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Caring for Your Children: How Mexican Immigrant Mothers Experience Care and the Ideals of Motherhood

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Gender, Migration, and the Work of Care

Abstract

Based on an extensive ethnographic study, this chapter explores how Mexican migrant nannies in New York City (NYC) reconcile experiences of childrearing in their home countries with the practices and standards to which they are exposed as care workers for middle- and upper-class families in the United States. Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork conducted in NYC and in migrants’ hometowns in Mexico, it probes the emotional dimensions of the complex relationships between caregivers, their charges, and their own children, both those in the United States and those “left behind.” The chapter also offers insights into the often-conflicted feelings of women who employ nannies to care for their children, of the family members who care for left-behind children, and of children at both ends, all caught up in what Oliveira calls “transnational care constellations.”

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Employment visas to the United States are allotted mainly for “skilled” labor.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lynch School of Education, Boston College, MA, USA

    Gabrielle Oliveira

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  1. Gabrielle Oliveira
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Correspondence to Gabrielle Oliveira .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, University of Maryland , College Park, Maryland, USA

    Sonya Michel

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Ito Peng

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Oliveira, G. (2017). Caring for Your Children: How Mexican Immigrant Mothers Experience Care and the Ideals of Motherhood. In: Michel, S., Peng, I. (eds) Gender, Migration, and the Work of Care. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55086-2_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55086-2_5

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-55085-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-55086-2

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