East Asian Mothers in Britain by Hyun-Joo Lim

Author:Hyun-Joo Lim
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

In this account, her husband is conspicuously missing, but she presents her decision based on the notion of mother as irreplaceable figure for children’s emotional well-being. What is not clear in her account is that her children’s diminished confidence may not necessarily be because of her absence, but possibly because of her husband’s inadequate childcare. In Chapter 6, Minju mentions her husband’s rather cold and distant childcare approach, which might have created an environment in which children did not feel confident enough to express themselves and their concerns freely. This is a culturally specific understanding of motherhood where the presence and availability of the mother counted most. It did not matter whether it was quality time or not; what mattered was ‘Mum looks after them from morning till evening’. In response to my question regarding whether she would have continued her employment if other familial support, such as a grandmother, had been available, Minju said: ‘when children come back from school, it is better for the mother to be at home, rather than grandmother even if grandmother is good’.

It is well documented that migrant women largely experience downward employment status owing to the language barrier, a lack of cultural knowledge and the denial of qualifications in the host society (Hardill and MacDonald 1998; Boyle et al. 2001; Wall and Jose 2004). In this respect, it is not surprising that Minju had found a job in a Korean company where she did not need to deal with the aforementioned obstacles. She was living in Britain as a migrant whose employment opportunities were limited compared to the majority of people born and bred in Britain.

As a migrant woman, Minju did not have relatives on whom she could rely for childcare, other than her husband. However, as I illustrate in Chapter 6, Minju’s household held the clearly gender -divided understanding of roles within the family. Based on this, her husband’s participation in childcare and housework was limited, and Minju was expected to take the majority of responsibilities as a wife and a mother. During the period Minju was employed, her husband (who worked locally) helped with certain aspects of childcare: for instance, taking the children to school and picking them up. However, as Minju described in Chapter 6, she saw his involvement as minimal and he was unable to fill the chasm of Minju’s absence, especially in terms of the emotional needs of children. This highly gendered notion continued to dominate Minju’s narrative:Int: What do you think the advantages and disadvantages of a working mother are?

Minju: Because I have both experiences in working and staying at home…I felt a sense of achievement at work, but I don’t feel a sense of achievement at home because I have to repeat the same thing again and again, and nobody praises me for what I’ve done, nobody praises me for doing washing up. But, when I went to work, I felt a sense of achievement and I felt I was a respected person and I was also recognised as a capable person.

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