Scars Of our Mothers' Dreams

Imagine yourself as a child running home from school to tell your mommy about your day and she’s not there. Your grandmother or the next-door neighbor tells you “your mommy has gone foreign and she will be back soon”. However, soon turns into years, your childhood also passes before you ever get the chance to hug your mommy and tell her what you wanted to say all those years.

For years, the Caribbean Diaspora has contributed to the global migrant population in developed countries, as a vehicle to improve both economic opportunities and quality of life for their families. The phenomenon of parental flight from the Caribbean has not only created a shift in the responsibility of caregivers throughout the Caribbean, but it has also increased the number of children left behind to grow up in a world apart from their parents, duration of the separation ranges from temporary to indefinite.

With Grenada as the frame of reference, this film considers whether parental migration induces childhood trauma and the sociological and psychological impact on the children left behind. The film dares to pose the question, how do they fare as adults having experienced separation by immigration. Grenadian immigrants are seldom overshadowed by migrants from larger islands; however, our families alike are greatly impacted and burdened with deep-seated emotional scars – never to be healed. Our mothers also are oftentimes employed as caregivers (nannies, babysitters, nurses) for other children, while we (their children) are left in the care of surrogate parents (grandparents, aunts, older siblings, sometimes strangers).

My initial goal in making "Scars of our Mothers’ Dreams” was to share my personal story of how my life was impacted during the seven-year separation from my mother and the challenges I endured after our reunification in America. However, I quickly realize that my story was only a small fraction of a greater universal issue. Parental migration leaves a strong impression on children and I want my audience to gain some insight into other complexities which are often times not discuss or overshadow by the financial gains and opportunities for families of migrant individuals. Needless to say, I hope my film will start to engage in-depth discussions and further targeted research in relations to the sociological, psychological and emotional development impact parental migration has on the children left behind and also suggest effective coping mechanism for families affected within the Grenadian migratory community and by extension the Caribbean region and other regions globally plagued with similar experiences. With this goal in mind, I present my film "Scars of our Mothers’ Dreams".

Meschida Philip