The Uncertainty of Transnational Parenthood

Revista de Asistenţă Socială, anul XXIII, nr. 2/2024, pp. 15-25 www.swreview.ro The Uncertainty of Transnational Parenthood Ana Maria Dima* Bogdan Voicu** Abstract. Uncertainty and risk became key concepts in social sciences in the past half century (Douglas, 1986; Lupton, 2013; Stalker, 2003). The post‑modern world was labeled as a risk society (Beck, 1992), since constant reassessment of the situations in which one finds oneself, increases one’s knowledge, but decreases certainty (Voicu, 2005). A world of liquid migration (Engbersen, 2018) overlaps with this uncertain society, and things become even more complicated when transnational parenthood (Ducu, 2018; Mazzucato, Dito, 2018; Suárez‑Orozco, Suárez‑Orozco, 2013) is involved. We focus on challenges faced by Romanian transnational parents and document their situation using a set of ten in-depth interviews carried out in 2020‑2021 in the UK and Germany with Romanian immigrants. We argue that the complicated situation of transnational parents is the byproduct of taking risky decisions in a risky world, and in a risky era, marked by global stressors, such as Brexit and the COVID‑19 pandemic. Risk is seen through the lenses of uncertainty, and as a factor of interest for social workers (Carling, Menjívar, Schmalzbauer, 2012; Leifsen, Tymczuk, 2012; Smeeton, O’Connor, 2020). Observing practices of transnational parenthood permits the assessment of the situation of transnational families in terms of risk and uncertainty. We consider to which extent the latter are manageable, and what are the implications in terms of potential demand for support from welfare providers. Keywords: transnational parenthood, Romanian migrants, uncertainty, risk Introduction Among the salient factors that shape changes in nowadays societies, one may notice two fundamental processes. None of them are new, but they embrace new forms in contemporary societies. On the one hand, there is a tangible phenomenon, in the sense that its visibility cannot be contested. We have coined it international migration, the cross-border mobility of people. Human migration was always present in societies, being seen as a permanent trait of the evolution of mankind (Manning, Trimmer, 2020). In today’s society it is not only everywhere, but it has become as visible as during the days of the Roman empire, although it has not increased overall (Schrover, 2022): migrants settle(d) everywhere, leading to a mixture * ** Romanian Academy, Research Institute for Quality of Life. Romanian Academy, Research Institute for Quality of Life; Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu (Sociology), National University of Science and Technology Politehnica of Bucharest. 16 Ana Maria Dima, Bogdan Voicu / The Uncertainty of Transnational Parenthood of ethnicities, habits, culinary preferences and smells, and a wealth of clothes and sounds, all that make the world less monotonous, less familiar to those preferring traditional stances. Migration is also permanent, never definitive, being depicted as fluid by excellence (Engbersen, 2018). On the other hand, there is the tendency to stress individual preferences against collective ones, to de-normalize society, to have divergent lifestyles and preferences coexisting in the same collectivist space (Beck, Beck‑Gernsheim, 2001). Scholars named the new order as “risk‑society” (Beck, 1992), and it bases its order on a certain predisposition, higher than in previous ages, to cope with uncertainty. Both the prevalence of migration in everyday life of societies, and the increasing presence of uncertainty among the dominant lifestyle are pushing individuals and societies towards a new definition of risks and normal patterns. In particular, migration tends to redefine for some migrants their regular behaviours and structures, including the functioning of basic institutions, such as family and parenthood (Ducu, 2018). Parenthood is the focus of this research, and in particular how people cope with transnational parenthood is our main research question. We expect to observe higher stress, leading to more uncertainty in everyday life that adds to the difficulties of those who deal with long-distance parenting. To prove the hypothesis, we employ a set of interviews with Romanian transnational parents. Our subjects are Romanians migrated to Germany and the UK, and living separated from their minor children, not due to couple dissolution, but as consequence of familial choices related to working abroad. Such people live in transnational families (TNFs) that share common familial traits, but spread over the borders of at least two different states (Mazzucato, Dito, 2018). The data was collected between 2019 and 2021 and covers a period in which individuals faced Brexit and the COVID‑19 pandemic, which further add to potential uncertainty. In the following sections, we develop our argument based on insights from existing literature on risk and transnational parenthood, and we explain how the Romanian out-migration provides an excellent playground to assess uncertainty in the case of TNFs. Then we introduce the data and show vignettes of our interviews, stressing how their situation is one of uncertainty. In the end, we discuss implications for policy and counselling, following the idea that dealing with uncertainty is an essential part of nowadays social work (Carling