Adults Withholding
The child authors of some stories in the book Kids’ Own Journeys (2004) have described the ways information about migration was withheld from them, and from other family members. Through these stories we see how some children have accommodated the different types of access they have to knowing in their narratives about migration.
Waving goodbye to grandma
In the story ‘Waving goodbye to Grandma’ the author explains that when they were 7 and about to move to Australia from China their ‘mum didn’t want my grandma to know because she wouldn’t want us to go’. The author said their grandma ‘would want us to stay in China, so she wouldn’t miss us’. The author describes leaving China and their grandma finding out about the migration plans. The grandma became ‘sad and angry that my mother didn’t tell her’. The author relates what happened when her grandma found out:
Grandma ran outside and she saw us going into the car and driving away. So she chased us. She yelled and ran after us. And I saw her and I was waving goodbye. I cried. I thought my mum told my grandma, but she told my grandfather but not my grandmother.
The author's grandma later comes to visit their family in Australia, and the author 'was happy to see her'. The child’s grandma didn't like being in Australia 'because she can't go outside and buy things, so she went back to China'.
Leaving Kenya forever
In the story 'Leaving Kenya forever', the author explained that they didn’t know they were leaving. The author says, ‘mum was keeping a secret away from me and my sisters’. The story describes how when the author was 7 their mother told them ‘that we were leaving Kenya and going to Australia. I was so sad.’ Despite the author noting that ‘now it’s been two years’ in Australia, they ‘still miss Kenya’. One way that this author continued to connect themself to Kenya is through a photo album. An illustration of this accompanies the story. The author explains how the album is meaningful to them: ‘Sometimes I look at the photo album because my friends were at my birthday, and I was 4.’