Parenting under Pressure: Mothers and Fathers with Learning Difficulties

Abstract

Booth, Tim, and Booth, Wendy. (1994). Parenting Under Pressure: Mothers and Fathers With Learning Difficulties. Buckingham, England: Open University Press. 176 pp. Paperback ISBN 0-335-19194-0, price $24.95; Hardback ISBN 0-33519269-6, price $79.00. U.S. Distributors: Taylor & Francis. The birth of a baby brings new pressures into the life of any couple. In this book, the authors present the situation where the baby comes into the life of a mother and a father who themselves exhibit severe learning difficulties. In addition to the normal everyday pressures of life, these parents must cope with the imposed pressure from a society that believes they lack the necessary skills to function as competent parents. The authors of this book, using the life story approach based on first person accounts, introduce us to the experience of childrearing and parenthood as recounted by mothers and fathers with learning difficulties as they struggle to make sense of the events in their daily lives. Through their personal stories, we are brought face-to-face with the realities confronting these parents: the uphill struggle they face in proving their fitness for parenthood, the heartache and grief they suffer at having their children taken away from them, the frustration they experience with social service workers too busy implementing policies and procedures that they fail to listen to the issues and problems voiced by their clients. Involving people with learning difficulties as informants in a research project is a fairly recent development. Most information about this population has been gathered from a third party source, most likely a case manager. The authors, through in-depth interviews, provide the reader with the opportunity to hear directly from parents with learning difficulties about the issues and problems they encounter. Consider the case of Rosie Spencer. She is a grandmother, with three adult children, two daughters-in-law, and two grandchildren. She has a lot of people who feel entitled to direct her life. She lacks resources, such as money, status, friends, words, and self confidence with which to defend herself. Her personal account provides the reader with a fresh viewpoint on the operations of health and welfare services and the way in which people with learning difficulties are treated. Her case alerts us to the dangers of making easy generalizations about these people as parents. After reading Rosie Spencer's account and the interviews of other parents like her, the reader cannot help but question some of the basic assumptions so readily accepted today. …