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

CHAPTER I
up children and grandchildren, but as a result of their children’s migration
and/or behaviour particularities they don’t have contact with them.
The resentments felt by the elderly for their relatives make them difficult
to communicate with, hostile, depressed, insensitive to others problems
while adopting an infantile and stubborn behaviour.
Old people’s affective background is dominated by depression, apathy and
coldness which lead to an unstable and irritable behaviour. The symptoms
of involuntary depression and melancholy are expressed by somatic suffering,
sleep disorder, guilt, uselessness, self-blaming. The elderly become
apathetic, sad, and pessimistic and the wish to die is a specific one for a
lot of them.
The migration of children elicits a various range of emotions, feelings and
affective states based on the loneliness and helplessness felt by the elderly
they have left behind. The intensity of the affective processes experienced
by many of the elderly with children abroad differs in compliance with the
risk degree of their own situation as seen by themselves, and the fact that
they have been left alone with the husband/wife or grandchildren. When
they feel protected, useful and “together with somebody” the elderly prove
to have a healthy emotional balance.
The survey denotes that the main source of happiness for elderly with children
abroad constitutes the communication with their children. “We’re
happy when we talk to our children. Why? Because I don’t need anything
else! I just need to talk to him and to hear his voice. It’s my child and they’re
the sweetest!” (III_E_24).
Elderly with children abroad mentioned the happiness they feel when communicating
with their children, this feeling being fed by: the identification
of the fact that the family members are “healthy” (III_E_1); the observation
that “families are whole again” (FG_E_1_rural); their grandchildren’s
performances: “We’re happy that our grandchildren are healthy – one of my
grandchildren studies in a high school in the country but she’s going to Venice
to enter a university; another one who studied in Romania, in Giurgiu, then
graduated from a university in Iasi and got married to a Romanian and she’s
now in England, in London” (III_E_1); direct communication with children:
“We’re happy that at least they call us” (FG_E_1_rural).
According to the study both institutionalized elderly as well as those living
in their homes are happy when receiving calls from their children and are
happy even when their migrant children call them rarely and the conversation
does not last long. Their easiness and well-being is ensured by their
children’s attention and the observation that their children are doing well.
Still, the institutionalized elderly are sadder and more pessimistic regarding
the fact that they rarely if ever communicate with their children.
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