“This Is All for Our Children, for Their Future”

Abstract

Abstract This chapter focuses on participants’ experiences with family and parenting in the post-migration context. Family considerations were fundamental to many migration decisions, and the implications of migration for the family were troubling and unsettling. A specific challenge related to questions of bilingual parenting. The chapter explores family language policies and practices. Findings challenge the commonly held assumption that migrant children acquire bilingualism easily and effortlessly. Bilingual parenting involves conflicting emotions and leads to transformations in family roles and relationships. While for many parents, migration is viewed as a sacrifice, at least in part for the sake of better life chances for their children, it can unsettle what it means to do right by one’s children. Yet, these emotions and transformations do not occur in a vacuum but are deeply shaped by the exclusions and inclusions that migrant families experience in their new society.