tba

In my lecture I will examine the struggle of East European female migrants and their significant others to reconcile their deeply held values about good mothering practices with the imperative of leaving their families to work abroad. I elaborate how over the last 20 years the concept of intensive motherhood as an ideal and a norm has gained significant traction, not only in Western capitalist care worker receiving but also in post socialist Eastern European migrant sending countries. Given the historical background this comes as a surprise as during state socialism the co-breadwinner model in combination with state support from cradle to grave was favored over the ‘bourgeois’ male breadwinner and housewife model. With the case studies of Ukrainian shuttle migrant in Poland I demonstrate that the newly emerged motherhood ideal has become a growing problem for circular migrants who leave their home, children, spouses and elderly parents behind. As their outward-bound mobility proves to be inconsistent with post-transition motherhood expectations, they are caught in dilemmas. With the case study of the stay-behind husband of a Polish migrant care worker (to Germany) I will finally demonstrate the predicaments and contradictory expectations concerning fatherhood and masculinity under conditions of migrant family fragmentation.