Parental Emigration and Conceptions of Better Futures in Ecuador

Ideas about best practices for children's futures shape global and local, lay and expert, and personal and clinical discussions. Debates can evolve around sociocultural and political dividing lines. In Ecuador, transnational families and non-émigré families espouse contrasting ideas on whether parental emigration constitutes a better life for children or not. Through data from ethnographic interviews over three years of fieldwork, this article details the differing local cultural expectations of how to provide ‘better childhoods’. The two perspectives contrast on the effects of parental emigration on children. However, these local cultural expectations share similar underlying concerns regarding discipline, education, kinship roles and family devotion. A long-standing cultural logic permeates these ideologies of children's needs as traditional perspectives combine with globalized experiences in a culture of migration. Conceptions of ‘better’ childhoods can be enriched through understanding how people negotiate local cultural knowledge with global experiences.