și colab., 2012; Leifsen, Tymczuk, 2012; Smeeton, O’Connor, 2020). Literature Risk and conceptions of dealing with risk are central to everyday life (Lupton, 2013). Individuals and societies base their existence on fixed points that delimit their lives and allow to build upon in conditions of relative certainty (Douglas, 1986; Stalker, 2003). Dealing with what is certain and what is not predictable becomes therefore a key element in shaping the conceptions of how life and the world are working. Changing these conceptions towards uncertainty in the history of mankind is a central point in theories of modernization (Inglehart, 1990, 2018; Voicu, 2001). Their claim is that in traditional societies, people could undertake only low risks since they had no strong anchors to act as a safety net. However, with economic development, technological advancements, and higher material stability, people were able to deal with higher levels of risk, and to get in more and more unusual situations. The question one may raise is how much uncertainty is too much, and whether being a transnational parent adds to perceived uncertainty. Our answer is that TNFs should experience higher uncertainty, as explained in the following. Understanding how transnational families actually work allows developing the explanation. In his seminal work on transnationalism, Vertovec (2009) makes an extensive effort to bring Revista de Asistenţă Socială, nr. 2/2024 17 conceptual clarity to the term as well as to problematize the concepts of transnationalism and migrant transnationalism. For the purpose of this paper the focus will be placed on his clarification of migrant transnationalism. For Vertovec migrant transnationalism is “a broad category referring to a range of practices and institutions linking migrants, people and organizations in their homelands or elsewhere in a diaspora” (2009). Discussing the concept in a more recent light, given the fairly new term of transnationalism, Vertovec notes that transnational connections have existed since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including in the case of families, who albeit split, maintained strong emotional ties and who also kept in touch with their families in their home countries through letters and remittances, the latter being “spent on both consumption and investment” (Vertovec, 2009, 13). While these patterns of cross-national interaction are thus not new, what is new are the breadth, intensity and speed at which migrants can retain and nurture their bonds with the families they leave behind. This is rendered possible through the advances in technology and “inexpensive and frequent modes of travel, which have allowed for continuous and real-time communication within global migrant networks” (Vertovec, 2009, 14). For the specific purpose of looking at family transnational ties, Vertovec distinguishes between “great transnationalism”, which refers to the state and the economy, and “little transnationalism”, the one that looks at family and households. He also mentions “linear” transnationalism as a form of transnationalism that is “based on affective ties to others in a place of origin”. Therefore, in the case of transnational parenthood, one may speak of a narrow, linear type of transnationalism, that shapes family life in the country of origin, but also the cross-national type of relationship between carers and dependents. Migration is listed as one of the most important elements of societal change in a postmodern world, leading to the transnationalization of family life among other things (Voicu, 2019). The author underlines circulatory migration as one of the defining and more and more common types of migration in Eastern European societies, in which migrants leave their country of origin only to return and to then leave again either for the same country or a different one. This can impact the way in which transnational families are formed and maintained, a phenomenon in which one or both parents find themselves in a position to leave abroad to work and to thus help financially support the family left behind. In such cases, the children are thought to suffer from neglect and abandonment, which affects their participation in school and emotional development, however, a number of studies conducted in Romania indicate that school performance is not affected to a great extent by the migration of one or both parents. This holds true for their emotional development as well (Voicu, 2019). But parents are also exposed to risks of losing or loosening their ties with their children back home, as they embark on a journey that fundamentally changes their lifestyle and their way of parenting, as well as changing the notion and type of family life they lead. The journey parents embark on comes with high degrees of uncertainty, especially if they leave their country without having secured work first. Moreover, “individual competition and mobility, which are required for the realm of production, run up against the contrary demand in the family: sacrifice for the other and absorption in the collective communal project of the family” (Beck, 2009, 107). These parents, then, are required to come up with new ways of embracing their role within the family, which in the context of mobility is only more prone to increase the degree of uncertainty that they are exposed to. Whether the parents’ degree of uncertainty