How Transnational Mothering is Seen to be ‘Troubling’: Contesting and Reframing Mothering

Abstract

This article aims to examine how changes in mothering induced by international migration become transformed into ‘troubles’. Based on the analysis of 79 selected articles on transnational families published between 2004 and 2013 in national press and Internet media portals in Lithuania, along with interviews with transnational mothers conducted between 2008 and 2014, the authors raise questions about how changes in mothering due to migration come to be constructed as troubles and how mothers who emigrate to work abroad while their children remain living in the country of origin engage in mothering display. The authors bridge Goffman’s theoretical ideas with the current frame of family display suggested by Finch to extend the understanding about the ways the scripts of ‘good mothering’ are both referenced and transformed through multi-local interactions. The analysis of the portrayal of transnational mothers in mass media demonstrates how mothering across borders is scripted. The cases discussed by the authors show the way transnational mothers respond to the discrediting scripts and normalize troubles, investing in bringing new meanings to mothering. The analysis of newly emerging transnational practices gives empirical evidence to the assumption that transnational mothers do not simply ‘follow’ scripts but also shift them and create new stories of mothering.