Trudna miłość: płeć niepełnosprawnego dziecka a psychospołeczne funkcjonowanie jego matki

Motherhood is a special kind of love, that connects with the child’s sex. We would like to think, that the relationship is unconditional, but having a child relates to some consequences and causes some projections, expectations, isn’t neutral. What happens when a child – equipped in particular gender – has a mental disability? What are the mothers feelings, how does she behave, when she is a mother of handicapped boy or a girl? This work contains the results of researches of psychosocial function of 115 mothers of handicapped children. Relationships between sex, coping, collective self-esteem of mothers and their personal self-esteem, social anxiety, consciousness of stigma (stereotypisation) was analyzed in this study. Results revealed, that child’s sex is meaningful for the mother. Mothers of handicapped sons have more problems than girl’s mothers. They have lower level of personal self-esteem, higher social anxiety, they show strong identification with the category of disability, feel worse in groups, prefer avoiding ways of coping, their attitude to the child’s therapy is negative.