impacts on the quality of their “transnational parenthood” abilities is a question that needs further exploring. In their attempt to conceptualize transnational parenting, Bonizzoni and Boccagni (2013) look at family relations in an interaction-based way through the notions of care and circulation. “In principle, the notion of care circulation aptly stands for this mixture of distance and 18 Ana Maria Dima, Bogdan Voicu / The Uncertainty of Transnational Parenthood proximity – that is, for all day-to-day attempts to socially and emotionally bridge the former and re‑establish the latter.” (Bonizzoni, Boccagni, 2013, 10) With regards to the geographical area of study, they note that “as far as Europe as a receiving context is concerned, much more attention should be given to transnational family life in the “new” women-led flows from the Eastern part of the continent […] Eastern European migration deserves better elaboration in a perspective of transnational care circulation”, which reinforces the need for more studies in this field” (Bonizzoni, Boccagni, 2013, 13). Care is usually conceived as offered in person, especially when it comes to families. “Primary care relations, in particular, are not sustainable over time without love labour, and the realisation of love, as opposed to the declaration of love, requires work. Love labouring is affectively-driven and involves at different times and to different degrees, emotional work, mental work, cognitive skills and physical work” (Lynch, Baker, Lyons, 2009, 36) These are intimately linked to family life which requires presence. Yet in the absence of physical presence caring becomes something that needs to transform and be conveyed through different means between the carer, in this case the transnational parent, and their child, the cared for. This too then becomes uncertain when distance intervenes and care can no longer be provided in a classical way. Romanian migration was virtually null in the 1980s, started to exist in the 1990s, and boomed in the 2000s and 2010s (Deliu, 2015; Sandu, 2005, 2017; Şerban, 2011). Emigration and mobility of the scale that Romania has experienced in the past decade is built primarily on the assumption of strong economic dissatisfaction accompanied by the drive to escape a “dysfunctional social model” (Collier, 2014), leading to either a “circulatory” or “permanent” exit option. Romanians represent “the fifth largest group of immigrants in OECD countries” (Doiciar, Cretan, 2021). Various outcomes immediately resulted, from a resource to modernize the country (Sandu, 2010), to a new electoral body to deal with (Doiciar, Cretan, 2021; Gherghina, Tap, Soare, 2022). Transnational parenthood is a consequence of this mobility and comes with a set of unique challenges and characteristics, as the boundaries of family are redrawn. Debates around the challenges of children left behind accompanied the phenomenon (Botezat, Pfeiffer, 2020; Ducu, 2018; Ducu, Nedelcu, Telegdi‑Csetri, 2018; Tomşa, Jenaro, 2015). Romanian families witnessed a great shift in the set up and living conditions, as observed also by the state’s devised role in addressing the situation of children whose parents have left to work and live in the EU. For instance, The Romanian President has called in 2016 for a taskforce to be established, with the explicit aim to report on the situation of children left behind. Reports were considered needed to be submitted regularly in order to assess the impact and address the subsequent measures in order to compensate for the parents’ absence. Such attention received from the public debate and political environment becomes part of the context in which TNFs exist. This adds to the initial decisions to move due to economic and societal uncertainty, and to an initial perception regarding the lack of action from the state in terms of migration policy (Șerban, 2009), to be slightly revised in more recent days (Şerban, Croitoru, 2018). Even return migrations proved to be just a stage towards future remigrations (Tufiş, Sandu, 2023), adding to the uncertainty, and depicting the liquidity of migration (Engbersen, 2018). Research question Up to now we have argued that contemporary societies are more prone to have risks in the immediate vicinity, not in terms of personal insecurities, but defined by the non-normative set-up of late modern societies. The “risk society” label coined by Ulrich Beck defines contemporary Revista de Asistenţă Socială, nr. 2/2024 19 life and can be interpreted as exposed to doing things differently all the time. This means giving up the normative lifestyles that acted as anchors in more traditional set-ups. We added mobility in itself as a risk-bearing action, and its consequence is a liquid state. Within the Romanian context, transnational parents have to face initial discontent towards society and state, along with public debates related to the situation of children in TNFs, that were also stressed by the novelty of both migration and changes towards late modernity. In such a set up, we expect that transnational parenthood becomes a stressful state, in which uncertainty is strongly felt. Method A set of ten in‑depth interviews were carried out in 2021‑2022 with Romanian immigrants in the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany who were in a situation of transnational parenthood. Each interviewee is briefly introduced in the section