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Caring Through it: Mothers' and Daughters' Perspectives on Disability and Interdependence in Financially Struggling White Families

Annaliese Grant, Rachel Litchman

Disability and the Family: Challenges, Resources, and Resilience

ISBN: 978-1-83797-592-1, eISBN: 978-1-83797-591-4

Publication date: 29 January 2025

Abstract

Despite a wealth of data about the high proportion of disabled families and individuals who live below the poverty line, previous research still knows relatively little about the ways financial struggle shapes disability care in families. Furthermore, research on disability care in families often focuses either on children or on parents with disabilities, without considering how both versions of family care fit together. Relying on 31 in-depth retrospective interviews with white financially struggling mothers and young adult daughters, we describe how both mothers and daughters perform care work around disability (with perspectives from families with both parent and child disability). Relying on a feminist disability studies understanding of disability, and a holistic view of family processes and care, we articulate the role of interdependence in disability care work in families who live at the intersection of disability and financial struggle.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

This research is supported, in part, by the Graduate Studies Enhancement Grant administered by the Social Science Research Council. It has approval or exempt status from all relevant Institutional Review Boards.

Citation

Grant, A. and Litchman, R. (2025), "Caring Through it: Mothers' and Daughters' Perspectives on Disability and Interdependence in Financially Struggling White Families", Claster, P.N. and Blair, S.L. (Ed.) Disability and the Family: Challenges, Resources, and Resilience (Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research, Vol. 27), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 151-174. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1530-353520250000027008

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2025 Annaliese Grant and Rachel Litchman