Otherness and mothers of children with disability

Abstract

This paper addresses the way disability is lived and constructed by mothers of children with disability as recounted in their narratives. It focuses specifically on the mothers’ relationships with their family members and society after the disability diagnosis of their child. ‘Otherness’ is a crucial theme in this paper. In fact, the paper explores the narratives with a view to exposing processes of ‘othering’. It shows that the way we tend to organise lives around particular norms restricts and pushes people with disabilities and their mothers to the margins. This paper also provides insights into my own sense of otherness since I wrote it while pregnant.