Negotiating transnational ambivalence: how ageing parents grapple with family separation across time

ABSTRACT

This article uses older parents of parachute kids as an example to explore the ways in which the heads of transnational households assess intergenerational intimacy at a later stage of their life trajectories. I argue that transitioning to a later life stage motivates or even demands older parents reorient their perspectives on the separation from their children overseas. Specifically, I offer the concept of transnational ambivalence to analyse the processes whereby older parents grapple with the meaning of being physically separated from their children. This study demonstrates how the interplay between extended family separation and human ageing provokes complex feelings and emotions among parents. In addition, this research chronicles the factors that explain the variation in parental ambivalence. In so doing, this article contributes to the literature on transnational families by illuminating the temporal reflexivity of parents ‘left behind’.

KEYWORDS:

• Ageing
• transnationalism
• family
• generation
• intimacy
• time

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges the constructive feedbacks provided by four anonymous reviewers. He also thanks Prof. Claire Alexander, Prof. Raminder Kaur, Dr. Brett St Louis, and Dr. Lena Näre for their clear and helpful instructions regarding how to revise this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research is generously supported by Brandeis University and Hong Kong Baptist University.