中華心理衛生協會

Purpose: Feminism suggests that mothering has complicated implications. The one hand, mothering is the important medium of socialization for children. On the other hand, mothers often have to fight for the interests of their own child, especially if their child is the disadvantaged. There is a contradictory relationship between the two complications of mothering. In this article, I use the above two conceptions of mothering to analyze the internal process through which mothers nurture their disabled children. I attempt to understand how mothers of disabled solve the contradiction between mothering as a medium of socialization and mothering as a social practice countering discrimination and prejudice for the disabled. I focused on the following questions: How can mothers transcend prejudice entailing the view that disability is a tragedy to take a more positive perspective on their child’s abnormality? What is their expectation for the adulthood of their disabled child? Do they change their ideal of citizen of citizenship because of their disabled children? Methods: From December, 2012 to April, 2013, I used friends, a disabled welfare agency, and snowball sampling to identify and interview 8 mothers (mean age is 41.5) of disabled children. Results: Textual analysis revealed that the interviewed mothers used the strategy of problem-solving to overcome the internal suffering of their child being perceived as abnormal by mothers and other people. All the interviewed mothers put effort into collecting information and arranging early intervention services for their children. The goal of their mothering was the maximum development of their children’s capabilities. Almost every mother acquired mature expert abilities in logistic action and concerted cultivation. Early intervention services are scattered and non-systematic. The interviewed mothers had to take logistic action to coordinate the scattered services and design an individually-tailored delivery plan for their own child. It’s a concerted cultivation for child’s future career. Conclusions: All the interviewed mothers expected that their child would become an independent citizen who is able to fully participate in the functioning of society, including those mothers of the severely disabled child, who must depend other’s caring and economic support to survive their entire life. This unrealistic expectation results from the residual model of disabled welfare policies in Taiwan, which cannot effectively prevent the disabled adults from poverty.