Consulates in Ukraine are amazing places to meet people with twisted stories. As queuing for a visa may take hours, you are bound to eavesdrop on some quirky lifelines.
There’s a young student with a letter from a French university, a girl with love letters from the online dating agency or an illegal migrant with a second home in Portugal. I am particularly moved by family accounts in which a daughter gives birth in a different country, and her mother in Ukraine gets to discover a new world along with a new grandchild – provided she gets a visa.
A decade ago, immigration or just a temporary job abroad were classified as bad news by the family. Now, globalization has sucked Ukraine in. It plays a heavy hand at changing cultural values, not to mention economy and politics.
In the country where state-run welfare services are minimal, there is a great belief that families must work as a team and help each other. So it was quite normal in the age preceding Internet for mothers and fathers to make career choices and marriage plans together with their children.
No, we are not talking about Sri Lanka where parents are running ads in the newspaper to find suitable matches for their daughters and sons. Ukraine is a type of habitat where children often spend a lot of quality time with their parents, discussing anything from grocery shopping to future partners.
It was more than once that I was stopped in the center of Kyiv by a mother looking for an embassy or a bus stop.
Middle-aged women would listen to directions first and then tearfully complain how much they miss their daughters, now living abroad. In one such heartfelt account, the lady told me about her daughter marrying a French man and giving birth to a son.
She was upset that she gets to see the grandchild only once a year, and those occasions are not enough to teach him Ukrainian or make him understand his grandparents’ life. The woman, however, was not angry with her daughter.
She blamed the state for stifling economic opportunities at home, which are now making her second daughter leave as well. I’d say it’s a good thing that at least borders are open, but parents think otherwise.
This scenario would not usually happen in the U.S. or most countries in Europe where employment, travel, and dating are a matter limited to the individuals concerned. Children are expected to move out of family homes as soon as they enter college.
Gap years and internships abroad are encouraged as “the time of your life” opportunities. And rarely does a parent cling on to a child’s shoulder and begs to stay if a young professional finds a job abroad.
Ukraine is a different story. It’s a close-knit society where personal relations are more important than work.
Relatives feel that it’s an obligation to provide jobs for each other because of kinship rather than ability or qualifications. The result is often a nightmare, just look at government offices heaving with appointees who do not merit the jobs. What’s worse is that it happens at every level of society, and it’s a major barrier to economic and political progress.
Many parents put their offspring on a plane, thinking their lives are over. And you can’t blame them as the mentality breeds habit. So far I met only one couple, in their 50s, who didn’t regret their family’s foreign plights.
Coming from Ivano-Frankivsk suburbs, they immigrated to Portugal 10 years ago, while their daughter went to study in the U.S.
We met on a plane, and for three hours, the woman kept me entertained with stories about Portuguese politics and her daughter owning “the whole house” somewhere in Massachusetts. Working as a maid in Lisbon, she was your typical Ukrainian housewife, but her interests reached well beyond family dinners. Independent travel broke her family’s stereotypes and allowed for a fuller experience of the world.
Ukraine prides itself on traditional family values, but sometimes they sadly stifle European integration. With easier access to foreign travel and education, however, the younger generation is happily saying good riddance to them.
Mothers lament their passing, but a generation gap has been and will be a recurring issue. I am glad embassies are busy with more young people who now come with less strings attached.
Kyiv Post Lifestyle Editor Yuliya Popova can be reached at [email protected]
