The Geography of Long-distance Parenting

“Not every parent has the privilege of being near their children in a globalizing economy”.

Growing up as millennials most of us have witnessed a society in which long-distance parenting was the preserve of a few career profiles. Itinerancy has always been part of human societies; however, for our past generations, a safety net of joint-families and strong community networks had always been a reliable cushion insulating the blows of parental separation from their little ones. With a changing landscape of the modern economy, its growing need for a mobile work force, long-distance parenting is no longer an exception but a rule in today’s world. Staying away from your loved ones, managing communications, coordinating meet-up times which align with the commitments of all members have become relevant issues that concern many of us. Further complicating it are the many challenges of urban living in a hyper-independent nuclear family setup where care and social infrastructures become strictly curtailed.

What are some of the important challenges of modern parenting in which distances and absences are growingly becoming a part of our family ecosystems. Where just “being around”, for many of, us has become a privilege. Research on modern patterns of work induced migration, both trans and intra-national, point out to the variety of issues and challenges which emerge as a result of our choices to ‘move for work’. The gender specific ways in which issues of parental choice to move surface are illuminating. Women and men migrating for work face different experiences, expectations and repercussions for the similar decision to move. Despite their similar role as providers, mothers are expected to walk an extra mile in providing materially as well as emotionally for their children back home. Women in these cases are continually constrained by care giving expectations and obligations in addition to the financial and material ones. The dads have it ‘comparatively’ easy many a times. Fathering from a distance usually comes with fewer expectations and needs for adjustments in comparison. However, this does not easily translate into distance being a less burdensome or anxiety generating processes for distant fathers. Greater flexibility in social expectation does not automatically translate into a lesser impact of their choices to move. Absence of fathers can be equally void inducing and stress generating both for themselves and the children. This is further compounded because fathers are usually the ones who are expected to make the choice of being away from the children. Such a comparative analysis, in no way balances the scales for gender induced hierarchies which can be propagated consciously or sub-consciously through the process of work induced mobility. However, it does point to the fact that the main challenge here is ‘absence’ and ‘distance’, no matter who decides to make the move away from their safe homely spaces.

The logic of work induced mobility is based on a basic premise that parents often have to reckon with this tough choice in order to scout for better opportunities to provide for their family. However, distance induced guilt in parenting also creates another set of challenges for long-distance parenting. This elephant in the room is an allusion to the guilt driven materialism which we as parents often resort to in order to make up for our absence. The burden of material expectations and the constant need to ‘provide’ often leads to reliance on ‘purchasing love’ in absence. This strategy often backfires with grand results, in a sense that gifting as an exercise in making up never seems to be enough while at the same time it births severe anxieties about the long-term impacts of conditioning of our children in a hyper-material and transactional setup. Another important strategy we resort to in order to ensure a reliable care-giving infrastructure for our children, is through tapping into family and kin members to fill up in our stead. Reliance on extended family and kin to fill up for our absences brings with it the omnipresent challenges of inter-generational dissonances and strains which often become flashpoints of friction and debate pertaining to parenting methods and ethics. Added to the above are stresses of staying away from families, the gnawing anxiety of their well-being, the constant nudge of guilt and the emotional doldrums of having to bid farewell to your family every time you come back. The question here is not about why we place ourselves in such situations, which is evident and often practically the rational choice. It is more about the how. How do we navigate through these challenges? How do we pick a balance between the various quick fix solutions to dissolving the tyranny of distance between us and our loved ones? What are the best recourses that we have?

I am no expert; I speak from experience as a distant parent myself. This piece of writing is not a guide to long distance parenting, but a contemplative reflection of a parent in dialogue with self on the issue of astronomical distances that we have to navigate on a daily basis just to ‘be there’.  Communication is the bedrock of long-distance parenting. Sometimes just being there becomes more important to our children’s emotional well-being that all the joys and comforts of life. In striving to be socially and emotionally present while physically being absent, technology has been a great healer of distance. However, technology cannot always fill the void of being around. At various stages in their growing up phases, long distance parent-child relations need to be constantly reinforced and continuously confirmed. Consistency in communication in this context remains an important aspect as well as a challenge. Children’s responses and their methods of dealing with separation holds the key to many of the anxieties that we deal with as a remote parent’s. Being perceptive and responsive to what our children need, which varies at various stages of their lives, ensures that you remain approachable when they ‘really’ need you.

An urban nuclear family setup compounded with modern demands of work and life also leads to compounding of issues like social isolation and limitations in family care networks, which our earlier generations took for granted. We as parents need to tap into providing all the available professional and personal networks which provide a safe and healthy social setup for our children to discover the world around them. And last but not the least, an inner personal reflection at your own well-being probably is the key to healthy parenting. Our personal well-being predates our interactions and communications which we have with our children. Self-help is not always selfish, sometimes it is the only tool by we ensure that we really provide for our children what we set out to provide- a stable upbringing, a happy family and most importantly their “childhood”.