Elaboración de la propuesta del perfil de Competencias (Anexo )

This section builds on the previous section to highlight the implication of the child’s disability and mother-blame on the mothers’ relationship with their significant other over time. Studies have revealed that social networks have an influence on motherhood (McCabe, 2010, Kingston, 2007), and they are key in providing support to mothers and ‘conceptually, social support

overlaps with friendships, and both with family and, kin and neighbourhood relations’ (Oakley, 1992:24). The relationship of mothers with their spouses, family and friends in my study varied with time and across generations. Sixteen (eight from each research site) out of thirty mothers stated that they considered that their relationship with their spouses was gradually damaged because the child’s condition was not improving:

Bo ma Gideon [K]: ‘Nili na chikonko’ (closest translation in English - I’m grieving). I ask myself why I married this man and had a child with him. He never says anything good about my child and me.

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Similarly, Fortunate [L], a 28-years-old mother of child with autism noted that at times her spouse scolded her in public and in the presence of her children. She reported feeling humiliated, despised and experienced ‘constant sorrow.’ This kind of treatment had an impact on the emotions of both mothers and their children. Another participant, aged 22 years-old and a mother of a child with cerebral palsy stated:

Emma [L]: I feel abandoned and robbed of my youth. He impregnated me then he rejected the child and stopped communicating. I’m grieving at losing my relationship with him.

Similarly, a 27 years-old mother of a child with cerebral palsy narrated her experience:

Susan [L]: first he tortured me mentally. I can’t erase those memories from mind. He became very aggressive, insulted and threatened to sort me out. That experience broke my heart into small pieces that can’t mend anymore.

The situation was similar in Kaoma where Bo ma Angela [K] bemoaned the impact of her child’s disability on her relationship with her husband:

Bo ma Angela [K]: our relationship went down the drain. It’s hard to believe but such is life.

Mothers reported that tension with their partners emerged gradually. Sometimes this was because the husband did not see any improvement in the condition of the child over-time, and this exacerbated the mother-blame because mothers felt that their partners were suggesting that they were not doing enough to help the child as narrated:

Bo ma Mwila [K]: he was getting agitated because the child’s condition was not improving. We initially thought the child would get better. He felt that I was not doing enough to help the child get better.

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Mothers reported strained relationships with their partners also reported varying behaviours in their spouses. For example, one mother reported:

Violet [L]: our marriage has been marked by fighting. Its confusions all because of the child’s condition. He is using the child’s condition against me.

According to another mother:

Dorcas [L]: we fight a lot because of her condition. He once beat me up badly […] things are not okay even if I’m still with him. There’s no peace at home. We quarrel almost daily […] I have a miserable life.

The accounts of mothers, especially in Lusaka suggested that some husbands used violence and verbal abuse against their spouse. In some cases these verbal and physical abuses resulted in divorce. Divorce was often instigated by the male partner. Eleven participants (five from Lusaka and six from Kaoma) out of thirty mothers at the time of the interview reported that their partners divorced them. Of these, five divorced women were first-time mothers and all of them were from Lusaka. They gave varying reasons for becoming divorced: from their husbands abhorring their child with disabilities to interference from their in-laws. A mother explained:

Susan [L]: he used to abuse me physically. He would beat me even in public. He also complained about the cost of caring for my daughter. He saw the child as a burden. His relatives also played part in our divorce.

Another mother stated:

Bo ma Musuwa [K]: he went away and said that by the time he returns he should not find a disabled child. After a few months, he came back and packed his clothes and that’s how he left us.

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Similarly, Bo ma Kasweka [K] reported that her husband left her because her child was not getting better. Mothers in my study narrated the ways in which having a child with disabilities led to strained and broken relations. Their accounts reflected how negative societal perception and attitudes can lead to feelings of powerlessness. Traditionally, families in Zambia are organised on patriarchal lines. Hence, mothers often felt that they were blamed and abused by their partners and in-laws. Mothers who were divorced experienced shock, and this exacerbated the impact of biographical disruption (Wilson, 2007, Bury, 2001, Williams, 2000) in their lives as their future was irrevocably altered. Everything changed for these women; they suddenly became single-mothers and had to play both roles of mother and father figures in the lives of their children, some mothers put it:

Mwila [L]: he was heartless, he left me at a very crucial time when I needed him most. I have been going through a crisis. It was like an abrupt end of my life. I’m now both her mom and her dad. It is simply not easy to balance the two roles.

Susan [L]: I have had to re-organise my life. Divorce is a very disruptive experience one can ever go through. My world is turned upside- down.

These stories revealed an intersection of disability, gender and power that is prevalent in most patriarchal societies, and which both disempowered women and placed them in marginal social locations (Moodley and Graham, 2015, Risdal and Singer, 2004, Glenn et al., 1994). Some mothers remained married despite having a child with disabilities. Two out of four married mothers in Lusaka reported having a good relationship with their husbands. Chilinda [L] a mother whose daughter had osteogenesis imperfecta stated that she enjoyed a good relationship with her husband. Another mother remarked:

Tandiwe [L]: the presence of my son hasn’t brought problems in my family. Yes, initially just after the diagnosis he was a little unsettled but he did his research and he has now

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understood the child’s condition. Jay has actually brought us together.

Five out of eight participants from Kaoma who remained with their partners said that they had no problems with their husbands, they also reported not being abused by their partners. Bo ma Kanyanga [K] reported:

Bo ma Kanyanga [K]: neither he nor my in-laws have ever used abusive language towards me nor the child. They have been supportive.

Bo ma Namutondo [K] had similar views to Bo ma Kanyanga’s. Interestingly, three out of the eight married mothers in Kaoma said that they were in polygamous marriage. They said that because of the amount of time needed to care for a child with disabilities, their husbands felt neglected hence they married another woman. When asked if they were consulted, the three mothers said they discussed and agreed with their partners:

Bo ma Anne [K]: so, with time when we saw that she was not improving we knew that I would be spending more time attending to her […] Instead of divorcing he decided to take on another woman. So, we are now two […] it’s fine because I’m still married […] better than suffering alone with the child […] and we have six children together so what would have happened to these children had we divorced? […] So, we are raising these kids together.

The accounts by these mothers provided evidence to suggest that some mothers felt marriage was important regardless of their experience of being in a polygamous marriage. This was mainly done to maintain both status and economic security. My study findings extend the findings of other studies that have shown that polygamous marriages are common in many societies especially in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, Delius and Glaser (2004) in their study affirm that polygamous marriage exists in some African societies, such as among the Zulu speaking people of South Africa and Lesotho.

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Indeed, findings in this section have revealed how the presence of a child with disabilities in the family had an impact on the marriage especially on first-time mothers. In some cases, mothers’ relationships with other family members and friends were altered because of the disabled child’s condition. The next section highlights how this evolved over time.

6.4.2 Impact of Disability on Relationships with Families and Friends