The shame-blame complex of parents with cognitively disabled children in Italy.

Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 8205036 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1467-9566 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 01419889 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Sociol Health Illn Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: <2003->: Oxford ; Malden, MA : Blackwell Publishing
Original Publication: Henley-on-Thames ; Boston, Mass. : Routledge & Kegan Paul,

Shame* ; Parents*/psychology ; Parenting*/psychology ; Disabled Children*/psychology; Humans ; Italy ; Female ; Male ; Child ; Adult ; Down Syndrome/psychology ; Interviews as Topic

This article aims to advance knowledge related to the concept of the 'shame-blame complex' by analysing the accounts and experiences of parents with cognitively disabled children. It draws on 29 interviews with parents of children with Down syndrome and shadowing sessions with one family, carried out in Italy. Results show how the feeling of shame as a consequence of being associated with a disabled child is turned into blame for bad parenting. The sources of this blaming process are twofold: firstly, neoliberalism has disseminated an intensive parenting model based on the imperative of individual responsibility and risk avoidance. Secondly, ableism acts as a network of processes and beliefs that produce a particular kind of self and body as the perfect and complete human being. Participants have been held responsible for their children's condition because they avoided prenatal screening or continued a pregnancy after receiving a positive result. Consequently, parents' moral culpability for their children's diversity and their social marginalisation were enhanced. Although the interviewees resist the shame of being associated with a cognitively disabled child and the blame for bad parenting, they seem unable to escape from the grips of the shame-blame complex. The latter has structural and cultural underpinnings. In an age of 'neoliberal-ableism', this complex is indeed a powerful weapon to erode the rights of families with cognitively disabled members.
(© 2024 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness.)

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Università degli Studi di Torino

Keywords: blame; cognitive disabilities; intensive parenting; shame; stigma

Date Created: 20240102 Date Completed: 20240620 Latest Revision: 20240720

20240721

10.1111/1467-9566.13742

38165697