devoted to the findings of this article. The subjects were self‑selected from Facebook Romanian groups abroad, and the inter views were conducted online using videoconferencing tools (Zoom). The interviews focused on challenges faced by Romanian transnational parents, and on their attitudes towards both the Romanian and host society, as well as considering political and civic participation, both in the host country and in Romania. The sample is homogeneous with respect to age: all respondents were in their 40s, except for one, who was 38. The group includes both men and women, mainly highly skilled. In the following section, we consider the cases of each of our respondents, depict them, and stress how they migrated (alone/with partner/family etc.), when, where; their marital and parental life course; the frequency of them visiting their children/verbal contact/video/chat etc.; the perceived difficulties to being involved in transnational parenting; the plans to overcome such difficulties. We introduce the situation of each of our interviews as vignettes that depict their situation, drawing conclusions upon common patterns in the end. Findings DE1 (male, aged 43) left Romania seven years before the interview. He was working as manager of a county department of a major Romanian insurance company. He invokes the disappointment with Romanian society as reason for leaving and indicates receiving a lower income after arriving to Germany. He keeps constant contact with his wife and daughter (almost 18 years at the time of the interview), talking every day on Facebook Messenger; they visited him, but did not adapt to Germany, where he finds “psychological comfort”. The situation is not complicated: the man has a decent life; employed as middle‑management in a delivery company, he does not gain as much as in Romania, but can afford playing golf, swimming, writing books, and volunteering for an association that aims to help Romanians to integrate in Germany, and for a Romanian-language newspaper addressed to Romanians in Germany. He meets his family during the holidays, when he comes back to Romania, and follows his daughter from abroad, waiting for her to start her studies in the US. He displays serenity in his interview and leaves no impression of suffering due to distance or having any plan to reunite to family. The family relations are apparently strong, marked by constant communication, but intentions to spend time together are completely missing. To sum up, DE1 is quite unemotional about his family. The constant contact over internet seems sufficient for his emotional needs, and he dedicates most of his energy to self-express. 20 Ana Maria Dima, Bogdan Voicu / The Uncertainty of Transnational Parenthood DE2 (female, aged 45) works as a nurse in Germany, and has three older children, aged 24, 21, and 20 respectively. Initially she left for Austria, in 2012, in order to improve the financial situation of the family, upon agreement with her former husband. She was in circulatory migration: two months working abroad, as a home caretaker, two months at home. In the meanwhile, she studied a school for medical nurses, while the older boy also studied to become a nurse. The boy graduated one year before DE2 and moved to Germany. The middle daughter also moved to Germany, while the younger daughter is still in Romania, she is a student in a school for medical nurses and working. At a certain point she divorced. She explains that “distance, repeatedly leaving, led to the deterioration of the couple relationship”. Otherwise, she communicates almost daily on a WhatsApp group with her children. DE2 does not have an extensive network of friends. She interacts with other Romanians in her locality, but she mentions the need for caution in such relations, showing clear mistrust towards others. She does not feel at home in Germany, but plans to remain here for the next ten years, and then to return to Romania, but there is no specific intention on what to do after returning. Overall, DE2 leaves the impression of a person that tries to show balance, but has rather a range of personal insecurities and uncertainty with respect to her own way. DE3 (female, aged 44), graduated from lower secondary education only (8 grades), and she had two daughters, but one died young, while the other is 26. She left Romania for Spain after she divorced, leaving her daughter with her sister, returned for a short while and then came to Germany seven years ago. In the meantime, she remarried. She mentions the need for a better life as the reason for leaving, and difficulties to gain money. “I raised my daughter over the telephone” is the definition that she gives to her relationship with the child, indicating the times when she had three jobs, and sent money home for her daughter. She indicates private tutoring for her daughter as part of the expenses and indicates her daughter’s graduation from high school as a performance. The daughter currently works in a dentistry practice, is also a student in a school for medical nurses, has a small daughter and is separated from her former partner. DE3 meets her daughter and niece once a year, and “thanks god, we have Messenger”, that is used for daily talking. She says that her daughter and niece cannot come to Germany, given that the father of the niece gives no permission for relocation. DE3’s daily routine includes almost exclusively