Doing adulthood through parenthood: Notions of parenthood among people with cognitive disabilities

Abstract

Perspectives on reproduction and developmental disabilities are gradually changing in Sweden. Through this change parents with developmental disabilities are gradually being included within an emergent discourse of “good enough parenting” on certain conditions. The present article explores discourses of reproduction and parenting among adults with developmental disabilities in two Swedish contexts: in a Swedish magazine, “Empowerment”, produced by and aimed at adults with autism, and interviews with people with intellectual disabilities in Sweden. Common to the materials from both studies are a normative reprosexual discourse of parenting and an underlying assumption that parenthood relates to adulthood in the sense that it requires maturity. The stories in the magazine “Empowerment” can be seen as expressing an emergent counter-hegemonic conditional discourse of “good enough parenting” which regards some people with autism as “good enough” parents. In general terms, the stories about parenting in the interview study depict parenting as related to age awareness and, unlike what is found in the material from “Empowerment”, there is no discussion of or reflection on whether or how impairment affects one's opportunity/ability to become a parent.