Abstract
Background: High societal expectations that involve idealized and labour-intensive mothering are a source of stress, anxiety, guilt and frustration for women. Immigrant mothers caring for children with developmental disabilities are disproportionately burdened with health inequities. Study goals: The overall goal of our study was to examine health promotion practices of immigrant mothers with children with developmental disabilities using the Health Promotion Activities Scale (HPAS). Methods: Twenty-eight mothers of children with developmental disabilities were interviewed using the HPAS. A grounded theory approach was utilized to analyze the qualitative data. Results: Immigrant mothers of children with developmental disabilities’ engagement in health promoting activities is influenced by their role as primary caregivers, the gendered nature of mothering, non-Western views on health promotion, mothers’ burden from inequities and structural barriers pertaining to funding, disability, and migration status. The responses on the HPAS also underscore motherhood as a social construct with embedded assumptions and social expectations related to role and responsibilities that requires them to be “good” mothers. Discussion and Conclusion: There is need to incorporate transformative health promotion approaches in research and practice that consider mothers’ multicultural contexts. The intersections of motherhood, disability, gendered role expectations and migration need to be taken into account.
Highlights
Motherhood is a central aspect of mothers’ identities, experiences, gendered roles and societal gendered expectations
Mothers are expected to fulfil the role of the primary caregiver indefinitely (Brock, 2015), an expectation that can have important repercussions for the physical and mental health of mothers (Khanlou et al, 2017)
Societal expectations are often higher for mothers caring children with disabilities, because they are subjected to an observational gaze that judge and monitor them (Knight, 2012)
Summary
Motherhood is a central aspect of mothers’ identities, experiences, gendered roles and societal gendered expectations. Mothers of children with developmental disabilities have been reported to face increased health risks compared to mothers without children with developmental disabilities They experience higher rates of poor physical and mental health. Statistics from the United States and Canada report higher levels of depressive symptoms, health issues and poorer access to health care for some caregivers of people with developmental disabilities compared to families of children without developmental disabilities (Heller et al, 2015; Statistics Canada, 2011). Results: Immigrant mothers of children with developmental disabilities’ engagement in health promoting activities is influenced by their role as primary caregivers, the gendered nature of mothering, non-Western views on health promotion, mothers’ burden from inequities and structural barriers pertaining to funding, disability, and migration status. The intersections of motherhood, disability, gendered role expectations and migration need to be taken into account
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