Mothers of Unseen Children: The Invisible Child
Abstract
Losing a child is a very traumatic experience and one that creates different nuances in the lives of those left behind. Survivors or tormented is a matter of perspective. Loss of a child many times reside in the realm of silence. Words or silence or a combination of the two seems to connect the ‘Mother’ to the ‘Absent child’ (for the world) with the ever ‘Present child’ (in the world of the ‘Mother’) who carry ‘The Invisible Child,’ along with them every day. The current paper will focus on the identity of a ‘Mother’ who has lost a child to sudden/unexpected death, their grieving process and the representation of loss in their lives through an exploration of the world of mothers through two interviews undertaken as a part of PhD work in the Indian context. Exploration of Tutter and Wurmser’s understanding of grief, Lifton’s concept of ‘Death Guilt’ and ‘Psychic Numbing,’ and Parkes and Prigerson’s theory of ‘Dual Process of grieving’ will assist in understand the lives of mothers engulfed in dealing with their personal losses and continuing to live with/without their children. This exploration includes my personal journey along with these mothers. This paper is an attempt to explore this new world. Mothers were approached directly for participation in the PhD work, context provided and consent was taken to participate and share their life stories of loss of their child/children who provided their accounts largely as a combination of the English and Hindi language.
Published
Issue
Section
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms: RAIS Journal of Social Sciences is given by the author the right of the first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. Authors retain copyright. If the author cites from his own article published in RAIS Journal of Social Sciences, then he is encouraged to cite the name of the RAIS Journal of Social Sciences, volume, and page. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access). This journal provides immediate open access to its content, in this way, we make research freely available to the public and support a greater global exchange of knowledge.
PRIVACY STATEMENT
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.