specific needs of children and elderly left behind as a ... - IOM Moldova

Values and life plans
1.7. Values and life plans
Children
• Children’s values
The most important values enlisted by children refer to their family,
health, money, education, work, economic and political stability,
etc. Generally speaking, for children it is not important whether
their parents will come home or they will have to go abroad to be
with their parents, the most essential thing is to reunite the family:
“To live with my parents...I would like them to stay home or to live all
together abroad” (III_C_3). Most of children expressed their wish to
live with parents, although some of them had experienced horrible
situations.
The model of the future family is sometimes in direct opposition to
the model of the nuclear family: “Not like my family...” (III_C_9).
If they had the possibility to change something, children said they
would provide their parents with jobs at home, thus giving them the
possibility to stay with them: “I would do everything to have my parents
here in the country, to work here at home” (III_C_21).
Speaking about their remote future, children whose parents are
working abroad associate it mostly with the departure abroad: “My
mother tells me she wants to take me abroad and I would like to go
too” (III_C_6), motivating it by the lack of and drop in opportunities
to be employed in the Republic of Moldova for parents and young
people. According to children’s affirmations their parents think the
same. Most children would like their parents to leave for such countries
as Germany, Italy, USA, England or any other European country,
as according to them the Republic of Moldova “Lacks stability
and balance... people are bad and there is a lot of suffering, there is no
justice but corruption and only people who have money have power”
(FG_C_3_rural). But there are children who asserted their future is
in the Republic of Moldova: “You can also find a job here in the country
and not die of hunger” (FG_C_3_rural).
Some of them intend to go abroad to continue their education or to
get a better qualification while the others want to get a job.
Parents’ migration and other problems connected with providing a decent
living affected some of children to such a great extent that for some of
them the most important value is money. It is a very important motivator
for them not to be deprived of something: “I have many dreams but the
most important is to always have money as not to miss anything” (III_C_2).
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