Better salaries mean better futures for families except when a better job means leaving the country. Then the children are vulnerable to Home Alone Syndrome.
When a divorced mother can make three times her Romanian teachers salary as a maid in Italy she moves. Still, the difference between debt and promise is a hard choice. Children are left behind with family or friends. Doctors are calling the resulting ill health and depression among 350,000 Romanian children Home Alone Syndrome; the children are called Euro Orphans. Structural solutions are needed but until the government steps in, children themselves are stepping up in at least one county. (less info)