On #WorldMentalHealthDay take a moment to think about what it means to mother (or a person who takes on the mothering role) of a child or adult with a learning disabilities.
We live in a context where we know that our children are likely to die 20-30 years before their peers. 25 is middle age.
Mothers of disabled children are routinely characterised as in denial or over anxious. We are constructed as difficult, or, even, toxic.
We are held responsible for our own mental health – told not to be afraid to talk about just how difficult it is to parent a disabled child.
But it is not our children who cause us distress. We love them. It is the systems we are forced to engage with, and the discrimination that we and our children face, that drive us ‘mad’.
Katherine Runswick-Cole 