The Impact of Mothering Children with Disabilities on Mother’s Health (Health, Medicine, Nursing Essay)

The Impact of Mothering Children with Disabilities on Mother’s Health
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The Impact of Mothering Children with Disabilities on Mother’s Health
Introduction
Mental health presents a significant concern worldwide, and it permeates through all stages of livelihood of persons. It is a broad theme that encompasses the emotional, psychological, and social well-being of an individual. The concept of mental help comes with a cascade of processes that influence how people think, act, feel, make choices, and relate to others. According to the World Health Organization, mental health is the individual’s or the group’s ability and environment to interact with one another to enhance subjective well-being, optimized development, and mental abilities utilization. Besides, the World Health Organization also cites individual and collective goals aligned with justice and the accomplishment and preservation of equality.
The effect of children with disabilities on their mothers’ mental health well-being is one area of interest in mental health. Do children with disabilities interfere adversely with mothers’ well-being in the context of mental health? Do they lead to manifestations of maladaptive behaviors in mothers in terms of thinking, acting, making choices, relating with others, and feelings? Thus, this paper's gist is to establish the extent to which children with disabilities impact mothers’ mental health well-being.
This topic explores the role of mental disabilities in children in influencing the mental health status of mothers. This theme or topic is significant because it unravels the intrigues surrounding the challenges mothers faced while caring for disabled children in an environment where women are already experiencing social, economic, and political inequities. It can be used as a guide to initiate measures that would mitigate mental problems amongst mothers taking care of disabled children. This paper elicits the need for more focus on mothers who care for or live with disable children. Do these mothers need more support? Which strategies could be deployed to lessen their suffering and relieve them of mental health challenges associated with caring for disabled children? Many issues precipitate mental challenges in women, primarily structural, which determines women’s health. The said structural component entails systemic and societal-level factors, encompassing poverty, sexual violence, early motherhood, and marginalization (Khanlou & Pilkington, 2015). According to Khanlou & Pilkington (2015), women are confined by gender roles determined by social and religious conventions, which, to an extent, disempowers them from expressing their thought and feelings. Besides, an array of political, economic, and social structures aligned against women appears to expose them to mental health challenges and exacerbate such problems. The structural variations that go against women tend to magnify mental health inequities. These mental health challenges among women, as underpinned by political, social, and economic inequality, may lead to ramifications of effects such as poor mental health among women, which may be occasioned by children with disabilities.
Mothers are overrepresented and carry the enormous burden in managing children with disabilities. Disabilities constitute unexpected experiences that cause shock and a profound and unquantifiable impact on the well-being of families. Caring for disabled children is often tedious, time-consuming, and requires patience and stressful experience. Disabilities often lead to physical health challenges, mental problems, and financial constraints on families, including mothers. Disabilities lead to psychological, physical, social, and financial distress to families, but the degree of adversity is significantly more pronounced in families where mothers are singularly taking care of children.
Canadian women face various challenges that result partly from social, economic, and political inequities and structures. These women are affected by hegemonic societies where more responsibilities are placed on women's shoulders—their socioeconomic disadvantage and health disparities result from social constructs. These disparities explain why women are most negatively affected while caring for disabled children. The women will bore tremendous responsibility in caring for disabled children and are more exposed to mental health challenges. Women tend to be overburden by societal challenges such as disabilities. Immigrant mothers' health is influenced by intersecting social determinants of health, including migration status, gender, and disability in Canada (Khanlou et al., 2017). The authors noted that mothers of children with developmental disabilities showed a higher level of expectation for mothering due to constant engagement with professionals and the children's perceived needs.
Immigrant women in Canada are about 20 % of the total female population (Khanlou et al., 2017). The immigrant women tend to report poorer physical health and mental health than the Canadian born women. Besides, immigrant women reported more prevalence of various other illnesses including diabetes. The mothers who have children with disabilities face additional health problems associated with the stress of migration, inadequate social support, and financial barriers (Khanlou et al.,2017).
However, there is a ray of hope for Canadian women—the Canadian authorities are taking steps to end discriminatory immigration laws for people with disabilities by abolishing laws that regard disability as a ‘burden’ and restrict the entry of disabled children ...