Foreign families. Parenting in migration and children’s rights

In recent years, the number of relatives and family members of immigrants entering Italy has exceeded the number of those who have arrived in Italy in search of a job. A direct consequence of these arrivals is an increase in the number of families of immigrants and/or of immigrant origin. The increase in families and children born in Italy to immigrant parents, the so-called ‘second generations’, represent a turning point in the settlement processes of the immigrant population. The composition of foreign-born families, either through family reunification or formed in the host country, has caused the presence of migrants in Italy to become mainly permanent, shifting from a temporary migration to a rooted migration. Being a parent in a country other than one’s country of origin can present many difficulties; therefore, a capacity for adaptability, reorganization and flexibility are required. Becoming a parent, in itself, requires personal change and change as a couple, in a constant readjustment both within the dyad, thus between oneself and one’s partner, and with one’s children. When we talk about migrant parents, such internal changes must be reconciled with the new context in which one is called upon to act, whose rules, customs and traditions are not always fully understood. According to some scholars, the parenting style is closely related to the cultural dimension or, rather, should be evaluated within a mutual influence at the cross-cultural and intra-cultural levels: the cultural context influences family ties, and the family, for its part, influences certain aspects of the culture to which it belongs. The cultural variable is a determining factor in caring for one’s children. It conditions the upbringing and values that are handed down, but this does not authorize overestimating it, by regarding behaviors that infringe on children’s rights as “normal”: these, on the contrary, are independent of culture or ethnic/national origin.