working and house chores. She mentions meeting friends from time to time, mainly her sister, who now lives nearby. Overall, DE3’s life is a long history of struggling to adapt to a circulatory migration lifestyle, and to keep contact with her daughter and niece. DE4 (female, aged 45) has a boy – aged 16 – from her first marriage. Initially, she studied sciences at BA and MA level. During MA studies, she received a scholarship in Germany, and came back yearly between 1999 and 2014 to visit her godmother. In the meanwhile, she also graduated economics, and started to work in banking, in her hometown. This was her job between 2002 and 2014, earning even more than 5.000 Euro before the recession in the 2000s. When the bank closed its Romanian branch in 2014, she was earning 1.500 EURO net per month, and she was not able to find a similar job in banking. Therefore, she undertook setting up a restaurant, but the workload quickly became overwhelming, with even 16 hours workdays. Her son, who was 7 at the time, switched from amateur dancing to professional dancing (that he started when at 4 years old), commuting often to Germany for training. While spending 3 weeks in Germany, 3 weeks in Romania, she gave up on the restaurant, found a job, came to Germany in 2015 to learn German and secure the job, but met her current husband immediately after arrival. She mentions all the search as resulting from the need for money to ensure her child’s dancing training. The couple’s relation with her former husband was already deteriorating Revista de Asistenţă Socială, nr. 2/2024 21 from 2009. DE4 remained in Germany, the boy stayed in Romania and quit dancing, and they talk even “20 times a day”, with the child visiting his mother at least 4‑6 times a year. In Germany, DE4 quit the job for which she needed German, because it implied working on a cruise ship, and became a housewife. Then, she worked in a hotel. She started as cleaner, but learning better German she gradually climbed the ladder, then switched to another company, where she got a job in financing in 2019. She integrated into the local society through her husband and his friends, but also through the Romanian community in her area. She is still involved in the life of her former family, keeping contact with her former husband. Her parents moved to Bucharest, where her former husband’s job was relocated in 2019, and she helps them through her former colleagues from university who live there. The constant contact with her son seems enough for her current needs, while the plan is that the boy will apply for university studies in Germany. DE5 (female, aged 41) had been in Germany for two years at the time of interviewing. Her boy was 11 and living in Romania. DE5 was born in southern Romania, went to university in Transylvania, worked for 20 years in marketing, in a transnational company in Bucharest. She says that she felt suffocated in Bucharest, and after divorcing she was left alone with her son. After four years she remarried, and left for Germany. She intended to take the child to Germany, but her former husband refused to give her permission. The boy comes to visit her during the holidays. Her former husband had worked abroad for two years during their marriage, so the child was living only with DE5, his mother, for a couple of years. DE5 says that she always wanted to escape Bucharest and wanted to move to Germany where her sister lived. However, “… at a certain point I have started a relation with a friend of a colleague that was living in Germany for six years, so this is how I got to Germany, it was not a choice.” She blames the Romanian authorities for not being able to take the child with her and shows real signs of suffering in this respect: “It was very difficult. I did not leave thinking that I leave without my child, but I had to leave him. […] It was a shock from staying with [my son] permanently to … not knowing anything from one moment to another. I had no idea what he does, what he eats, how he sleeps, how he feels, how he is in school, and it was terrible, and I have tried not to be completely disconnected. I remained enrolled in the [WhatsApp] groups of parents, in contact with the schoolteacher…” Two years ago, she filed a lawsuit against her former husband, who is the caretaker of the child (legally, they share custody). The process was still in court when collecting the interview. She constantly blames the pressure that her husband puts on the boy and reports monosyllabic daily conversations with her boy. Otherwise, integration into Germany seems to work smoothly, being related mainly to Romanians in the area where she lives. She also keeps contact with her mother, arranging medical care for her in Romania, and works with an NGO in her hometown. In DE5’s interview, the dominating mood is sadness, both with respect to Romanian society, in general, and with her own situation with respect to her parenthood. She seems divided between the joy of living in a society that she likes, and the child left behind for an indefinite period. UK1 (man, 40 years old) lives in England, is divorced, and has an 8-year-old son in Romania. He left Romania in 2018 because of the corruption and because he felt that nothing would change for the better. He has lived abroad in Greece and Italy. He is in touch with his son daily, his son shows him what he does at school and before the pandemic he