Towards a “New Mothering” Practice? The Life Experiences of Mothers Raising a Child with Autism in Urban Ethiopia

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurological and developmental disorder that has seen an increase in prevalence over the past two decades, particularly in low and middle-income countries. The purpose of the current paper is to examine the experiences of mothers in Ethiopia raising a child with ASD through employing a qualitative research design involving semi-structured interviews with twenty mothers. The experiences of mothers in this study fell into three thematic areas: (1) grieving and experiencing other emotions arising from the diagnosis of their child; (2) developing, understanding and defining autism; and (3) accepting the diagnosis and developing coping strategies for raising their child. The findings revealed that raising a child with autism introduced a new lifelong experience to mothers’ everyday lives, profoundly changing their parenting role and transforming their view of mothering. Recognition of the experience of “new mothering” and mothers’ meaning-making process, stress, coping mechanisms and resilience is critical to informing policies, programs, counseling and other therapeutic efforts to assist children with autism and their families for social workers in Ethiopia and those working with the Ethiopian diaspora in other regions of the world.