CHILD-CENTRED NARRATIVES OF POLISH MIGRANT MOTHERS: CROSS-GENERATIONAL IDENTITY CONSTRUCTIONS ABROAD

Child-centred narratives of Polish migrant mothers: cross-generational identity constructions abroad Delineating narrative accounts of Polish migrant mothers, the article discusses lives of contemporary family migrants to Germany and the UK. Focusing on children, it looks at current and future ethnic identity orientations of the children of Polish parents raised abroad, as they are envisioned by their mothers. The discussions are embedded in a broader context of empirically-driven mothering strategies, with the distinctions between four models presented to showcase what possible reasoning and/or outcomes certain parenting practices may entail. Dynamics of foreign/local and familiar/distant elements of parenting are addressed, highlighting a continuum of orientations towards home, destination country or both locales. In addition, the paper argues that children’s centrality is evident in maternal accounts, calling for a family-focused orientation in future research into Polish post-2004 migrants.