would see his son every four months in person. He is a member of the USR party (Uniunea Salvaţi România – Save Romania Union) and follows Romanian news and developments in Romanian politics. He seems to be well integrated in the UK and has friends of different nationalities. He is financially secure and satisfied on a material level but misses his son and regrets that he 22 Ana Maria Dima, Bogdan Voicu / The Uncertainty of Transnational Parenthood is missing his son’s childhood. He wants to bring his son over to the UK for university and imagines himself in the UK in the next five years. Overall, he seems to be in a stable, secure position. UK2 (man, 38 years old), married, lives in England and has an 11 years old son in Romania who lives with his grandmother (UK2’s mother). Left Romania in 2016. Could not have pictured himself a migrant before leaving, but could not make ends meet based on his earnings in Romania. He lives with his wife and sees his son once a year and keeps in touch via social media; he intends to bring his son over this year (2021). They keep in touch daily and he helps him with his homework. He sees no future in Romania, but would like to return to the country, he doesn’t know whether he will stay in the UK for the next five years. His wife wants to buy a house in the UK, and he applied for permanent residence but says that he doesn’t know where he will be. He fears that he has gotten used to life in the UK, but is excited every time he returns to Romania to visit his son. Overall, UK2 is uncertain about his future, unable to indicate whether he will be in the UK in the next five years or not, despite his intention to bring his child over to the UK. UK3 (man, 43 years old), married, lives in England, has two children of 9 and 6 years, his family is in Romania. He left Romania in December 2020 with a job in the pharmaceutical industry after receiving an offer from a foreign company. He thinks he was living a good life in Romania, but since 2018 has felt that things are not headed in the right direction. He has not returned to Romania since he left, mainly because of the pandemic and quarantine rules. Keeps in touch with his children on a daily basis, helps his eldest with homework. Once he moves his family from Romania, he says there will be nothing to keep him connected to the country. Does not trust Romanian politics and Romanian politicians. He was a Plus Party member, but quit. He is sure that he will not return to Romania, but is not sure about whether he will be in the UK for the next five years, as he intends to move to a Nordic country. He is convinced that his future is outside Romania, but is not sure whether it will be in the UK. Overall, UK3 is currently in a stable job and financial situation, but intends to leave the UK with his family if given the opportunity. He is sure to not return to Romania anymore, so will continue living as a migrant for the foreseeable future. UK4 (man, 42 years old), divorced and remarried, lives in England, has a 12-year-old son who lives in Romania. Worked as a paramedic with the Emergency Situations Inspectorate, but resigned in 2013 after seven years because he was discontent with the working environment. In 2013 he moved to London and he remarried and set up his own business. Prior to this migration experience, he also tried seasonal work in Portugal, Germany, France, and Italy to make ends meet, but would always return to Romania. After moving to the UK, he would visit his son once a year, sometimes twice a year. He keeps in touch daily with his son, they talk every day, but at the beginning it was difficult to establish a connection with him, because he felt abandoned. He sends money back to help support him. He stays abreast of the political situation in Romania, follows the news and different TV shows, but thinks that the Romanian state does not care about the diaspora. He seems to want to stay in the UK, also because of the pension contributions he has paid and intends to bring his son over in the next five years; he discussed this with his son’s mother as well. Financially he is content in the UK, but he thinks that he would have been happier in Romania from a personal perspective, as he would have been closer to his family, his parents, and his son. Overall, he is currently in a stable situation, with prospects of having a stable foreseeable future there as well. Revista de Asistenţă Socială, nr. 2/2024 23 UK5 (woman, 43 years old), two daughters who live in Romania. She left Romania for the UK in February 2015. She left with her husband at the time because of financial constraints. Has two daughters in Romania and has been spending half her time in the UK and half in Romania. She works as a live-in carer and gets plenty of time off to return to Romania. Sometimes she spends four weeks in the UK and four in Romania, or six weeks in the UK and two in Romania, her schedule varies. She is therefore not truly integrated in the UK. She keeps in touch daily with her daughters and talks to them on WhatsApp. She stays in touch with Romania via news, but doesn’t feel that she can influence what goes on very much, despite voting. She also doesn’t think that the Romanian state cares very much about the diaspora. She is uncertain about what her future will bring and cannot declare herself satisfied with the current state of her affairs. Her eldest daughter would like to go