The Dual Moralities for the Mothers of Children with Food Allergies in the “Ingestion Era”

Abstract

In Japanese food allergy treatment, complete removal of the causative food is no longer the standard approach to management and the so-called “eat and cure” treatment has been spreading. This paper, based on the narrative of three mothers whose children have food allergies, examines what kind of experience and practice of the mothers is made possible by the encounter with medical knowledge about “eat and cure” treatment. In dual moralities, i.e., the overlap between conventional demand to keep the children safe while awaiting the acquisition of tolerance and the demand for “feeding and curing” the children, the mothers experience not only remission of the children but also horror and vacillation that is not possible under the situation in which removal of the causative food is the standard approach.