Korean Mothers of Disabled Children at the Intersection

Whether they are raising normally developing children or disabled children, all parents experience parental stress to some degree (Crnic & Greenberg, 1990; Peterson & Hawley, 1998). However, sometimes mothers of disabled children make wrong choices because of the almost unbearable burden of raising these children. Recently, many tragic incidents have occurred in Korea that show how mothers of disabled children suffer from parenting stress and how this parenting stress affects their lives. One incident happened on February 27, 2015. A mother jumped to her death from the roof of a building with her son, who had just been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). According to the mother’s suicide note, she was not sure she could raise a disabled son, and she felt great shame that she had a disabled child. She also wrote in her suicide note that she did not want her disabled son to live in Korean society where discrimination exists against disabled people and their families (Choi, 2015).

Much research has focused on mothers of disabled children compared to fathers of disabled children. This is because mothers are generally the primary caregivers of disabled children. One of the most consistent empirical findings in the research on gender difference in parenting disabled children is that mothers are more likely than fathers to have higher levels of parenting stress and depression, and lower levels of psychological well-being and physical health (Oelofsen & Richardson, 2006; Veisson, 1999).

As a Korean art therapist and researcher, I am interested in looking at how art therapy can help these Korean mothers of disabled children to enhance their psychological and physical well-being. However, I think that before conducting art therapy for these mothers and researching the effectiveness of art therapy for them, I need to understand the cultural backgrounds and social location of Korean mothers of disabled children. Knowing these two important personal identifiers of mothers with disabled children can help me more fully understand the complex social phenomenon which affect these mothers; such as, the mothers’ higher degree of parenting stress or depressive symptoms compared to the fathers. Sue and Sue (2013) mentioned that, “Without awareness and knowledge of race, culture, and ethnicity, counselors and other helping professionals could unwittingly engage in cultural oppression” (p.23). Also, Hadley (2013) stated that, “individual problems are related to the social and political context of the person” (p. 376).

Social location of Korean mothers of disabled children would be decided depending on their social-economic status, their gender roles, and their disabilities. In terms of bearing the sole responsibility of raising their children, Korean mothers of disabled children are marginalized by their gender roles. Gilbert (1994) asserts that gender does not “reside within the person” so much as it is part of an interpersonal process, and emerging from a web of interactions between their biological being and their social environment” (cited in Smart, p. 479). Under Confucianism, there are clear role differentiations between a husband and a wife. Korean mothers of disabled children are oppressed by dominant narratives, which tout that parenting disabled children is solely the mothers’ role. Hadley (2013) claimed that, “dominant narratives can be empowering; they can be oppressive” (p. 374).

In addition, because of their children’s disabilities, they are stigmatized and marginalized. Not only people who have disabilities but also their family members are stigmatized by their certain disabilities. In Korean culture, non-disabled people used to consider all family members of a disabled child genetically abnormal. The socio-economic status of mothers with disabled children is also marginalized. Parents with disabled children have restrictions in their choice of career and place of work. Families with disabled children are frequently required to alter both their time schedules and money matters. This may have lasting psychological and economic consequences for all the family members (Porterfield, 2002). For parents with disabled children, the decision of one parent not to work is more a matter of necessity than choice, because someone has to stay at home to care for the disabled child, and many times, mothers choose to give up their careers for their disabled children. According to Porterfield (2002), “the most influence on mother’s probability of no paid work is the presence of a young child with disabilities” (p.979).

For mothers of disabled children, their lives are marginalized in many ways. Brown and Strega (2006) stated that, “marginality is thus not a unitary but a multiple experience” (p. 88). Also, we can view these mothers’ marginalized lives through the intersectionality of their social locations-gender, disabilities, and socio-economic status. Crenshaw (1993) referred to intersectionality as “the process by which social phenomena such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender at the individual (identity) and family (difference) levels mutually construct one another” (cited in De Reus, Few, & Blume, 2005, p.447). If we as researchers and clinicians try to understand marginalized Korean mothers of disabled children through the perspective of intersectionality, we can empathetically and deeply understand these mothers’ lives within Korean social context.

References

Brown, L., & Strega, S. (2005). Research as resistance: Critical, indigenois, and anti-oppressive approachs. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press/Women’s Press

Choi, M. (2015, February 27). Mother of son with ASD killed herself and her son because of son’s disability. Sisa Focus. Retrieved from http://www.sisafocus.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=117117.

Crnic, K., & Greenberg, M. (1990). Minor parenting stresses with young children. Child

Development, 61, 1628-1637. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1990.tb02889.x De Reus, L. A.,

Few, A. I., & Blume, L. B. (2005). Multicultural and critical race feminisms: Theorizing families in the third wave. In V. L. Bengtson, A. C. Acock, K. R. Allen, P. Dilworth-Anderson, & D. M. Klein (Eds.), Sourcebook of family theory and research (pp. 447- 468). Thousand Oks, CA: Sage.

Hadley, S. (2013). Dominant narratives: Complicity and the need for vigilance in the creative arts therapies. Arts in Psychotherapy, 40 (4), 373-381. doi:10.1016/j.aip.2013.05.007

Oelofsen, N., & Richardson, P. (2006). Sense of coherence and parenting stress in mothers of preschool children with developmental disability. Journal of Intellectual &

Developmental Disability, 31, 1-12. doi:10.1080/13668250500349367

Peterson, J., & Hawley, D. R. (1998). Effects of stressors on parenting attitudes and family functioning in a primary prevention program. Family Relations, 47, 221-227. Retreived from http://www.jstor.org/stable/584970

Porterfield, S.L. (2002). Work choice of mothers in families with children with disabilities. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64(4), 972-981. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2002.00972.x

Smart, R. (2010). Counseling competencies with women: Understanding gender in the context of multiple dimensions of identity. In J. Erickson Comish, B. Schreier & L.

Nadkarni (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural counseling competencies (pp. 475-512). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Sue, D., & Sue, D. (2013). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Veisson, M. (1999). Depression symptoms and emotional states in parents of disabled and nondisabled children. Social Behavior and Personality, 27 (2), 87-97.

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