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

Psychological and social effects of migration
by herself but I help her with the Romanian language because we have
to look up for a lot of words in the dictionary” (III_E_3); “When he was
in the first grade it was quite difficult, I used to help him with his math
until now, but it’s getting rather difficult. He is also studying English and
now he is the one correcting me when I make mistakes. I like the way we
get along!” (III_E_4).
A problem highlighted by the elderly refers to the deviant behaviour of
grandchildren and the fact they blame themselves for this and experience
the fear that their grandchildren will adopt a deviant behaviour: “He
hasn’t been to school since Christmas last year, he talks badly… he took some
money from the house and he spent it with his friends… it’s probably my
fault on the one hand but on the other I couldn’t do anything I’d had surgery
and I was recovering for ten months” (III_E_8).
A 82 year old woman who takes care of her three grandchildren says that
she has been taking care of them since they were very small: “Now I have
11 grandchildren. I only take care of these three who their mother abandoned,
the girl was seven months old, the boy was one and a half years old and
after a year she brought another little girl from abroad. And these three
guys are killing me! Until now I did everything for them but now they realized
that their parents are alive. But where’s their mother? Their mother got
married 100 times and she’s not living with anybody and their father is disabled
and he works only one day per week” (III_E_19).
Experts involved in the study note that although the elderly take care of
their grandchildren, they are worried about their labour migrant children:
“They worry, whether they want to or not, they want to know how their
child is doing” (FG_EE_urban_rural).
A “new worry” of the elderly left behind is related to their resistance to the
discriminatory attitudes and practices of their neighbours: “Neighbours’
behaviour can sometimes be discriminatory, they say you are alone, her children
left her and so on... they discriminate them in a way” (FG_EE_urban).
Social labelling of “lonely elderly”, “left alone by their own children” makes
them feel different from the others whose children are at home. Besides,
the elderly who look after their grandchildren have to wisely manage their
money, as they have to meet their grandchildren’s demands as well as their
own needs: “It is often that the elderly lack money because their pension is
small and their children cannot send them money for the first period, and
with a pension of 600, 800 lei you can’t do a lot, the prices keep rising every
day and the most important for an elderly person is to have enough money to
buy food and medicine” (FG_EE_urban).
Meeting their grandchildren’s basic needs, providing care, ensuring their
security and “good-education” are among the daily duties of the elderly left
behind. The care for their grandchildren is supplemented by the concern
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