
  will forget about us. Seeing her grow up, every
  day, I feel I can't be separated from the baby.
  I'm feeling that the baby and I are attached
  together. I would feel really bad (if the baby
  had to go to China), if it has to be, then it has
  to be, but I would feel very bad (Sue)

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Affectively charged attachment schemas

• The relationship would be blocked I would feel
  guilty and self-blame, it's the responsibility of
  the parents to be with their baby (Lee)

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Ambivalence
Decision-Making Process
Opposition to SEPARATION
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Acculturation and educational benefitsLosing
out in the new culture

• The language barrier when they come back to
  here. It is sometimes hard for them to speak
  English so the child can communicate with the
  others. they also have to learn to study
  (Hui).

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Ambivalence
Decision-Making Process
Opposition to SEPARATION
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Nuclear family bias

• I'm strongly opposed to sending the baby back,
  have to be separated. No one can replace the
  parent. (Zhi)

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Mitigating and compensatory factors(Developmen
tal knowledge)

• I would send her for three years. But she will
  come back here before she is 4 years old.
  (Jen)
• When we are separated we will continue to have
  contact on telephone and the internet. (Lynn)
• We will use the webcam (Connie)

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Ambivalence
Decision-Making Process
Opposition to SEPARATION
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Conclusions

• The custom of trans-national parenting of
  satellite babies exists at the interface of
  globalization and parent-child relationships
• An examination of parents decision-making about
  separating from their infants reveals complex
  layers of rational considerations that are
  suffused with ambivalence and often resignation.

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Conclusions

• Parents who have one foot in the old and one foot
  in their new culture appear to use familiar
  models of roles and traditions flexibly in the
  service of economic need. Meanwhile, cultural,
  collectivist claims clearly keep pace with
  attachment and other psycho-biological needs of
  child and parent, and often override them.

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Conclusions

• These claims may be adaptive, productive and
  protective
• As clinicians, we have very little, and
  incomplete information on which to base our
  interventions

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Conclusions

• It is clear that a multi-systemic cost/ benefit
  ratios should be considered when clinically
  addressing practices that are considered harmful
  by Western standards, and that research needs to
  identify and define both these benefits and costs
  in a socio-cultural context.

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Parent-child Separation
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Parent-child Separation
45

• Thank you!