Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to learn more

SAGETRACK

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Gender & Society
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (1)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Blum, L. M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?

Mother-Blame in the Prozac Nation

Raising Kids with Invisible Disabilities

Linda M. Blum

University of New Hampshire

Based on in-depth interviews and fieldwork, this article examines mothers raising kids with invisible, social/emotional/behavioral disabilities to refine feminist theories of mother-blame. The mother-valor/mother-blame binary holds mothers responsible for families and future citizens, maintaining this "natural" care at the center of normative femininity. The author explores how mothers raising such burdensome children understand their experiences and makes three arguments: (1) Fewer mothers are blamed for causing their child's troubles in an era of "brain-blame," but more are blamed as proximate causes if they do not make unrelenting efforts, paralleling "concerted cultivation," to resolve them; (2) such mothers often exceed concerted cultivation, as they seize authority, as vigilantes, within educational and medical systems in the midst of turf wars, cost containment, and a resulting proliferation of medication treatments; and (3) this maternal speedup holds mothers accountable for feminizing ties to sons, for policing gender boundaries while policing their own feminine care. In sum, mothers raising invisibly disabled kids may represent the model of maternal valor for an era of public stinginess and extensive medicalization.

Key Words: caregiving • mother-blame • disability • ADHD • psychopharmaceuticals

Gender & Society, Vol. 21, No. 2, 202-226 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0891243206298178
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?