The aim of this paper is to discuss the conflicts and strategies of mothers regarding the existence and relationships of siblings by describing the choices the mothers of children with developmental disabilities make about bearing a second child and the experiences they have in the process of raising several children who include a child with a developmental disability. The paper analyzes data from interviews with 20 mothers with children with developmental disabilities from the perspectives of “opting to bear a second child,” “raising several children,” and “strategies to protect the children.”
In the process of deciding whether or not to bear a second child, and while struggling to take care of the first child, mothers wavered between the possibility that the second child might have the same characteristics as the first child and the hope that the existence of a second child would have a good effect on the first child. While the mothers who chose to raise several children had considerable feelings of guilt toward the subsequent children, they were using strategies in a variety of situations to make not only the child with a disability but all the children happy.
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