Paternidade e maternidade no contexto da paralisia cerebral : um estudo sobre identidade

Abstract

The experiences of fatherhood and motherhood are associated to practices constructed from meanings that are socially shared. Men and women attitude towards raising their children take shapes concretized accordingly to the influences of historical, social and political contexts. In these processes, the family settings organize themselves in the same social dynamics from which they were born. The understanding of experience of parents who have children with cerebral palsy is relevant to the study of the psychosocial aspects associated with the construction of men and women identity in the exercise of parenthood. Guided by the Social Identity Theory, our aims were to identify, describe and analyze the social identity of fathers and mothers of people with cerebral palsy. Five parents and five mothers with children with cerebral palsy participated in this study and were interviewed through a semi-structured script. All the informations obtained from the interviews were submitted to interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) that has yielded the elements for understanding the investigated topic. The interviewed mothers and fathers developed narratives evidencing meanings of paternity and motherhood associated with the affection to their children which, by their point of view, was fundamental to the exercise of the responsibilities of being a father and mother. The dedication to the children with cerebral palsy demanded of the fathers and mothers’ changes in the field of social relations due to the need of attention paid to daily life activities of their children. Four of the interviewed parents reported needs for reorganizing the family settings to meet demands associated with their children with cerebral palsy. The parents emphasized that experiences with their children in public spaces have often been marked by prejudiced attitudes. The parents interviewed reported that they exceeded the expectation of the doctors' planned development of their children which has stimulated the act of valuing their identidy as mothers and fathers. This was an important factor for enhancing their self-esteem. Parents affirmed the care they have taken with their children made it possible for them to follow a different path, from that one predicted by the healthcare professionals, regarding the expectation of a short period of life for their children. These parents struggle to guarantee the rights of their children, which is motivated by the recognition that they have the same prerogatives as the hegemonic group of parents. In addition, parents attribute the achievement of their children to the success in the exercise of their parenting duties. The group of interviewed fathers and mothers struggles to guarantee the rights of their children, which is driven by the recognition that they have the same prerogatives as the hegemonic group. The parents attributed the achievements of (the) children (as) the success of the exercise of their duties with your childrens. The desire to maintain a positive social identity constituted some mechanisms to overcome objective and subjective limits present in the fathers’ and mothers’ daily life regarding their children with cerebral palsy in both the familiar setting or at the public space.