Mothering: Identification and Diagnosis of Impairment

Abstract

Often the built up expectations of internalised norms regarding mothering, parenting and birth are initially dashed as the parents discover or realise that their child is different from her or his peers. This chapter is about what becoming a mother, or in some cases a father, of an impaired child means for the parents in this research, and what pressures are placed upon them that contribute to feelings of anxiety when faced with emotional and practical difficulty. I often use the term ‘parent’, but do recognise the (un)gendered significance of this term and yet do not want to dismiss the father’s role in mothering. It is clear throughout this chapter that shock, denial and disappointment are experienced in relation to the identification and diagnosis of an impairment. This is an important building block for the following chapters as the reader begins to understand what emotions are experienced before any other process of assessment and education is negotiated.

There is a rich stock of folk knowledge and personal and family experience about how people first react to being diagnosed as having a fatal or serious illness and then cope with their condition. For some, the initial information is shocking and hard to believe; for others, it confirms what they already somehow ‘knew’. Most people eventually settle down and accept the diagnosis and comply with the treatment offered, while vacillating between acceptance of the new condition and a reluctance to come to terms with it: ‘This can’t be happening to me’, or ‘Why me?’ Some people sink into despair; others are stoical, optimistic and hopeful, even to the point of behaving as if the illness did not exist. […] But is there a right way to cope with information about traumatic, catastrophic or disabling losses?

(Cohen, 2001: 53)