Continuity and Change in Transnational Italian Families: The Caring Practices of Second-Generation Women

Abstract

This article deals with continuity and change in immigrant families, focusing on the caring practices of the adult children of Italian migrants in the UK. Looking at motherhood, care for the elderly and the management of kin relations at a distance, the paper explores how values and norms get transmitted and transformed across the generations. The article shows both continuity and change in norms and values about care, and argues that change occurring in immigrant families is not necessarily a move from ‘tradition’ to ‘modernity’ or from ‘ethnic’ to ‘mainstream’. Motherhood is changing and acquiring a renewed value for second-generation women who are now putting it before paid work, contrary to first-generation women who tended to combine it with full-time work. In terms of intergenerational relations, the analysis shows that, despite the tensions sometimes occurring between parents and children, reciprocal bonds across the generations remain very strong, with children providing care for their ageing parents while at the same time receiving various forms of support from them. Finally, the paper shows how, as a result of their upbringing and their personal choices, second-generation women continue to be involved, as were their parents, in having to manage kin relationships at a distance.