to university in London, but she cannot say whether she will be in the UK in the next five years or not. She declared that with the pandemic she has felt very tired and wishes to change jobs, but does not know what she could do instead. Because she does not actually live in the UK, it is difficult for her to envisage living there in the future. Overall, her lifestyle and life are characterized by a high degree of uncertainty about the future. Discussion In most of the case studies that we have exposed, the claim to search for a better life for children is core to the initial decision to migrate. Contact with the children is often fragmented and mediated by technology. The relation with the partner seems weak, and often we observe the dissolution of the couple. Sometimes, separation precedes or takes place simultaneously with the decision to migrate. Most of the interviewees did not report or show any anxiety related to their distancing from the children. They found substitutes in communicating via Messenger or WhatsApp and indicate daily routines to keep contact and be part of their children’s lives. They rarely refer to the emotional needs of their children. Nevertheless, during interviews we did not ask direct questions on how they think about the needs of their children, so we have recorded only what the interviewees spontaneously mentioned as being essential. However, in the case of strong feelings related to the emotional needs of their children or even of the interviewees’ own emotions, such feelings should have sprung up during the conversations. Financial uncertainty was not an issue. Practically all interviewees were financially stable, not giving any sign of material stress, despite at least half of them arguing that financial difficulties, in particularly related to children, were the main engine for them to leave Romania. Several interviewees mentioned saving money for their children’s university studies. Couple uncertainty is also not reported as stressful, but there are signs that couple relationships do not always work. First, transnational parenthood is not necessarily correlated with tensions within the couple. Most interviewees report having a stable couple life, regardless of whether they are divorced or not, and their stories confirm this. Also, interviewees do not display elements of couple uncertainty. They know where they are, how they build their family life, and how they embed parental responsibilities. However, as one interviewee stressed: “distance, repeatedly leaving led to the deterioration of the couple relationship”. Parental uncertainty is also low. As mentioned, parents cope with their situation through daily-basis communication over the internet and mobile phone, visiting their children or receiving their visit, and mainly through planning to bring children over to their country of residence, mainly arguing that it is better for their educational outcomes. 24 Ana Maria Dima, Bogdan Voicu / The Uncertainty of Transnational Parenthood Uncertainty is present however when considering the future. Most interviewees display some doubts about where they will be located five years from now. The majority does not imagine returning to Romania, but they also could not tell where they will be. The liquidity of migration mixes in this case with the parental duties. All of the interviewees want their children to study or relocate abroad, but most could not tell when and where such plans can be put in practice. Therefore, the presence of children becomes a game changer. While financial and marital/ coupling risks are bearable, parenthood adds uncertainty to an otherwise stable situation. Living in a different society than the one of origin and the confrontation with late modernity risks leave only a small trace on financial stability and belonging, showing that basic needs are met. However, children are less likely to provide a stable pathway to current set-ups. This is likely to create a need for counselling in case of both children and parents in TNFs situations. Social workers could intervene pre-emptively in cases of transnational parenthood, with advice on the matter, providing support for discussing the future pathways for children and parents. It is likely that when the children grow up, the current uncertainty related to their future to transform in an even stronger one and even into resent if the expectations towards educational and professional career, including the location of these careers, are not met. This is the typical case in which social work literature mentions that current social workers should be confronted with uncertainty in their professional life. Therefore, dealing with the issue is a must. On a societal level, given the interest and the high debate around children left behind, one may find a space for further researching the implication for migrants and TNFs as political bodies. Exploiting their children- and parenthood-related uncertainties could provide space for populist parties to raise their votes. However, this is subject to future research. A few limitations could affect the strength of our findings. During the COVID‑19 pandemic, uncertainties added to the challenges of transnational parenthood. This might have increased the actual stress related to children, but it is unlikely to have greatly affected the validity of our findings. 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