Mother’s Experience after a Son/Daughter with Intellectual Disability Leaves Home and Begins Independent Living

Differences in Interpretation in Each Context Between Mother and Care Worker

Abstract

Cases of independent living of persons with intellectual disabilities are exam- ined in this paper, and a special focus is placed on mothers who have supported their children’s lives at home as the primary carers. Being based on the history of ‘independent living’, which has developed into one of the definitions of defa- miliarization, previous studies on the independent living of persons with disabil- ities have not sufficiently considered how the family of persons with specific disabilities should be discussed. However, in the case of people with intellectual disabilities, the mother was previously responsible for the decision-making pro- cess. Therefore, it is difficult to assume that the mother’s involvement will be completely lost even if the child as a young adult leaves the parent’s home. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to clarify how mothers experience their son/daughter’s independent living. In particular, this paper focuses on mothers’ conflicts due to differing opinions between mothers and carers. This study was based on an interview survey where the interviewee is the mother. As a result, first, it has become clear that there is a difference between the perspective of parental separation that carers expect of mothers and mothers interpret. Second, mothers have realized that the point of view that carers have is somehow useful to understand what their son/daughter wants and to expand his/her doing so. As such, this paper clarifies that mothers feel that they have a difference in opinion with carers after their children’s independent life in their children’s decision making. In addition, it is clarified that the mother has the experience of knowing that the children’s intention can be read in various ways by the carers. Therefore, there are contradictions and struggles in mothers. This study has the impact of updating the previous view of ‘independent liv- ing’ for people with intellectual disabilities.