The Ones who are Left Behind

His hands are full, replete with brightly coloured action figures that he doesn’t know were carefully accumulated and stored for him from his mother’s wards' Happy Meals. His heart, however, is empty. It is yet another Easter, another Christmas, another birthday without the woman who gave him life. He knows her voice, he has heard it often enough- chafing, hoarse and pneumatic from the cold- but still upbeat and ringing with the slight lilt of warm Caribbean pronunciation that years pacing the streets of the Bronx can never take away. Yet, he has no idea who she is. She left too long ago, before he could remember her, before he could even remember himself. He does not know what bothers her, what or who keeps her awake at night, or even her favourite colour.

He cannot ask her because long conversations are out of the question- calls are quick and last until the Go Bananas calling card runs out. Their conversations are stilted, him asking for what he wants at her prompting, and her telling him that she misses him and explaining how that she cannot wait for the day when she will finally ‘fix up” and can come home or when he would be able to come to visit or to stay. They both know in their heart of hearts that her consolations are gaping, and this is how it will be for at least the foreseeable future, and how it has always been since the age of five when she migrated. He does not tell her that his aunt resents his presence in her home and complains that she does not send enough money and that she frequently moans, with an earnest look in his direction that the price of school books and food items are too high and the costs of an extra child in a home is burdensome. He wonders when he meets his mother, whether she will hug him and kiss him, in the way that his aunt kisses her children. He would not know this, but when they meet, eventually, 10 years later, he would be too old for kisses and hugs.

He does not know that he is labelled a “barrel child”, one of the many Caribbean children left behind by their parents, a casualty in the ladder of stepwise migration where mothers and fathers leave their children behind in the hope of seeking a better life. He is too young to know that the word better is relative. What he knows is that he needs his mother. Guardians are sometimes unable to care for their wards- grandparents are too old, too sick or too feeble and aunts and cousins vary between too demanding or too lackadaisical, leading in many cases to children who are all but in name abandoned. Their parents’ love are measured in the number or size of barrels- huge blue or cardboard containers that are overstuffed with remnants of a life far away- as if to atone for the significant life events missed and to make the recipient momentarily forget that he or she is absent. If he is lucky, he will be the first to be taken up abroad; if there are others or sisters before him, they will take his place. He feels lucky and he is certainly the envy of the town when the barrels and boxes packed with tinned goods and foodstuffs and toys and smelling of America arrive, but he tells no one that the feeling of  wistful emptiness is hard to displace.

Of the ones who are left behind, girls suffer the most and I venture to say that the effects are multigenerational in their ambit. The girls in my town who were left behind as children, who were always well dressed but who lacked guardianship have now, themselves, left their children behind to be taken care of by cousins, aunts and friends. Love again comes exported in material form of boxes and barrels filled with new clothes, name brand shoes, even Skippy peanut butter and Heinz Baked Beans. Some have started new families abroad. There are many who grow up to be well rounded individuals but others search for love, validation and approval all their lives.

The psychological effects of stepwise migration of parents have not been properly researched and considered although economic migration to the metropoles has been occurring since the early 1960s. Feelings of guilt feature strongly in the relationship from the perspective of the migrating parent. Reunification  if and when it eventually happens, is not always successful, as it is effectively the equivalent of a birthing experience. Learning to live with a fully grown adult or a difficult teenager is not easy from the perspective of either party. The children in question often do not feel that they were loved enough by the migrating parent. There is always the underlying question of what could a parent conceivably do in the circumstances and why was migration sans enfant chosen as the best alternative. There is also the elephant in the room that it was thought that by virtue of being abroad, the parent was living in the lap of luxury, although for all intents and purposes this might be far from the reality. Monies sent are likely to be monies saved after rent, bills and sou-sou. The carer substitute at home also feels cheated- after preoccupying herself and raising a child, he is yanked away at his parents’ whims.

Dr Audrey Pottinger reports that the ones who are left behind are often depressed and that there is trauma in being left with relatives that they sometimes hardly know. Many experienced chronic feelings of loneliness, anger, abandonment, and fears of rejection. Dr Pottinger reports that guardian shifting (being shunted from one guardian to the next because of sometimes very trivial problems with discipline) is quite common and substantially impedes a child’s development and schooling. Many have surrogate parenting arrangements which were inadequate or inappropriate. Some are physically and sexually abused. Pottinger believes that the impact of migratory separation appeared to be more pervasive than death or divorce within a family and that although it might benefit the economy and allow a family to become more financially independent, there are significant social ramifications. Jamaica is the only country, to my knowledge, which has developed an overseas family service specifically to cater to the needs of the children who find themselves in this situation.

In writing this, one of my childhood friends springs to mind. She, like many others, were one of those who were left behind. Despite a promising start at one of the best secondary schools in the island, she was very unhappy with the almost totalitarian regime of discipline meted out, and moved back into the family home, by herself. Her boyfriend soon moved in. She managed to finish school but with very meagre CXC passes. I am confident that her life would have been very different had she had the necessary guidance and supervision. Even on reunification there are sometimes issues to grapple with- a new step parent, adjustments to a new way of life and a new guardian, and feelings of over compensation and the expectation of gratefulness coupled with blame.

I know that it is not always bleak. Migration results more often than not in progress and many a time, entire families are allowed to taste and see the results of the sacrifice. The ones who are left behind sometimes go to universities, obtain jobs and they themselves are integral in being strong supports to the extended family structure. It is very easy to be critical and to question what causes a mother to allow herself to be separated from her own children for such a long time, but the lack of economic prospects in the Caribbean is a financial strait jacket and it is not easy to be jobless. Conditions in Miami and New York in the beginning are not great, and it is sometimes not just possible to bring children along for a rough and uneasy ride- renting a room in an apartment, trekking to New Jersey in fog and cold to a hostile employer and hustling to get to that second or third job. The sacrifices are indeed made with the children in mind. However, it is the ultimate irony that many of our jobseekers go on to be nannies and childminders to the rich- reading stories, bathing, taking their employers’ children to the park when their own children are at home, lonely and needy, left behind.